Aye, and Gomorrah

Aye, and Gomorrah is the first published short story by Samuel R. Delany; it appears in his anthologies Driftglass and Aye, and Gomorrah. It takes place in a world where astronauts, known as Spacers, must be neutered before puberty. They are fetishized by a subculture of 'frelks', those attracted by the Spacers' unattainability ('free-fall-sexual-displacement complex') – a situation that the mischief-loving Spacers exploit for amusement and money. The story is a Spacer's account of a meeting with a woman frelk, and her failed proposition for prostitution. At several points in the story, frelks inquire if the narrator thinks his "people should leave". Aye, and Gomorrah was first published as the closing story of Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions.