Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Homosexuality in the Forgotten Realms
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="paradox42" data-source="post: 3675163" data-attributes="member: 29746"><p>This is, admittedly, a large snag in my theory. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> I didn't mention it above, only because I wasn't sure how prevalent the phenomenon was- I was only aware of it existing among the native American tribes of the Great Plains and Pacific coastal regions (AFAIK, the actual <strong>word</strong> berdache comes from one of those tribes, though I forget which one exactly). If it was something that occurred among more tribal societies than just those, than we need more explanations.</p><p></p><p>Of course, we know that natural selection favors a trait becoming useful for more than one purpose, and most complex structures have evolved from earlier ones that were used very differently- an example being bird feathers, which evolved from dinosaur scales. Perhaps the berdache phenomenon is a similar "diversification" of male homosexuality. Certainly, it dovetails with the whole "nelly" stereotypical gay man better than my notion of hypermasculinized fighters.</p><p></p><p></p><p>An excellent portrayal of this exists in the movie <em>Little Big Man</em>, one of Dustin Hoffman's lesser-known works. One of the members of the tribe his character is part of is a berdache, and I think they may even have used the term in the movie. It was mostly played for laughs, but taken in its own right the portrayal seems fairly good to me.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Here I think we have a good cultural explanation- the fact is, the recently-advanced suggestions that male homosexuality arises due to an overabundance of testosterone say that what the testosterone does is cause the body to react against it in a backlash, upping estrogen and other female hormones and in the process "feminizing" certain brain structures. Now, most societies have traditionally associated magic and mysticism with females more than with males; this trend is so prevalent across multiple cultural lines that it would be difficult to explain away by invoking traditions of patriarchal societies alone.</p><p></p><p>What if this association of spiritual practice with females is due to certain brain structures which arise far more often in women than in men? If this is the case, then it stands to reason that a male with a "feminized" brain would be more likely to develop these "spiritual structures" than an average male would be. Thus, a clearly "feminine-acting" male as most berdaches traditionally were would be seen by the tribe as a sort of bridge between the female and the male. He'd be a sort of Kwizatz Haderach, to compare with a certain well-known science fiction tale. Being feminine in behavior, his spiritual qualities would be obvious, in these associations- but being male, he would naturally be more impulsive and aggressive than a female would be expected to be, so his pattern of spiritual activity would be different from those of the mystic women in the tribe. Thus, he'd be tapped to fill unique spiritual roles that, literally, nobody else in the tribe would be capable of doing.</p><p></p><p></p><p>It would be surprising if they did not feature berdaches, that much is certainly true! At least, it would be surprising in any campaign run by a DM who is aware of the real-world history of such cultures.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="paradox42, post: 3675163, member: 29746"] This is, admittedly, a large snag in my theory. :) I didn't mention it above, only because I wasn't sure how prevalent the phenomenon was- I was only aware of it existing among the native American tribes of the Great Plains and Pacific coastal regions (AFAIK, the actual [b]word[/b] berdache comes from one of those tribes, though I forget which one exactly). If it was something that occurred among more tribal societies than just those, than we need more explanations. Of course, we know that natural selection favors a trait becoming useful for more than one purpose, and most complex structures have evolved from earlier ones that were used very differently- an example being bird feathers, which evolved from dinosaur scales. Perhaps the berdache phenomenon is a similar "diversification" of male homosexuality. Certainly, it dovetails with the whole "nelly" stereotypical gay man better than my notion of hypermasculinized fighters. An excellent portrayal of this exists in the movie [i]Little Big Man[/i], one of Dustin Hoffman's lesser-known works. One of the members of the tribe his character is part of is a berdache, and I think they may even have used the term in the movie. It was mostly played for laughs, but taken in its own right the portrayal seems fairly good to me. Here I think we have a good cultural explanation- the fact is, the recently-advanced suggestions that male homosexuality arises due to an overabundance of testosterone say that what the testosterone does is cause the body to react against it in a backlash, upping estrogen and other female hormones and in the process "feminizing" certain brain structures. Now, most societies have traditionally associated magic and mysticism with females more than with males; this trend is so prevalent across multiple cultural lines that it would be difficult to explain away by invoking traditions of patriarchal societies alone. What if this association of spiritual practice with females is due to certain brain structures which arise far more often in women than in men? If this is the case, then it stands to reason that a male with a "feminized" brain would be more likely to develop these "spiritual structures" than an average male would be. Thus, a clearly "feminine-acting" male as most berdaches traditionally were would be seen by the tribe as a sort of bridge between the female and the male. He'd be a sort of Kwizatz Haderach, to compare with a certain well-known science fiction tale. Being feminine in behavior, his spiritual qualities would be obvious, in these associations- but being male, he would naturally be more impulsive and aggressive than a female would be expected to be, so his pattern of spiritual activity would be different from those of the mystic women in the tribe. Thus, he'd be tapped to fill unique spiritual roles that, literally, nobody else in the tribe would be capable of doing. It would be surprising if they did not feature berdaches, that much is certainly true! At least, it would be surprising in any campaign run by a DM who is aware of the real-world history of such cultures. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Homosexuality in the Forgotten Realms
Top