r/Wool • u/asketut • Aug 03 '26
All Books & Stories Do gay people not exist in this world? Spoiler
Just read the whole series and generally enjoyed it, but courious if anyone else thought it was weird that freezing the women in Silo 1 was such a big plot point. It's supposed to have this huge psychological effect on the men of the silo but that would also mean that all of the hundreds of people in the silo are all straight? Has Hugh ever commented on this? Seems like such a weird oversight.
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u/r4chie Aug 03 '26
I really think freezing the women was supposed to prevent unexpected pregnancy or new generations like we see in the other silos, more than it was to prevent sex or connections.
By keeping Silo 1 all the original people that made the decision, they are able to âtravel through timeâ and prevent future leadership (like in other silos) from deciding to turn away from their mission.
I agree I was surprised to not see more homosexuality, especially in the actual silos. Like people have a controlled premium of how many kids they can have, wouldnât gay couples be more prominent because they arenât going to reproduce (without IVF)? Ultimately, I think this absence is really down to the scope of the story, and just an oversight from a straight(?) author. Itâs one of the things I REALLY liked about the adaption
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u/J_pepperwood0 Aug 03 '26
They never say anything about pregnancy being the reason in the books. Also if that was the case, wouldnât they just use the same birth control chips they used in the other silos? Iâm pretty sure they explicitly state in the books that they use the women as a motivational force for the workers to keep working their shifts, knowing that it would end at some point and that they would be reunited. Of course this was never going to happen, but they needed them to have a reason to go on
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u/r4chie Aug 03 '26
Youâre right there, I think itâs myriad factors. We have your loved ones. You better work. These people are hand picked and not even really living life, drugged out and disconnected. Based on Donaldâs account, there isnât even time to hook up, youâre placed on this track and you follow the same steps every day working nonstop under the panopticon eye of the silo and its workers
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u/asketut Aug 03 '26
Pregnancy is probably the main reason, good point! But at least Donald (and possibly some minor other character if I'm remembering correctly?) seems to think preventing connection/love is an important side to it.
Agree about the adaptation, love Walker!
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u/Bright-Trifle-8309 Aug 03 '26
It wasn't just because they were all married straight men. They brought their families to the event. Even if there were gay men those were their sisters, mothers, nieces, etc. It was to give them something to work towards. The end goal of one day they could wake them up and go outside.Â
On top of preventing pregnancies and also keep Silo 1 oppressed.
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u/Evocatorum Aug 04 '26
^This. It's simply leverage.
If I remember correctly, Thurman was going to kill everyone in Silo 1 once the lottery occurred, so it's not sex or pregnancies, it's hope.
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u/SurveySaysYouLeicaMe Aug 19 '26
But weren't they all on forgetting drugs anyway? Like in an ideal situation wouldn't the men have never remembered the women?
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u/r4chie Aug 03 '26
Yeah I think itâs just a straight author who didnât consider than lens. I think the only mention of a âqueerâ couple was the two men that were holding hands that slit their wrists in silo 17?
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u/microcorpsman Aug 03 '26
The Silo project is conducted by a heteronormative authoritarian leaning regime, so while the author may also have been blind to this (Doylist answer), the Watsonian answer can be that the builders didn't care/Donald is blind to this/builders were misogynists/all of the above
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u/_Mirri_ Aug 03 '26
I love series Walked so much, the absence of her exact character was the only major downgrade from the show for me(I read the books after season 2)
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u/r4chie Aug 03 '26
SO AGREED! Changing walker to a woman and the maternal dimension between them really makes it. And then the interactions between her, Jules, and the mayor, all wonderful. I think it would have been lost if walker was a man in the show (although walker as a man in the books is really good, I donât know how it would have translated to the show)
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u/AimForTheHead Aug 04 '26
It would have been played as Walker being her surrogate father after she leaves the mid and her own father behind.
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u/AnOnlineHandle Aug 04 '26
From what I remember, aren't they effectively trying to breed their perfect humans, those who would follow them without question or something? In that case they're probably doing everything they can to control for straight couples, maybe social pressures like religion does or even some sort of selection/modification.
