One of the things I really like about Glenn Reynolds is that, besides that he must read about 500 blogs a day, at about 5000 wpm, he has a vast recollection of delightful tidbits from various archives. So a hat tip to him for this little piece of hilarity from Larry Niven, Man of Steel – Woman of Kleenex:

Be not deceived by appearances. Superman is no relative to homo sapiens.

What arouses Kal-El’s mating urge? Did kryptonian women carry some subtle mating cue at appropriate times of the year? Whatever it is, Lois Lane probably didn’t have it. We may speculate that she smells wrong, less like a kryptonian woman than like a terrestrial monkey. A mating between Superman and Lois Lane would feel like sodomy-and would be, of course, by church and common law.