Population Explosion in Valinor?

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Mumriken

I read your post a bit too fast, overpopulation I don't think is an issue among elves. Humans want to breed because we will die and to carry on our genes is important. For a being that is immortal I think there would be no inner urge to have sex at all. Actually I doubt elves got any pleasure out of sex at all. If sex was as nice as it is for us humans to the fictional elves there would be MANY more elves.

This is actually quite an interesting topic, since there is a possability that humans will find the key to unlock and reverse the aging mechanism. If we find out how to do this then we actually probably would have to castrate people to keep the populations in check. I don't think there is any pressures from the elven society to have sex or maybe it's not even comforting for an elf.

Elves do look very feminine so maybe the males haven't got as much testorone in them as humans do. Male elves tend to have long girly hair and actually look very female. So maybe they are like not sexually active or something....maybe bisexual or asexual?

Tolkien specifically states in Laws and Customs of the Eldar that elves like sex very much however their sexuality and fertility is a bit like a food product which will keep indefinitely unopened but once it is it has a limited life. However they remember "The Days of the Children" as ' the most merry in life' and of course Elvish memories are very vivid

They have few children because they put more of their own strength into their children than mortals and seem to conceive only when they want to (lucky them) and will avoid having children at times of war or other upheaval. As time went on and they peaked in their achievements and they started to diminish and they realised the burden of immortal life they had fewer children. It may well be that Arwen was the last of the Eldar to be born in Middle Earth.

Oh and Tolkien didnot envisage Elves as feminine - he went ballistic when he saw a picture of Legolas that was too girly- it is in the Letters but I can't find my copy at the moment