Men and women living separately.

Imagine a world where men live apart from women permanently, in closed communities, and then venture out to mate with women, who live in lesbian marriages and raise daughters, while sons are raised by the men. The men sleep with any woman who is willing and the sex isn't deemed cheating by either partner. In fact, more than a few threesomes result to improving the odds of procreation.

This could either be a male-dominated world ruled by a semi-monastic military order of men, while women live in a civil society, or a female-dominated world where men are virtually serfs or prisoners of the female majority.

What prompted this? Katherine Hepburn's suggestion that men and women shouldn't marry, just visit each other.

There are at least three science fiction novels with this set-up. David Brin did one, Ursula k LeGuin did one... darned if I can remember the third right now though. The anime Vandred also has a "men and women each have their own planet" setup, though in that case both reproduce by cloning or somehow merging the genes of two same-gender people. It's a concept worth having some more versions of, though.

The problem with this idea is that it is an ideal setup: there is no drama! The men happily watch sports on TV while drinking beer and eating Cheetos in their underwear; the women happily paint their toenails and do each other's hair and gossip with each other during the occasional pillow-fight. Everyone gets their joints loosened whenever they need it. Nobody has anything to want or complain about! No drama, no conflict, no story.

Of course, I'd move there in a heartbeat.

Mass Effect you dunces.

Not that they explain it very well, but for the Krogan the females live in separate towns or tribes. Depended on which part of the games you were in on which you got, tribes or towns.

So there you go, warlike race where the females are in a central location with the males in groups around competing to get access to the females and try to make more. What they compete against is variable, I mean come on, they could try and get the most impressive hunt, kill off more of the opposing tribe. Can also add in things like best poem/song, or even best artwork/sculpture. Heck could even be as simple as sneaking into the female camp and sweet talking one or more into bed.

Course if you don't want to make up a whole new species, there is always the tried and true, humanity blew itself up. So then there are groups of men, and groups of women. Perhaps a new religion appeared and got the men and women separated for whatever reason.

Or a religious cult that is dominated by one or the other.

SEVERUSMAX said:

Or a religious cult that is dominated by one or the other.

Click to expand...

Cults always schism. Heresies develop under stifling orthodoxy. Dissidents are expelled, or worse. Doctrinal authority justifies all sorts of bad behavior. Here, the ruling faction enforces the 1% Male ratio, whilst other factions secretly harbor larger percentages. It's a holy war, of course. Which breeders will the gods favor?

I used this in one of my stories. Male of the species are the warriors and live on one continent of their world, while the females live on another. The females are, when in heat, docile and easily captured by the male for mating.

When a male encounters a female that is not in heat, they run for the hills, as the females are savage beasts to be avoided unless it is to procreate.

I used this as a ploy for having a female heavy military unit. The scent of the female, not in heat, of any species would cause the males to run for the hills.