Ursula K. Le Guin¶

1. Schemata¶

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Version: 1.0.0 (28.03.2026)

This document describes the physiological, sexual and sozial knowledge about the Gethenian kemmer cycle as far as this information was available according to the field notes of Ong Tot Oppong, investigator of the first landing party on Gethen/Winter (cycle 93, Ekumenical Year 1448).
In Gethenian physiology, the kemmer cycle corresponds to the menstruation cycle of other physiologies in the Ekumen. The core difference to Gethenian physiology lies in the androgynous, asexual and agender constitution of the Gethenians when not being in kemmer (but in somer). Only in kemmer, sexual physiological elements dominating the sexual activity develop depending on the person’s social environment.

Hinweis

Because the reports about kemmer in the documents of the first landing party and of Genly Ai are to be considered as preliminary and quite fragmentary insights and because these men (!) only had their accustomed (and, of course, very heteronormative) Schemata for classifying and verbalizing their social experiences and the social dynamics of the Gethenian society this also heavily affects the narrative point of view.
This is reflected in the difficulties and shortcomings evident in Genly Ai’s attempts to capture Gethenian social dynamics through pronouns, or in the first landing party’s perception of the supposed ›normality‹ of heterosexual practices.
Thus, further research on Gethen is necessary and needs to employ more open categories!

PDFSVGdrawio