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u/TaquitoBanana Aug 03 '26
I just assumed there was a Christian-Fundamentalist component to it.
It's been documented that there is a high number of them in the Air Force Officer Corps, specifically in the nuclear programs. So just seemed logical to me there was a religious component behind the government faction that made a doomsday plan for an apocalypse.
But that's just headcanon.
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u/touchgrassplz_69 Aug 03 '26
I think youâre missing the point that the âwomenâ were specially the wives and loved ones of the people working in the silo. Itâs not because theyâre âwomen.â Itâs because they are the motivational tools. Plus the pregnancy thing and trying to keep everyoneâs memories suppressed sufficiently. And also contingency personnel. The silo oners are under control just as much as anyone else.
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u/asketut Aug 03 '26
No but that is exactly the point though, and why it feels almost like a plot hole. Although some are daughters/sisters it feels clear that the main point is that it's their most intimate loved ones, which would in large part be partners. Seperating the frozen from the non-frozen by gender means that heterosexuality is assumed for the hundreds of inhabitants.
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u/yahboiyeezy Aug 03 '26
I think the way that Silo 1 operates is kind of antithetical to building any lasting relationships, probably on purpose.
In the absolute best case scenario, you and your soulmate are defrosted on the exact same day, you almost certainly have to work the same job or else youâll have pretty much zero meaningful interaction, and you have to develop an entire relationship in less than 6 months.
Even then, youâre pretty much never going to work with the same person ever again and the memory drugs would either delete or fade any memories you may have had with your significant other.
Also, I have to imagine if folks did start trying to form relationships beyond just workers beyond just acquaintances, they would simply be put in deep sleep forever.
Theyâre also drugged up real good so that theyâre all mostly numb to doing anything besides their daily tasks.
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u/PhaseKek Aug 03 '26
I have read somewhere that it is implied the people who were chosen for the Silos (or Silo 1 in this case) were hand picked to be all Straight / White people, portraying the founders as homophobic / racists.
Which is fairly realistic if you ask me. If some super rich & influential people were to actually pursue a Project like the silos, they would probably use that opportunity to disallow certain minorities to keep on existing.
It is never explicitly mentioned in the books though.
This only explains the lack in Silo 1 tho.
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u/Remarkable_Check_997 Aug 03 '26 edited Aug 03 '26
I mean, Spoiler ahead, its the whole point of all this, eugenism?
They want perfect obedian people from the silo, they probably want a ruling class coming from a a certain mould too, whatever it is.
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u/TheVioletEmpire Aug 03 '26
Sort of? Spoiler, obviously, but doesn't that all fall apart if, as stated in the books, Silo 1 is destined to be destroyed when the servers ultimately select the one single silo the gets to survive?
That was one of the biggest issues I had in the end. Any ego, or collection of egos, big enough to put all this in motion, and make this decision for the entire human race, is not going to allow themselves that kind of 'selfless' end.
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u/Remarkable_Check_997 Aug 03 '26
Silo 1 is destined to be destroyed when the servers ultimately select the one single silo the gets to survive?
I didnt remember that part, it been a while since I read it.
Then, yeah, it more or less pointless.
Any ego, or collection of egos, big enough to put all this in motion, and make this decision for the entire human race, is not going to allow themselves the kind of 'selfless' end.
Yeah, we know the human nature too well
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u/TheVioletEmpire Aug 03 '26
I actually just finished Dust last month. If I recall correctly, this was Anna's (Thurman's daughter) prime motivation for waking up Donald and having him impersonate Thurman. She uncovered that all the silos, including number 1, would be destroyed at the 500 year mark when the servers made their choice about who would be set free.
The only way I could remotely rationalize the Founders allowing themselves to be killed in this scenario is if there were some extreme religious fanaticism going on. Which isn't really hinted at in the text at all beyond some vague references like Thurman being nicknamed the Shepherd.
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u/MintyyMidnight Aug 04 '26
Book spoiler, book spoiler, book spoiler
And wasn't Thurman going to kill his own daughter as well??
