Re: Re: Nandan

From: Jane Williams <janewilliams20_at_yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 23:23:12 +0100 (BST)


> Jane:
> >Except of course for those who are absolutely,
> definitely, women and proud
> >of it, and their bedpartners (male, and proud of
> it) are pretty convinced, too!
>
> But why would somebody who is "absolutely,
> definitely" a woman be
> comfortable taking part in the religious rites of
> Orlanth the Allfather,

Allfather? The last I heard, Vinga isn't Allfather at all?

> and flying up to Karulinornan with the
> other men instead of going into the earth with her
sisters?

But if you simply mean Orlanth rites in general: "Why not?" I'm not entirely sure - but since Vingan mothers exist, and you don't get much more female than giving birth, it happens.

> And why would the men accept her among them?

  1. Why not?
  2. If they don't, she hits them
  3. If they don't, *Orlanth* hits them.

> >"Doing a man's job" does not mean "being a man" in
> every sense including
> >sexual, even in magical and mythical Glorantha.
> (I'll ask my husband to
> >check, but so far he seems quite convinced that,
> despite being a computer geek, I'm female.)
>
> But you weren't brought up to believe in the Storm
> Tribe religion.

Sure? :) 1960s Britain had some pretty strong biases about relating roles to irrelevant body parts, and my religious upbringing certainly wasn't Christian.

> You, on the other hand, received the call from
> Orlanthgeek, patriarch of computers - so you must
> have a male soul.

Quite possibly. But my body is female, and that's what any sexual partner needs to know about.

> Yes, I know it sounds silly (or worse) by our own
> standards; but if
> 21st century Western sexual philosophy applied to
> Glorantha then
> they'd let women just initiate to Orlanth/Destor, or
> men to Ernalda/Skovara, with no complications...

Lots of laughter here. If you think sexism is dead... ah, yes, a man. And probably a nice intelligent one.

> Slightly changing tack, I do think it might be best
> to not think in
> absolutes. All worshippers of Vinga might have
> "male souls" in some
> technical sense - and mutatis mutandis for Nandans.
> But they are unlikely to be _completely_ male.

A good point - most things in Glorantha or this world are on sliding scales.

> One could assume that Vinga (or a hero cult of hers)
> has a similar
> heroquest for women who wish to father children on
> another woman...

I wonder if there's one of those in Esrolia? Could have been useful just after Sword&Helm. Though I gather one man to about 100 women is enough to do the job...                                   



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