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Originally Posted by davem
Unless as a consequence of unconsciously excluding it he consciously conceived of the inhabitants as either heterosexual or asexual. Bit like if someone painting their house can only choose from red, green or blue paint. If they 'unconsiously' exclude the green, they will end up with a red/blue colour scheme. It might be 'logically possible' for green to have been used, but you still won't find any green in the house. You're unlikely to find bits of the house unpainted because the person 'forgot' to use green paint - they will have covered everything in either red or blue. Hence, in order to bring in some green you'd have to paint over something the owner had chosen to paint red or blue. Hence you'd be changing the colour scheme & making it into one the owner hadn't chosen. The new scheme may be better, look more aesthetically pleasing, but it wouldn't be what the owner intended.
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The argument makes sense, and I think it might as well be the best we can take as pattern to follow on that matter. Nevertheless, you surely wouldn't succeed with this argument against some people. Because you see, as it has been mentioned by some people before, at the moment you start your own creation on the field of Middle-Earth, you are bringing some "green color" in there. If I take the RPG, for example, my own invented character "Bartemius Butterbur of Bree, brother of Barliman", whether he is totally credible and does not contradict anything Tolkien said, is a "green color" already. There is not a bigger problem in saying that a company of adventurers entered Dol Guldur in 2968 than saying that there was homosexuality among Men in Middle-Earth. Unless, of course, being a homosexual would contradict some basic principles in ME, like if we were said that such a thing really doesn't exist. But since we do not, I think, whatever we feel about it, everyone might say that he wants in his game, fanfic, whatever, to have homosexuality in ME and no one can oblige. For those who operate just with the canon, surely not, because Tolkien doesn't mention that, as well as he doesn't mention hydras or helicopters. But from the moment a sub-creator starts to work, it is only up to him to choose what he wants to put there, it's only on him if he feels right to enrich Professor's world with Snow Elves, Acid Dragons, secret plots on the court of Denethor, homosexuality among Men, drug-sellers among Corsairs of Umbar or whatever else. All of that is equally far from the reality presented to us by Tolkien.