Bloodchild

It is apparent that the intention of "Bloodchild" is to put the reader outside their comfort zone and into a scenario with something completely alien, rather than conforming to the ethnocentric convention of humans depicting alien lifeforms as altered humanoids.  In this bizarre and graphic scenario, humans seem to be kept and handled almost as pets and used in their alien masters' reproductive processes.  Strangely, there appears to be a kind of mutual understanding and symbiosis to this relationship, uneasy though it may be.  There were many elements of the story that were clearly intended to discomfort the reader, and everyone seemed to pick out a different focus for their reaction.  Some found the gory rendering distasteful to imagine while others found the strange male surrogate procedure unsettling.  As much feminist symbolism as there was in the story, I feel as though too much of the class discussion unjustly emphasized it.  When compared to the idea of humanity becoming the inherently subservient, heavily drugged, reproductive slaves to a bizarre alien species, the issue of gender roles becomes less about gender and more about control and the dynamics of hierarchical domestic social structures and the effects thereof.