Re: S:KoH Nandan?

From: julianlord <julian.lord_at_slppmUexk9DT1-cKu0Ii-ybEi6-uUb3f4VuONBPL589JkHpU4GgKvWf7w-GGudvZ>
Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2010 06:31:34 -0000


David Cake :

> I think this discussion would be a lot helped by the use of
> some modern terminology, particularly the separation between gender
> and sex.

... but you should bear in mind that it is possible to be a member of Vinga, Nandan, or Heler, whilst being straightforwardly heterosexual -- if your cult affiliation represents your professional or magical rather than your sexual identity.

> My interpretation of discussion so far is that the Vingans
> and the Nandans
> - fully occupy the primary social gender role normally occupied by
> the other sex.

This strikes me as an exaggeration, sorry. Perhaps most of them do so, but in my opinion, the opposition of male versus female simply is not so starkly defined among the Orlanthi as you appear to be implicitly suggesting here. Men who do "women's work", or in other words, work belonging to Ernalda's sphere of interest, can IMO belong to Nandan with no issue of sex or gender pertaining, including socially. Although I do note that you are not presenting firm opinions on the subject ;)

The only strict taboo here is that you cannot as far as I know belong to the Orlanth and Ernalda cults simultaneously.

> - this includes the primary magical role of the other sex. They are
> the other sex for magical purposes.

This is not the focus that I would use -- instead, I'd say that for magical purposes, they are initiates of their respective cults.

> The truly transgendered probably are chosen by Vinga or Nandan at
> their initiation, but probably not all who are chosen at their
> initiation would be considered transgendered by us (some Vingans or
> Nandans may be perfectly happy with their biological equipment, just
> not their gendered social role - a tomboy is not necessarily
> transgendered).

Hrm, the mainstream destination for such people is in the cults of Nandan, Vinga, and Heler sure -- but they can just as well join several other cults having no strict gender requirements, of which there are several.

The thing is, the number of these people is so small that it's probably more realistic to approach the question from an individual basis, bearing in mind all the various possibilities of individuality and individual identity, rather than to attempt some grand overview from a point of view belonging to sociology or whatever.

In RW, the transgendered are a small minority among a pretty tiny minority of homosexuals and bisexuals, among the vast majority ~99% of heteros (percentages in modern urban populations can and do vary significantly from the mean).

> Orlanthi society is not strongly heteronormative

I'm not sure that this sort of terminology is quite appropriate, and besides -- Thunder Rebels at least is pretty clear that the typical gender roles of Orlanth and Ernalda are very strongly defined as male and female by the Orlanthi, and the relationship of the god with the goddess is at the heart of their religious beliefs.

However, the existence of such strong heterosexual values in a society does not necessarily require that homosexuality and other non-gender-specific attitudes would need to be rejected and reviled -- and the Orlanthi do not in fact reject or revile these things or these people among them.

> There are plenty of other questions to be asked here, about
> exactly how such occasional homosexual/bisexual liasons are treated
> (are they a bit embarrassing, or just as worthy of celebration? Are
> their some stories of famous homosexual lovers? Are their joyous gay
> weddings? Is such liasons occasionally celebrated in art or song?

I'd imagine that the answer to this is YGWV, but having said that a response from Greg to these questions would be quite interesting :)

> IMG the two cults between them probably are somewhere in the
> 1-3% range of the population?

The latest scientifically estimated % proportion of homosexuals+bisexuals in RW is about 1.5% (larger IIRC among men, smaller among women), with only a minority of these being transgendered, that is if you wanted your Glorantha to be similar to RW in this respect, and not all of them would be in those two cults, and members of those two cults would not all be considered to be homosexuals/bisexuals as we would define them.

There is for example no reason why a male homosexual with male attitudes and social rôle wouldn't typically join the Orlanth cult, or any other cult accepting men.

Numbers of people attracted to Nandan, Vinga, or Heler for reasons of an opposite or ambiguous sexual identity are, if % figures are intended as realistic by RW standards, going to be _significantly_ lower than 1%.

But Gloranthan % figures may possibly be unlike those of RW. And YGWV.

> And being a member of one or the other
> is considered less odd, and less problematic, than being a member of
> cults like Humakt, Chalana Arroy, Storm Bull, Lhankor Mhy etc (a
> Vingan or a Nandani mostly still lives with their family on the
> stead, and does their share of the work, unlike those other cults).

I'm not sure I understand this -- members of those cults do exactly their share of the work ; OK Urox might be the exception here :D

> There are
> probably also stories somewhere about clans where many of the men
> were forced to become Nandans when all the women, but not the
> children, died somehow.

Thanx for this particular insight :)

Julian Lord            

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