[Omphalos]

It seems to me that homosexuality is used one of two or three ways by authors. First off, gay characters are often inserted as a way for an author to show that the culture he is describing has evolved and is futuristic. I suppose that works, as in the real world homosexuality has become more and more visible as time goes on, so we associate increased frequency and visibility of homosexuals, as well as relaxation of prejudices against them, with the passage of time. This can of course be used to also show a liberalization of the subject society, which in many cases is meant (and interpreted) as a characteristic of social evolution.

Homosexuality is also used to show evolution from a physical standpoint too, and has some post-human aspects to it too. A prime example of this is John Varley's The Ophiuchi Hotline, where body parts including genitals can be switched with such ease that the homosexual/heterosexual distinction really fails to mean anything.

Homosexuality can also be used as a tactic, or a stopgap in SF. For example, in The Forever War the population had ballooned on Earth because of the war, as people were not able to immigrate to more than one or two of the numerous colony worlds that had been found because of military action. In order to control population, the society selected homosexuality as a way to control the numbers of babies being produced. I think Burgess did this in The Wanting Seed too, and there have been others.

As far as main characters go, A few online friends and I once put a list together, but that forum is now dead, and Ill be damned if I can recall any of them. I think we came up with Baron Harkonnen from Dune (who was a pederast too, and not very sympathetic). Now that I think about it, I dont think that we came across any that were not on that Wiki list. BTW, that page has come a long way. One year ago it was mostly erotica and romance books with a SF bent to them. Now its lists real genre books.

Has anyone read Pangborn's Davy? I read that book decades ago, and IIRC the main character in that one was gay. But its been so long......I think that I may be confusing this book with another.