Homosexuality
From Almeopedia
Attitudes toward homosexuality vary widely between Almean cultures, as well as over time. Few of them, in fact, would understand it as a category of either persons or behavior.
These statements are true of premodern societies on Earth as well. As with sexism, premodern cultures will rarely accommodate our own values— and to be perfectly clear, I heartily dislike homophobia and sexism myself. Still, it’s rarely useful to simply condemn premodern societies— and it’s rarely accurate to consider them as flatly sexist or heterosexist. Their attitudes are usually more subtle than that, and in a few cases they are more tolerant than we are.
- Cuzeian morality is solely concerned with offenses against other people. Male homosexuality was considered in about the same vein as drinking: harmless if pursued discreetly, risible if overindulged. Men rarely thought about lesbianism at all. (Marriages were usually arranged— and such proclivities were no excuse for avoiding it.)
- The later moralists complain about dissipation and corruption of all kinds; homosexuality was often mentioned, though no more than any other indulgence.
- Caďinorian culture has generally disapproved of male homosexuality— though it’s been common enough in single-sex environments, such as schools, monasteries, prisons, and armies. Lesbianism, on the other hand, is considered a normal part of female relationships. If anything it’s encouraged among young women— it keeps their minds off boys. Many women take a husband but continue long-term relationships with female friends.
- Caďinorian sexual morality is organized around marriage and child-rearing; among the corollaries is that it’s not useful to talk about “gays and lesbians”. Most men and women marry; so long as they bear and raise children their extracurricular sexual activities are not very important, and do not create labels. Caďinorian attitudes toward male homosexuality might be compared to our attitudes toward adultery: it’s considered wrong, but the police won’t go after you for it, and it doesn’t create a social class of adulterers. And lesbianism isn’t even considered a vice.
- The only recognized categories would be for those who never marry and have exclusively homosexual relationships: deníî (males) and ponî (females). Their partners would come sometimes from the same categories, sometimes from the rest of the population. There are communities for both in the larger cities, and meeting areas. Both are fairly stigmatized because of their refusal to marry... but then to live on their own they generally have to have a position in society— often, academics, artists, priests, soldiers, or non-heirs of noble or bourgeois families.
- There are variations between countries or over time. Only fairly urban epochs, for instance, have communities of deníî and ponî. Barakhinei men grade their disapproval on precise sexual roles: men can penetrate other men with no loss of manliness, but it’s a disgrace for any but very young men to be penetrated. And the availability of lesbian relationships varies with circumstances: very little happens in rural areas; it’s common in Barakhinei theater troupes (which are all-female) and in Verdurian avisarî (single-sex secondary schools).
- All this is broadly true of Kebri as well; but Kebreni sexual morality is notable for disapproving of almost all overt sexuality. In public there is no touching or kissing, no discussion of sex— indeed, men and women dress and wear their hair almost identically, and even marriages are often unadvertised.
- In private, however, there are few rules. As a consequence one can live out about any sexual orientation— if it can be done discreetly.
- Traditional Tžuro society was originally organized round matrilineal lineages. Men were generally away from home for half the year raiding or travelling; the stable building blocks of society were the groups of women they left behind. If they married, they might live part of the year with their wife’s lineage; if not, they might partner with whoever was available. In any case, though, their own wealth would be given to their own lineage— in effect, to his sister and her daughters. (His own children were their mother’s to worry about. Given Tžuro sexual mores, it was never certain that his wife’s children were his— but it was always certain that his sister’s children were hers, and thus belonged to his lineage.)
- Under these circumstances neither infidelity nor homosexuality were either prohibited or important. The lineage must go on, of course— but even a woman whose relationships were mostly with women could easily take care of this.
- In Jippirasti, sex between men is named as one of 35 sources of uncleanliness (istuja) It is only legal as part of igosota (expiation, which is expected to be humiliating for the sinner) or between soldiers in war.
Ancient Skouras
- The Skourenes didn't really approve of homosexuality— though they considered it normal in the absence of the opposite sex. However, they had a strong sense of privacy, unusual in the ancient world: what happened behind closed doors was no one's business.
- The Axunemi believed that there were three sexes, not two— the third were ewemi, people neither traditionally male nor female; we may understand them best as ‘intellectuals’. Their clothing and even ideal body shape were androgynous, or simply different from both male and female. Axunemi morality dicated that men marry women and ewemi marry each other. Biologically, these marriages could be either male-female or homosexual— the distinction was not considered important, especially as these marriages were assumed to be infertile.
- There was also sexual contact of forbidden types— male with ewez or ewez with female. Such couples could not marry and generally hid their relations. (Note that it was just as scandalous for a man to be interested in a biologically female ewemi as in a biologically male one.)
- The Axunemi distinction was retained as a useful set of categories, but dissociated from morality. Ewemi in fact were more or less equivalent to the ruling artist class. The marriage restrictions no longer applied, though there was a frisson of scandal attached to male/ewez and ewez/female matches. Ewemi retained their traditional ability to marry each other without social comment, regardless of biological gender; it was also extremely common for artistic mentors to sleep with their students.
- In the female-dominated Bé, attitudes are nearly a mirror image of those in Eretald. Male homosexuality is of little import or interest; lesbianism is somewhat suspect. However, since people live in family bands (jɔ) rather than couples and sexual fidelity is expected only within one's age cohort in the band, and since only the senior women in the band can produce heirs, there is less pressure for sexual conformity than within a couple-centered society. (For those senior women to not have daughters because they won't sleep with men, however, would be considered extremely perverse. On the other hand, once they've fulfilled their duty, no one will tell them who they can sleep with.)
- Among the elcari same-sex relationships are not considered remarkable. Thus, gays and lesbians are left in peace.
