 Why have Venus men struggled to keep their women interested in them?
IMAGE OF SPLENDOR By LU KELLA From Venus to Earth, and all the way between, it was a hell of a world for men ... and Apprentice Burnerman O'Rielly particularly. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Summer 1955. The intercom roared fit to blow O'Rielly back to Venus. O'Rielly wondered had Callahan passed out, was so long before the old Burner Chief demanded hoarsely, "Didn't you lock them controls before blast-off?" "If every control hadn't been locked in correct setting," O'Rielly answered from his own angry bewilderment, "the error would have registered before blast-off—wouldn't it, sir?" "Well, Mr. O'Rielly, you better know before we orbit Earth!" A dozen burners on this ship; why did something crazy have to happen to O'Rielly's? In a hundred years, so the instructors—brisk females all—had told O'Rielly in pre-flight school, no control had ever been known to slip. Not enough to cause serious trouble this far out from Earth. On blast-down, though, with one jet below peak, the uneven thrust could throw the ship, crash it, the whole lovely thing and all aboard gone in a churning cloud. Sweat pouring off him, O'Rielly prowled around his burner. Design of the thing had been bossed by dames of course; what on Earth wasn't any more? Anyway, nobody could get to a burner except through its watch room. Anyone entered or left there, a bell clanged, lights flashed and a meter registered beside the Burnerman's bunk and on the Burner Chief's console up in the flight room full of beautifully efficient officers. Ever since Venus blast-off O'Rielly had been in Four's watch room. Well, ma'am, O'Rielly searched every cranny where even a three-tailed mouse of Venus could have stowed away. His first flight, and O'Rielly saw himself washed out, busted to sweeper on the blast-off stands of some God-forsaken satellite.
 They have been too pre-occupied with war, haven't realized the truth.
 Their culture has men in power, and thus they don't consider women their equals.  Earth men are too enticing to Venus women. They can't compete.  They have been too pre-occupied with war, haven't realized the truth.  Venus females don't interest them enough.