Bestiality is often defined as sexual intercourse between a human being and an animal.
But humans are animals, and sex among humans isn’t bestiality; so, strictly speaking, bestiality is intercourse between a human being and a nonhuman animal.
Now Superman isn’t human; yet if humans count as animals, he surely counts as an animal too.
So Superman is a nonhuman animal.
Lois Lane, you are so busted.
Not just busted, but dead, as Larry Niven pointed out years ago in Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex.
You really should become a unix programmer Roderick; this whole WIttgensteinian approach to wordplay reminds me of people like Eric Raymond and others.
Etymologically, “bestiality” would seem to be best defined as “sex with a beast,” i.e. a nonrational animal. So I think Lois is O.K. to the extent that Supes counts as rational.
On the other hand, I’m not sure that he counts as an animal at all — at least, as the term is used in contemporary English. Your argument seems to presuppose that it’s the name of a functional or structural kind, rather than the name of a particular biological kingdom. If it’s the latter, then the natural kind can’t include anything that’s not interrelated with the other members of the kingdom, meaning that, except on a theory of panspermia, no alien life form at all could count as an “animal” except in a scare-quoted, analogical usage.
On the other hand, I’m not sure that he counts as an animal at all — at least, as the term is used in contemporary English. Your argument seems to presuppose that it’s the name of a functional or structural kind, rather than the name of a particular biological kingdom. If it’s the latter, then the natural kind can’t include anything that’s not interrelated with the other members of the kingdom, meaning that, except on a theory of panspermia, no alien life form at all could count as an “animal” except in a scare-quoted, analogical usage.
The trouble with this sort of argument, though, is that it treats the legal term “animal” as synonymous with the biological term “animal.” There’s no reason to suppose that this is so. The definitions used in the different fields serve different purposes and naturally draw boundaries around different sets of entities.
For legal purposes, there are only two recognized cases: sex with a rational animal of one’s own species, and sex with a nonrational animal of a different species. The category “sex with a rational animal of a different species” has never arisen (or at least has never been raised in a court); there is no legal rule for it. It could be assimilated to either of the other categories, or it could have a different rule of its own. Which one makes sense depends partly on what you think is legally important about sex.
In the DC Universe, there have been a fair number of cases of human/nonhuman sex: Superman and Lois, Nightwing and Starfire, various couples in the Legion of Super-Heroes, even Swamp Thing and Abby. I seem to recall a scene in Swamp Thing where Abby was being tried for sexual relations with a nonhuman, and Batman stepped in and asked when they were going to bring charges against “that guy in Metropolis.”
Though whether Superman is nonhuman seems debatable. There’s lots of material from DC that suggests that he and human women are interfertile. In terms of real world biology, the idea of the same species having evolved on two different planets (or many different planets, as in the future of the Legion of Super-Heroes as originally portrayed) is absurdly implausible, but the DC Universe seems to have different biological processes. There seems to be reason to suppose that Kryptonians are the same species as earth humans.
Even weirder: when Wanda married The Vision. Assuming they consummated the marriage, that was human/robot sex.
OTOH, one could argue that Marvel-universe mutants aren’t “human” in the first place, since they’re not homo sapiens.
While it is established that Kryptonians and Humans can interbreed, we’ve never, so far as I can recall, seen a canon example of such a hybrid raised until adulthood. It may be that Kryptonian-Human hybrids are sterile, like mules, and thus the two might not necessarily be the same species, but merely closely related species (which would make sense because they’re visually indistinguishable)
If Superman doesn’t count as an animal because he’s not biologically related to homo sapiens, then perhaps Lois Lane doesn’t either, because homo sapiens is the name for a species in our universe whereas Lois Lane lives in the DC universe and is not biologically related to anybody in our universe.
Re Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex: Niven seems to ignore the fact that Superman not only has greater power than humans, but he also has greater control over his power than humans have over theirs. For example, not only can Superman hear sounds from all over the planet simultaneously (= superhuman power), but he can also filter all the noise out and focus on just the ones he wants to listen to (= superhuman control over superhuman power). Once we include the fact that Superman has greater control over his powers than humans have over theirs, Niven’s scenarios begin to look less plausible.
