Free Creation by Greg Chase

with humanity, there are a couple of items that might help. Or not.”
    Sam tried to focus on Doc’s face, but from the corner of his eye he could still see Mira’s intense stare. From his history on Earth, he knew her attention should make him uncomfortable. But in this strange new society, he began to lose some of his long-held inhibitions. Smiling at the beautiful older woman elicited a nod of encouragement from her husband.
    Doc continued. “We’re a sexually liberated society. My ancestral hippies would’ve called it free love, but the term implies that sex and love are connected. We see sex as lowering boundaries, and love is more than just a physical act. Secondly, we’re a female-dominated society.”
    Mira’s eyes left Sam for the first time as she turned her head to Doc with such speed that her hair made a whirlwind about her face. “We dominate equally, Doc. You say things like that, and it sounds like we’re a society of Amazons. That’s not the intention.”
    Doc smiled at what must have been a long-running discussion. “We’re all ears, Mira.”
    The small woman puffed up her chest. Sam had no option but to admire her well-shaped breasts. Her eyes crinkled at the edges as she caught him looking. “I made an in-depth study of our nearest relatives, the common chimpanzee and the bonobo chimp.”
    He’d once seen monkeys on a zoo field trip. They gave him the creeps—too much like little misshapen people. He took it personally when one threw poop at him. But he feared mentioning the incident and further damaging Mira’s impression of him. “I’m not familiar with the bonobo.”
    Her smile warmed something inside him, as did any woman’s when he hit on a topic of conversation that stimulated her. “Not many people know about it. The Congo River separates the two species. But in spite of their close proximity to each other, they developed along very different paths.”
    As he watched her get into her dissertation, Sam took a bite out of a ripe peach from the floating fruit basket. Juice squirted out in all directions but quickly got sucked down to the filter.
    The granola bar in Mira’s hand didn’t look as if it would be eaten anytime soon. “The common chimp is easy to understand. Male dominated, aggressive, violent, power hungry, all characteristics human societies have shared with chimps since the dawn of civilization. But to quote Dr. de Waal in his book Bonobo , ‘The chimpanzee resolves sexual issues with power; the bonobo resolves power issues with sex.’”
    Sam stopped mid-bite. “How do they manage that?”
    Mira’s free hand came to rest on his arm. “Sexual equality. Though, as Doc pointed out, it can look more like female dominance to a male-dominated culture. Imagine if sex were used to ease all the social anxieties and arguments, to help tribal members bond, basically any interaction where tensions might be present.”
    Sam snorted some peach juice through his nose. “Sure, sounds great. So long as my only problems are with women.”
    Mira’s smile only touched half her face. “Well, the bonobo are less repressed than most humans. They perform almost any combination of sex acts you can imagine. It leaves them with empathy for others. Females aren’t as prone to certain tendencies as males, so social characteristics of ownership, aggression, and tribal mistrust are less of an issue. Female bonobos are more likely to form alliances than stake out territory. And as the competition for females is lessened in the males, the natural aggression and mistrust is also reduced. You might be surprised to find most of your inhibitions regarding homosexual activity stem from those basic animal reactions.”
    “Must make for one hell of a population explosion.” Sam had trouble envisioning a society based on chimps.
    Mira’s eyes didn’t leave his as she shook her head. “Not all sex is about copulation. For the bonobo, it’s not even all about orgasmic release. Our genitals are