sex and sexuality

From: Manzato Claude <Claude.Manzato_at_at.siemens.fr>
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 10:09:36 +0100


There seems to be a consensus after Theo Posselt's (excellent) post that sex in orlanthi society is seen as natural, and while sacred (Orlanth and Ernalda) is not a big deal.

I got a different feeling on reading KOS. I think the story is The initiation of Orlanth, where the then young king of the gods and his bothers have to overcome some trials before being accepted by their elders. They all succed with their virtue (Humakt win a tourney, Orlanth gain friends among strangers, Urox free animals,...) but one of the brother is cast into the pit of the sex fiends and he is the only one to fail. He is freed by the others but become mad.
While he is not named I associated Mad god to Ragnaralk. So if you buy this you get:

Sex can be bad (can drive you crazy and make you do evil things like forming the unholy trio and summoning chaos).
Bad sex is to be hidden (nothing is said of what goes on in the pit while the others trials are described).

So I will think that upon initiation this tale is used to warn the youngster about what sexual behavior is bad, and while "normal" sex is acknowledged there is still a repression on this "unnatural" practices. Of course as there is conveniently no description of what happened down there, every community can label what is "unnatural" (according to the local tradition) and will send you in the pit of the sex fiends upon death instead of the hall of Orlanth. Also makes advisable for travelling Orlanthi to be careful because there will be local taboos on this subject that can put them in hot water.

Re-lurking...


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