Celebrim,
I apologize for my knee-jerk crankiness on the subject. I gather that I read certain things into your post that may not actually have been there. I really don't mean to antagonize you; I have a great deal of respect for your personal philosophy as expressed in certain debates with SHARK. Let's just say that making preparations for my Valentine's Day dinner have left me a bit on edge today...
Celebrim said:
You haven't? That sounds kinda odd to me. Let's reverse that. Do you think you've ever known people who decided NOT to get romantically or sexually involved with a specific gender because of thier philosophy on life, moral or spiritual beliefs, or other aspect of thier character? Hmmm?
This was an error on my part; I should have said that I've never known anyone to get involved with someone of the
same gender for those reasons. Yes, I've known people who have chosen their romantic and/or sexual involvements based on the mores of their religion; and in every case, in accordance with some rather excessively conservative dogma, they chose to avoid gay relationships and go with heterosexual ones. I'm not sure whether I'd call one's adherence to a religion a "personal" philosophy, but that's pointless nitpicking.
In any case, if you know of a religion that encourages its worshippers to participate in homosexual relationships and condemns one to eternal damnation for participating in heterosexual dalliances, then I'll cede you the point.
I guess the point is that people can choose who they date/marry/sleep with, but they can't choose who they
want to do all that stuff with. Barring high-level Enchantment spells, of course. Or something like that. I suspect that I'm meandering here, so I'll stop.
Celebrim said:
What the h3ll are you talking about? Where in the blue blazes did that come from? Are we still having the same conversation?
This came from the notion that if one's romantic inclinations derive from personal philosophy rather than from animal instinct, and if one has a strongly traditionalistic personal philosophy, and if one lives in a society in which homosexuality is not traditional, then one wouldn't be attracted to people of the same gender. Or something. It's been a long day, I'm not thinking too clearly here.
Celebrim said:
In any event, the philosophy I developed for the character was one of extreme intellectual individualism - a sort of radically honest libertarianism. As such, childhood experiences or not, it would have been a complete betrayal of his character to assert that one 'ought not to do something if one wanted to' and I naturally upon reflection assumed that would most certainly include anything considered immoral. I tried to play the character as caught in a tension between believing that everyone had the right to do what they please, and that he had a right to do what he pleased regardless of what other people felt. And I think I succeeded.
This makes things much clearer. I interpreted your prior post to indicate that your character was not actually
attracted to persons of his own gender, and that any such liaisons he might embark upon were solely for the purpose of transgressing against the social order. This is a very different circumstance, and is perfectly reasonable.
In any case, I suspect we'd best just drop this argument for the sake of our poor, sensitive moderators.
- Eric