The Forever War

Sexual intimacy is a recurring motif in The Forever War. From the very first chapter, Haldeman’s army is a gender-integrated fighting force, the military encouraging platoonmates to “sack” together, for morale purposes, presumably. The troops swap partners easily with little moral reservation, although once Mandella realizes he loves Margay Potter, he becomes monogamous. Sexual preference in the novel is fluid and flexible, adapting to meet the demands of a civilization in crisis. When government authorities try to control overpopulation, declaring heterosexuality a psychological disfunction, the world’s population complies. Most of the world in the 26th century is gay, Mandella’s temporal orientation officer informs him. Mandella, however, proves reluctant to embrace the new directive. Sex and sexual orientation are relative and variable in this new world, but Mandella, a relic of the 20th century, can’t see beyond his own rigid assumptions. Sex in this context is more than the physical act of intercourse. Living under the constant threat of death, sex becomes a way for the recruits to reclaim their tenuous grip on life, to share their own mortality with a partner who lives under the same threat. It allows them to find a brief moment of communion and intimacy, necessary fuel to carry them through the battles that lay ahead.