Backstage: The Last Boy (Patreon)

Backstage for the story "The Last Boy":

I have been haunted by James Tiptree Jr's "The Screwfly Solution" since I first read it. The story presents a very, very bleak vision, one it's almost impossible to see hope in. I saw a path for humanity to survive, but it was one that demanded terrible sacrifices.

When I first saw this story in my head, many years ago, it was... drier, than this. Less emotional. But when it came time to write it, it started breaking my heart from the beginning, and it causes me pain every time I re-read it. 

While I was thinking through how the Screwfly Solution would apply to people who weren't cishet straights, it occurred to me that linking the sex drive to violent misogyny wouldn't work on gay men, wouldn't apply to lesbians in the first place because the thing was aimed at men, and might very well not affect asexuals or trans people. So in my head, that's how the human race survived; some of the women banded together for strength, some queer people with penises joined forces with them, and some of those fathered children so no one had to go near the violent men, and eventually most of the violent men would die out without offspring. 

But what would happen to the straight cishet boys when they hit puberty?

Since I became a mother, I'm haunted by the little boys who love their mothers, who grow up to be indoctrinated by patriarchy and toxic masculinity into hating women. How can you bear it, when the world turns your baby son into a monster? Thankfully, this did not happen to either of my sons, but it's still a nightmare that plagues me.