Richard Derus asked Lois McMaster Bujold:

First, what I hope you'll receive as a compliment: For more than 30 years, ETHAN OF ATHOS has been my go-to comfort read. I've worn out seven copies. I still read it when I need to escape my rage and fear about the world we live in. Second, a question about the story: Was your single-sex world, with its loving, nurturing men all the way through to wild horndawgs, inspired or informed in any way by the Kinsey scale?

Lois McMaster Bujold
Glad you've enjoyed the book!

I think it was informed mainly by observation of the world around me, but in general I am a believer in gradients of human behavior, not tidy boxes. Not that tidy boxes aren't very popular, among those who wish the world to be simpler than it is...

The other observation, of course, is that children create, and certainly mold, parents, at all sorts of levels and in all sorts of feedback loops, from the most basic biological survival up through deep patterns of culture. And these, too, all exist on gradients.

Ta, L.

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