Homosexuals, YT, Meanderings, Hello Again

From: Greybeard <Greybeard_at_nochet.demon.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 07 Feb 1995 17:42:12 GMT


Hello Again

Well after a long lurk I re-enter the foray....

> Mike Cule:
> ==========
>
> >On another social taboo: does anyone know if homosexuality exists on
> >Glorantha? And how the various cultures react to it?
>

The question of gayness in Glorantha raises two questions:

Is the purpose of Glorantha to be true to Earth parallels or to exlore alternate realities and fantasies?

What do we know of Earth parallels and/or which fantasies/alternates do you wish to explore?

These are questions which relate to a whole load of stuff which is why I will wibble about them.

Firstly, I think we see Glorantha as being both rooted in Earth mythlogy and therefore to some extent true to basic monomyths and cultural legacies. Simultaneously we use it as a way to develop different fantasies and realities, some rooted in Earth mythology, some in 20th century thought, some straight from the surreal place we call our imagination.

To that end I feel we should struggle to not fall too heavily into the cultural parallelism that we have seen growing in Gloranthan circles for some time. We should build on our basic analogues and construct something a little more than simply "another Earth".

Now to gayness. In a world where religons have grown up around almost everything and an entire Empire (or two) has grown on the basis of liberality and the embracing of "difference", I think we can safely explore some gay fantasies.

Now, if you don't want your Glorantha like this because it upsets your sexual/mythical/cultural bag trip, then okay.

Babeester Gor must be a cult with a lesbian following, big butch women who have renounced
men, got to be some sapphic biker chicks there. Uleria, certainly not adverse to that side of sexuality (she is Love after all). In Esrolia I can see either a very anti-gay feeling against lesbians (but who cares what the men do) or a elitist view that only women are mature enough for Love, sex with men is about the act of a woman using a man to water her Fertility.

Humakti would probably attract gays, it is cult of comrades, of fellows cut off from society with no-one but their mates to help and comfort them. Eurmal is definitely happy to have bisexuals, gays, hermaphrodites etc. An Orlanthi might well join an outsider cult such as Humakt, Eurmal, Lhankor Mhy since they follow different ethics to mainstream Orlanthi.

The Lunars. Well I'm sure that a culture based on tolerance and acceptance must be benevolent to gays. The Illuminated will see the ambivalence of bisexuality as similar to their view of chaos and order. Lunars will probably have a wide range of practices reflecting Pelorian, Darra Happan, Carmanian and Orlanthi roots, but I bet the party line is tolerance.

Now, if you really want to take this trip somewhere you could develop some interesting minor cults, solider cults, temple heroes and so on. I can't say I would bother myself, but I think that if you want to then the world is your oyster.

Bea Arthur as Gorgorma


You leave Bea alone, I love and revere this woman. pah!

Sandy's Gay Views


I guess that I felt a little odd about some of your comments. The Doraddi are said to be ambivalent about gays but say "Blech". Why? I can understand that gay men would have a weaker time of it but since lesbians in a patriarchal society are ignored and expected to conform, gay men in such a society may well have to do the same. (They certainly do in ours). Society may then view it as "just something innocent that lads do". In a matriarchal society lesbianism may be either an elitist option or reviled as threatening the social order (see my Esrolan comments above).

To use magic to cure someone's homosexuality is very odd to me, if culture required gay people to marry, conform and bear children they will. No gay person is prevented from having sex, sex does not have to be the result of lust at all. Hence your East Isles island with all gay people can have children easily, they have inter-gender sex to make babies.

More Interesting


What could be more interesting in a fantasy setting, and Glorantha is probably too well developed and rooted in Indo-European culture for this, is a society which is monosexual, (er is it parthenogenic?) and reproduction is entirely from within oneself. Maybe Brithini culture is actually like this, and it is outsiders who misinterpret the identical father-son mother-daughtter clones as the same person?

Nah, too fantastical for Glorantha....

Powered by hypermail