As for a Superman/Lois baby kicking its way out of Lois, Niven likewise ignores the fact that Kryptonians don’t develop superpowers until exposed to yellow sunlight — and generally not for a number of years after that. (Perhaps ditto for Kryptonian sperm as well?)
Nivens ignored a lot of things for the sake of comedy. I was going to e-mail the author and start a little geek fight, but then I realized it was written in 1971 for consumption in meatspace.
William H. Stoddard: The trouble with this sort of argument, though, is that it treats the legal term “animal” as synonymous with the biological term “animal.”
Well, I stipulated that I was considering the term as “used in contemporary English,” by which I mean ordinary English rather than a particular technical argot. If I were a wagering man, I’d wager that in most ordinary contexts of use “animal” is a deferential term in which non-specialists defer to biologists (not lawyers) for the referent-fixing criteria.
William H. Stoddard: Though whether Superman is nonhuman seems debatable. There’s lots of material from DC that suggests that he and human women are interfertile.
But I don’t think that being interfertile with human beings would make Superman human, or a member of the biological species H. sapiens. Species are constituted (among other things) by their common evolutionary heritage, which Superman — who has an unrelated alien lineage — does not share. (You can hybridize peaches, plums, and apricots; but that doesn’t make them all members of the same species.)
Roderick: If Superman doesn’t count as an animal because he’s not biologically related to homo sapiens, then perhaps Lois Lane doesn’t either, because homo sapiens is the name for a species in our universe whereas Lois Lane lives in the DC universe and is not biologically related to anybody in our universe.
Well, if homo sapiens names a natural kind, surely it names the same natural kind in every possible world, and in a given possible world W it is only the case that humans in W have to be related to all the other humans in W, not that they have to be related (how?) to humans in other worlds not actual relative to W. In order to prove that there are at least some humans in the D.C. universe, you just need to find at least one actual human who exists in the D.C. universe as well as in @. Any such must also be human in the D.C. universe as well as in @ (since humans have humanity essentially, not accidentally). There are in fact plenty of cases of transworld identity (e.g. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Adolf Hitler have both appeared). So as long as it’s part of the story that Lois Lane et al. are appropriately related, evolutionarily speaking, to these known humans, Lois Lane et al. will also count as members of the human species.
Black Bloke: Nivens ignored a lot of things for the sake of comedy.
Too bad, I guess, since the essay is not very funny.
Was Lois anywhere to be seen in the Invasion crossover? Is it possible that she’s a meta-human, or has that possibility been ruled out?
Rad Geek:“Too bad, I guess, since the essay is not very funny.”
Imagining millions of super-powered sperm wreaking havoc, and Superman interfering with himself on the moon (for privacy and safety) doesn’t make you giggle? Man, I gotta work on my act…
another possibility to explain the similar physical appearance of humans and Kryptonians… perhaps humans are the remnants of a Kryptonian colonization effort like the Daxamites Maybe the Eradicator altered humanity so they wouldn’t gain powers from exposure to the yellow sun as a way of preventing them from becoming too powerful and threatening Kryptonian civilization.
Well, if homo sapiens names a natural kind, surely it names the same natural kind in every possible world
Given the inconsistencies with which the DC universe is plagued, I doubt it’s so much as a possible world. But in any case, here’s a problem:
How are humans in the DC and Marvel universes related to each other? There are some people who exist in both, like Hitler. But since there are crossover stories where people from one of the universes visit the other, they don’t seem to function like different possible worlds — more like different parts of a big actual world. And that would imply (given Leibniz’s Law) that DC Hitler and Marvel Hitler are not identical, since they differ in actual properties; the Hitler who used the Spear of Destiny to keep the Justice Society out of Europe is not the same Hitler who got punched in the jaw by Captain America and later transferred his consciousness into the body of the Hate-Monger. (See, they’re both more interesting than our Hitler.) But they don’t have a common ancestry either. So if one of the Hitlers is human, the other isn’t.
Were I a human in either the Marvel or DC universe, I confess I’d be more than a bit relieved to be of the same species as only ONE of the abovementioned Hitlers, rather than the both.
Same thing, if rather less intensely, with the FDRs.