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I'm arguing that the humans in Tolkien's world are humans as he conceived them to be – not humans as they are in the primary world. In other words, they are just as much a 'fantasy' race as Elves, Dwarves or Ents. The point of the link was simply to show that Tolkien had thought about Elven sexuality & hence that sexuality per se was not something he didn't think about. He also states elsewhere that Elves are aspects of the human.
My position is that Tolkien's humans are like Tolkien's Elves – an invention. They are not primary world humans transported to M-e. They are inhabitants of that world – the world he conceived & brought into being. Sexual orientation is not equivalent to going to the lavatory. One assumes the latter exists because it is a biological function. We know the characters ate, therefore we assume they excreted waste. Sexual orientation is psychological/genetic.
The question then is, did Tolkien conceive of his humans having that potential - & did that potential ever manifest. I think its clear from the article I linked to & from the Laws & Customs essay, that Elves did not have casual sex, that the sexual act, if consensual, was equivalent to marriage, & that sex within marriage was principally, if not solely, for procreation. Hence, Elves are heterosexual by nature, & asexual by inclination.
Tolkien creates hundreds of characters, scores of them in depth, & yet we never see a single example of homosexual behaviour – or desire. We only see examples of heterosexual behaviour & desire. Its not true that sex is not mentioned in Tolkien's work. Sex plays a part. Celegorm & Curufin attempt to abduct Luthien out of desire. Morgoth lusts for Luthien as well. Beren clearly desires her too. In CoH we have Turin preventing his fellow outlaws committing rape. Sexual desire plays its part in the mythology – but its all heterosexual desire. So, either Tolkien covered up homosexuality, & like some Edwardian prude pretended it did not exist – or, which seems more likely, he invented a world in which it did not exist – whether for moral, ethical or aesthetic reasons is the question. Or maybe it just never occurred to him to include it, to carry it over from the primary world. Whatever the reason, it simply does not exist in M-e as we have it from Tolkien.
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