# Science fiction fans: how "alien" is too alien to sleep with? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 20, 2008, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-fans-how-alien-is-too-alien-to-sleep-with/460737 "2008-08-20T23:15:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Elysium](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3be4f8/32.png) [@Elysium](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elysium)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2008, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-fans-how-alien-is-too-alien-to-sleep-with/460737/21 "2008-08-21T00:25:07Z")
[QUOTE=Skald the Rhymer] So no [Cheetara](http://www.geocities.com/mspilker2000/cheetara_.jpg)? :eek: [/QUOTE] Well…she’s not THAT alien! Haha. I guess too many alien traits all together might push it over the top. Wings would be okay, and maybe tail or scales or something. But a non-human face just pushes it into weird territory. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2008, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-fans-how-alien-is-too-alien-to-sleep-with/460737/22 "2008-08-21T00:38:42Z")
Mmm, I totally bang this [bitch.](http://www.3dvf.com/DATA/PUBLISH/1344/images/queen_AlienPress_still01.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Alistair\_McCello](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/58956e/32.png) [@Alistair\_McCello](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alistair_McCello)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2008, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-fans-how-alien-is-too-alien-to-sleep-with/460737/23 "2008-08-21T00:38:55Z")
Before reading this thread I probably would have called myself a science fiction fan, but I am not sure that I am allowed anymore as I honestly never considered this question. The only thing that I really have to contribute (besides the shame of my lack of devotion to the genre) is that it the first thing I though of when seeing the thread title was [this comic](http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/9/19/in-the-love-nest-of-harakki/). ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2008, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-fans-how-alien-is-too-alien-to-sleep-with/460737/24 "2008-08-21T00:41:04Z")
[QUOTE=elfkin477] I’m not adverse to shape shifters (say he might _sometimes_ appear as a black dog\*, or really be a crow) that have human forms too but that’s about as exotic as I’m willing to go. [/QUOTE] Fool! Don’t you know after (sometimes even during) sex a shapeshifter will inevitably change back to alien form and kill you! ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2008, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-fans-how-alien-is-too-alien-to-sleep-with/460737/25 "2008-08-21T01:01:54Z")
[QUOTE=Baldwin] While I’m thinking about the OP, let me be pedantic in the service of fighting ignorance (returning the favor that many on this board have done for me). A _mite_ dangerous. You’re not _averse_. [/QUOTE] Funny, I don’t think pedantic is the word you should have picked, either 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2008, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-fans-how-alien-is-too-alien-to-sleep-with/460737/26 "2008-08-21T01:13:57Z")
Quite a bit of furry art is devoted to variations on the centauroid body plan: four legs supporting a primary torso, then a secondary torso with arms and head. The name of one such fictional species, the Chakat, has become so widely adopted as to now be nearly synonymous with the felinoid versions. Would anyone consider going that far? ---
**Author:** ![Apollyon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apollyon/32/4238_2.png) [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2008, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-fans-how-alien-is-too-alien-to-sleep-with/460737/27 "2008-08-21T01:15:19Z")
[QUOTE=AuntiePam] No slime, melting, or puddling. [/QUOTE] I could go with a _little_ slime… it’d depend what it tasted like. Lime jello would be nice. 😃 Tentacles are a maybe… the Thermians were just such nice “people”. I agree with **Miller** that it would largely depend on the individual alien.. but that said… scarab beetle heads would be just too damn freaky no matter how good her personality was. _shudder_ ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2008, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-fans-how-alien-is-too-alien-to-sleep-with/460737/28 "2008-08-21T01:15:48Z")
[QUOTE=AuntiePam] No slime, melting, or puddling. Nothing “chitinous” either [/QUOTE] Yep, although I’d make an exception for the Malmooth. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2008, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-fans-how-alien-is-too-alien-to-sleep-with/460737/29 "2008-08-21T01:37:35Z")
I’d be less concerned about form than I would want to know about mating habits/rituals. I do not want to be stuck in the position of playing the male for a preying mantis courtship. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2008, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-fans-how-alien-is-too-alien-to-sleep-with/460737/30 "2008-08-21T01:49:31Z")
Them green Orion slave woman were among the first adolecent boyhood phantasies. But I read some sci-fi book were the human male gets on an alien built eco-system ship, and falls for a centaur type female, and ends up banging her. Umm… no thanks. I have no bestiality hunger within me. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2008, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-fans-how-alien-is-too-alien-to-sleep-with/460737/31 "2008-08-21T02:39:54Z")
