The New Pleasure

Gloag's second novel, longer and more ambitious in its scope than his first, exploring the impact of a new drug, initially referred to as "Gamma 8" and later renamed "Voe" for marketing purposes, on human society. It explores notions of eugenics, scientific intervention and sexual selection, as the drug enhances perception of smell and begins to impact upon sexual desire: "This personal smell must begin to count already in sexual selection among Voe-takers. It is this aspect of Voe that brings it quite definitely into the classification of a biological invention. It affects sexual relationships. It may alter ideas of female beauty, even as the change from dorsal to ventral penetration in sexual intercourse reorientated those ideas by deflecting the attention of lovers from buttocks to faces and breasts. The new sensitised race will be more searchingly critical in its loves; and to keep up the standards that Voe has established it will submit to severe physical discipline, if necessary."