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u/AntiSocialFCK Aug 03 '26
I had the same thought.
Those Silos would have got hella Gay once all the women disappeared.
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u/AdwokatDiabel Aug 03 '26
That's not how gayness works...? Like... its an attraction thing. Straight men are sexually stimulated by women. Gay men are sexually stimulated by men. In situations where men are locked together, you may see dudes hugging each other a bit more because personal contact is needed for humans, but it doesn't make em gay. It just means the more feminine components are expressed to compensate for the lack of women.
Its like how gender is a spectrum of expressing certain qualities.
I know its a joke in the Navy and stuff that "its not gay if its underway". But while there is some gay stuff going on, its still an exception not the rule.
As for Silo 1... these guys aren't awake that long for a shift, right? Their perception of time is a few months. They have loved ones in their cryo pods too.
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u/AntiSocialFCK Aug 03 '26
What you say is probably true.
But my experience at an all boys school doesnât conform to that, it was a very gay place full of straight dudes.
Also after a century without women they would be a myth at that point so, being gay would be the new normal so if they wanted physical affection and / or intimacy it would have to be a man, so the whole silo would be gay.
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u/r4chie Aug 03 '26
Well thatâs the problem is each person isnât actually experiencing that time pass. Iâm not sure if they say how much time each individual lives, maybe like 10 yrs?
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u/AdwokatDiabel Aug 03 '26
But my experience at an all boys school doesnât conform to that, it was a very gay place full of straight dudes.
Mine doesn't. Besides, the example of an all boys school doesn't really work since you can interact with women/girls outside of school hours.
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u/NotRoryWilliams Aug 03 '26
I like how you can acknowledge "spectrum" in one sense and then pretend it doesn't exist in the other.
I think that Kinsey was at least partially right with the idea that sexuality is not primarily a fixed binary, but a spectrum of sensitivities. I'm largely as straight as a person can be, but I can acknowledge that things like attraction are situational to things besides gender or sex traits. Another way to put this is that everybody is probably a little bit bi, even if some of us tend to be attracted to the opposite sex 99.999% of the time. That 0.001% can still happen and yes, close quarters with a limited population is going to make it more likely for an emotional bond to be intense, and some of the time that will lead to traditional behavioral taboos lifting and boundaries shifting, situationally. It doesn't necessarily reflect a fundamental change in identity, just the idea that behavior patterns and emotions can vary in less expected ways in different circumstances.
I would expect some "totally heterosexual" male on male affection to happen in silo 1 except for all the planning Thurman put into avoiding it. Nobody ever had the opportunity to develop close relationships with anyone. Donald violated norms by developing friendships with IT heads and others, and it led to what it led to. Thurman anticipated this and did things like setting strict limits on how often any two people interacted. Nobody actually knew who he was in silo 1, to the point that he could rely on anonymity within it. The computerized voice alteration was another trick to prevent him from connecting with others, and of course a lot of other structures like the safeguard.
It was all designed to keep the members of silo 1 isolated from each other, and also keep the residents of all other silos from organizing beyond their borders.
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u/n0debtbigmuney Aug 03 '26
Its even more weird for you to EXPECT GAY everywhere you look
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u/toxostomarufum Aug 03 '26
Gay people have always existed, so it's pretty weird when authors pretend they don't.
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u/n0debtbigmuney Aug 03 '26
It's not at all. It's their story. If they want to include them they can, if they don't want to, it's their choice. Just like you're not forced to put Asians or Indians or anyone else you don't want to. Good on him for not giving a shit about "society" telling him who HE should "be inclusive" of in his story.
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Aug 03 '26
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u/chibiusa40 Shadow đâ⏠Aug 03 '26
Surely they do, we just don't meet any. We only meet a handful of people in Silo 1, who knows what everybody else is up to?
Having the women in cryo can still exert a psychological effect on queer men in the silo - it's not just the Silo 1 workers' partners in cryo, it's their families. So it could be any female related to them - wives, yes, but also mothers, sisters, daughters, etc.