[QUOTE=cmyk] Mmm, I totally bang this [bitch.](http://www.3dvf.com/DATA/PUBLISH/1344/images/queen_AlienPress_still01.jpg) [/QUOTE] She gives good head. Marc ---
**Author:** ![LiveOnAPlane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3d9bf3/32.png) [@LiveOnAPlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LiveOnAPlane)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2008, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-fans-how-alien-is-too-alien-to-sleep-with/460737/32 "2008-08-21T02:47:37Z")
[QUOTE=silenus] … Horta - not do-able [/QUOTE] Umm…Horta. Doesn’t talk, right? Stone cold, yes? And made out of rock? I think I dated one or two of these… ---
**Author:** ![Apollyon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apollyon/32/4238_2.png) [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2008, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-fans-how-alien-is-too-alien-to-sleep-with/460737/33 "2008-08-21T03:07:44Z")
[QUOTE=mlees] …sci-fi book were the human male…falls for a centaur type female, and ends up banging her. Umm… no thanks. I have no bestiality hunger within me. [/QUOTE] Assuming the “centaur type female” is sentient I’m pretty sure that “bestiality” isn’t the appropriate description… “miscegenation” I might buy, but bestiality suggests one partner is a lower order animal. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2008, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-fans-how-alien-is-too-alien-to-sleep-with/460737/34 "2008-08-21T03:20:06Z")
[QUOTE=mlees] But I read some sci-fi book were the human male gets on an alien built eco-system ship, and falls for a centaur type female, and ends up banging her. Umm… no thanks. I have no bestiality hunger within me. [/QUOTE] That sounds like John Varley’s [_Titan_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(John_Varley)). The centaur types were called Titanides, their clans were set up on the order of the Modes of medieval music, and they didn’t even come CLOSE to male/female…there was some kind of complex interplay between something like three or four different genders, involving egg swapping or something like that. Or possibly Jack L. Chalker’s [_Well of Souls_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_at_the_Well_of_Souls) series. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2008, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-fans-how-alien-is-too-alien-to-sleep-with/460737/35 "2008-08-21T03:57:30Z")
[QUOTE=Larry Mudd] Asymmetric or covered in dense fur? No thanks. [/QUOTE] So radial symmetry is OK then? ---
**Author:** ![Apollyon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apollyon/32/4238_2.png) [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2008, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-fans-how-alien-is-too-alien-to-sleep-with/460737/36 "2008-08-21T05:30:47Z")
[QUOTE=Koxinga] So radial symmetry is OK then? [/QUOTE] So long as she’s a cute xeno-echinoderm. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2008, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-fans-how-alien-is-too-alien-to-sleep-with/460737/37 "2008-08-21T05:51:16Z")
I always wanted to rock Cassandra ‘s world ([Leslie Bevis](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0079800/))… ever lovin’ [Newcummer Alien](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Nation_%28film%29) Sex. Alen Nation had some hot Slags. ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2008, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-fans-how-alien-is-too-alien-to-sleep-with/460737/38 "2008-08-21T07:34:28Z")
[QUOTE=kellner] kell. I’m not entirely sure that I agree. ner. [/QUOTE] Wot. She _was_ cute. Not. [At which point I read what I have written and realise that my screen name is working against me here.] On that topic, though: despite the mild controversy when Captain Jack was introduced, it always seemed to me that he was nothing more than an obvious extrapolation from Captain Kirk. After all, anyone who is willing and able to shag an alien is hardly likely to turn his nose up at half the members of his own species, is he? So all that slash fiction is probably right on the money. ---
**Author:** ![freekalette](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@freekalette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/freekalette)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2008, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-fans-how-alien-is-too-alien-to-sleep-with/460737/39 "2008-08-21T15:21:47Z")
It depends on the alien. (I’ve mentioned before that I have a love for tentacles.) If we’re talking the Doctor…he could regenerate into a GIANT FREAKING SIVLERFISH and I’d still do him. His current dreamy looks are just an added bonus on top of - heh, no pun intended there - a wonderful personality and intellect. As for the aforementioned Captain Jack, he does nothing for me. Cute, check. Open minded, check. Personality, check. Intellect… Nope; he acts like a teenager. Feels like jailbait. Can’t do it. He can hold the camera for the Doctor and me though! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_Tyger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@Silver\_Tyger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Tyger)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2008, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-fans-how-alien-is-too-alien-to-sleep-with/460737/40 "2008-08-21T17:23:18Z")
No bugs or squid-faced people. Otherwise, I’m pretty open. Wings? Sure. Fur? Hell yeah. Tentacles? You betcha! Extra limbs? Why not? But there needs to be a face I can relate to. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-fans-how-alien-is-too-alien-to-sleep-with/460737.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-fans-how-alien-is-too-alien-to-sleep-with/460737.md?page=3)