It's not so much a collision as an a case of adoptionism, mind you. There are some 'non-Lunarised' Dara Happans, and a handful of stridently 'Lunar' fellahs who're no more Dara Happan than your or I, but the overlap and blurring between the two strikes me as pretty considerable.
(Around Elkenval, there's a school of 'parish pump' philosophy that says that maybe, if the Dara Happans hadn't screwed over the point of their religious message, the Lunars would be OK guys; unfortunately, if the Lunars hadn't screwed over the _Dara Happans_, then they wouldn't be be beatin' the tar out of us. Bummer.)
[Orlanthi on homosexuality, active or passive]
> Since there seems to be consensus that (all) Orlanthi culture is
> (relatively) non-misogynous, I'm not sure that they'd take this
> viewpoint. As Alex said in his next post 'they're fairly open-minded
> about people who do not conform to their gender stereotype'. This
> doesn't seem describe a group of people who would heavily criticize a
> man for being another's 'woman' - if they discriminate against
> homosexual behavior, surely they do it against both parties involved.
>
> Did that statement make sense?
It does, yes. Happily, cultures don't have to. ;-) As I say, I wary of stealing the motif since it's 'doubly-dubious' in that fashion, but there may be a reason for such an attitude that makes sense for the Orlanthi, other than the 'being used like a woman' infelicitude.
For example: many moons ago, Greg opined that Heler was the model of male homosexuality among the Orlanthi. This has caused much nattering among the Gloranfan chattering classes, who seem to have split, approximately, into a number of views:
o Heler is a randy bastard, and will shag anything; women most typically, but sheep, men, whatever -- all fair game. (Some like Murphy's, others like Bulmers, to paraphrase John H.) Thus he's the model of 'active pansexuality', which one can legitimately particularise to active homosexuality. o Heler is a water god; as Every God Learner Knows, water gods are of 'fluid' gender-identification, hence this is a possible justification for (sexually) changing 'gender roles', and is thuis a model for male _passive_ homosexuality. o Greg was talking nonsense, and/or has subsequently Gregged himself, or been Jeffed/Robinned.
#2 seems unlikely these days: Nandan fills _precisely_ that role, so it's basically redundant, other objections aside. I understand #3 has long had many adherents. Personally I tend towards #1, at the moment at least.
Thus a particular activity has a mythic justification, which doesn't immediately generalise to cover the 'converse' activity. ("I was expressing my Helerish side." "Ah, that's all right, then!") Which isn't to say that passive homosexuality is seen as wrong, necessarily, just as requiring a different identification/mythic excuse. You then have the potential problem if this identification doesn't match your 'day job' -- for example, a Nandan-worshipping weaponthane seems problematic in the extreme, whereas a Heler-devotee is perfectly workable. Maybe this sort of thing has magical implications, but I bet it creates perconceptions in your neighbours, at least.
Also, where an actual negative attitude is encountered, it may not be culture-wide, but be particular to certain segments -- self-conscious warriors may scoff at the above-mentioned activity, because it would be an emulatorily bad thing for _them_, without it being seen as a moral or cultural Bad Thing.
At any rate, I too am just churning around notions there; I wouldn't even go so far as to say 'IMG', at this point.
Cheers,
Alex.
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