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Read this short story as a sophomore in 1983-1984. I am now a freshmen English teacher and want to include it into my class. The plot involves around the idea that, because of some quirk with biology and what allows travel between the stars, only women can fly the space ships.

This has caused a complete role reversal. The women are space pilots and the man in the story is hanging around a bar trying to meet these women. The scene plays out like a traditional bar scene, for time that it was written, with the women trying to 'pick-up' the man for a 'one-night stand'.

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    this theme of space travel being inimical in various ways seems to show up a lot and the heck of it is, years before real space travel, it turns out that these sci fi writers had the correct idea: radiation, low gravity effects, boredom and probably some stuff we have yet to encounter.
    – releseabe
    Commented Jul 30 at 16:34
  • Interstellar? Or intergalactic? The title uses the second, but the description implies the first. And they are vastly different things.
    – Xavon_Wrentaile
    Commented Aug 2 at 4:19

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The story I was thinking of was "Tin Soldier" (1974) by Joan D. Vinge, published in Orbit 14. (This looks like the first story Vinge sold.)

It matches the points that all spacers are women, and it takes place in the titular bar:

She frowned in concentration. "'After it was determined that men were physically unsuited to spacing, and women came to a new position of dominance as they monopolized this critical area, the Terran cultural foundation underwent severe strain. As a result, many new and not always satisfactory cultural systems are evolving in the galaxy.... One of these is what might be termed a backlash of exaggerated machismo—'"

Spacers on leave look for drink, and food, and Tails (men), to make up for months of discipline in transits that take years of planet time.

The story was anthologized again in More Women of Wonder (ed. Pamela Sargent) and collected in Eyes of Amber and Other Stories (1979).

You can read the story in Orbit 14 at the Internet Archive.

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  • Wikipedia also explains the plot. I actually read it in German ... some time ago in Science Fiction Story Reader 13. Quite sad.
    – David Tonhofer
    Commented Aug 1 at 9:47
  • That collection also contains Vonda N. McIntyre's short story Aztecs, which is a about a woman who has to decide whether to literally give up her heart to become member of the female-only space pilot guild (heart replaced by pump which she is already modified with as a test run) or to stay with males. Eventually, after heartaches, she goes for space. The ships' brain-in-vat is misandrist due to bad encounters while still embodied. There is a lot to unpack in that story, but I still like it.
    – David Tonhofer
    Commented Aug 1 at 9:50
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This sounds like the short story, "A Sailor's Delight", from the May 1980 issue of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. As you have described, the story is about a female spacer picking up a gigolo while she is on earth-leave. She finally lures him with the (false) hint that the scientists are at work on technology which will enable men to go into interstellar space - without terrible things happening to their genitals. She offers to help the gigolo get into the research and development program (he really wants to be a spacer) in exchange for a discount on his services.

Cover image of the issue.

Here's a link to the issue on Luminist Archives.

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    That cover takes me back!
    – Andrew
    Commented Jul 30 at 22:54
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    thank you for both answers. Sailor's Delight was the one I read in school, but Tin Soldier is also a good story. Once again, thank you. This site has been helpful trying to find some old stories, as I switch to teaching freshmen English at an all boys school. My hope is that the sci-fi stories will get their interest.
    – Philip
    Commented Jul 31 at 15:24
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    @Philip: You should select (click the checkmark) on the answer that best resolves your question.
    – Daniel R. Collins
    Commented Jul 31 at 18:08

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