Originally posted by: zinfamous
Now, that doesn't mean superman's super sperm wouldn't tear apart Lois Lane's inferior human fallopian tubes.... a'la Mallrats
He was "human" when they had sex in Superman II, so at least for Returns the whole concept is irrelevant. I've always taken it that he has to "exert" his superstrength, as opposed to "holding it back" all the time, so Niven was just being a tool. He has an odd view towards sexual relationships in his book, though not *quite* as much as Heinlein (who was so busy raving about how awesome his own views on life, politcs, and the military were, he forgot to include a plot or characters or characterization, or at least more than a single character who was a mouth for his own views).
Originally posted by: pontifex
another thing, if he's so powerful why did he have so much trouble stopping the plane in the beginning but could lift that huge kryptonite filled land mass without much trouble?
He had time to brace himself against the island, which he flew into the sky with. The plane was already falling and was ultimately more fragile than a huge hunk of rock, such as the wings tearing off. Also, he couldn't just *stop* it; he had to slow it down first, or everyone would have died from going from 200 (or whatever) to o in 2 seconds. So it was a case of working with the plane already exerting kinetic energy, the fragilness of the material it was made of, and the frailty of human beings that kept him from being able to stop it easily.