[davem]

Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man

I consider it a reasonable assumption, given the author's presentation of M-e as a 'pre-historic' version of the primary world. There is no reason to assume that humans in M-e were any different, biologically or emotionally, to those in our world, save as expressly stated. The fact that some humans achieved great longetivity in M-e is not inconsistent with this, given the known M-e 'fact' that such longetivity was capable of diminishment over time.

And one could equally argue - if one accepted that M-e was intended to be our world in some ancient epoch, that homosexuality didn't exist at that time & arose later. But that is to assume a great deal, because M-e is not our world in some historical epoch, but an invention of JRR Tolkien. Therefore the question is, what did he bring into the secondary world from the primary one?

But the sexuality of the vast majority of those characters is not at all relevant to the story and is therefore not addressed at all. Moreover, it may well have been that homosexuality was 'frowned upon' in certain sections of M-e society (as it has been historically, and still is, in certain sections of our society), and so it is reasonable to assume that it would not be mentioned in a fictional 'historical record' of that society.

Yes - & then we have to introduce intolerance & persecution into M-e, & speculate that homosexuals & lesbians in that world suffered at the hands of a bigoted majority, or at least had to cover up their natural inclinations for fear of ostracism. Of course, many of the characters who did not marry, or whose relationships are not mentioned could have been gay - but to speculate is to invent without any evidence. To my mind its simply so much easier to assume that Tolkien invented a world which was entirely people with hetrosexual or asexual beings. That's what Tolkien created. Either that, or he created a world where homosexuals were ostracised or had to lie about their true nature. It seems to me this is actually making M-e a less pleasant place.

In the absence of firm evidence, one way or the other, (which is my point) then it comes down to individual taste. Personally, it doesn't really matter to me whether same-sex relationships existed in M-e or not. But I have no problem if someone chooses to believe that they did, and wishes to participate in an on-line rpg on that basis.

No. But that's not the issue. I could list a whole lot of things that I would have no problem existing in M-e, but that doesn't tell us anything about whether they did exist there or not. And as I said, it seems to me that having homosexuality exist, but driven underground, so that gay individuals were written out of history, is actually a worse scenario than simply assuming that Tolkien created a world where it didn't exist.