No Married Persons

[Bêthberry]

Hmm. I don't think Luthien and Beren are free of sexual lust. There is an Oo la la Luthien thread here that discusses their attraction for each other. And Daeron is said to love her and for that love betrayed her and Beren.

Maeglin certainly harbours a cruel lust for Idril. Eol also has a cruel lust.

There are several cases of assault and rape as well and women being forced to submit to marriage against their will. This is in the Silm, of course, not LotR.

I think there are suggestions that Aragorn and Arwen do have a sexual attraction for each other. And Eowyn's attraction for Aragorn is very interesting as it mixes her attraction for his power with something else.

I do think there is the suggestion that as the elves age they lose sexual desire but there is eros in LotR. Not writ large by any means, but it is subtly suggested. Sex was not openly discussed in Victorian literature but there's lots of it in those long tomes. It just becomes represented differently from our modern graphic ways.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Hmm. I don't think Luthien and Beren are free of sexual lust. There is an Oo la la Luthien thread here that discusses their attraction for each other. And Daeron is said to love her and for that love betrayed her and Beren.

Maeglin certainly harbours a cruel lust for Idril. Eol also has a cruel lust.

There are several cases of assault and rape as well and women being forced to submit to marriage against their will. This is in the Silm, of course, not LotR.

Not to mention the "evil lust" of Morgoth as he watched Lúthien dance and sing.
With the exception of Beren/Lúthien, it may be notable that "lust" seems to lead to negative consequences.

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

I think there are suggestions that Aragorn and Arwen do have a sexual attraction for each other.

I would classify those two as a later version of the Beren and Lúthien pairing, as the basic stories are quite similar.

x/d with Legate

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Not to mention the "evil lust" of Morgoth as he watched Lúthien dance and sing.
With the exception of Beren/Lúthien, it may be notable that "lust" seems to lead to negative consequences.

I think it is very interesting that the negative examples of lust certainly are full of issues of power, as Sarumian suggests. It is of course modern legal and psychological definitions of sexual assault that remove rape from sexual desire and describe it not as desire but as power. In a book about the misuses of power, sexual assault would be prime examples of abuse. Wormtongue, as Legate remarks, is a particularly creepy example.

The ability not to impose one's wishes on others is a central value in LotR and that refers to sexual desire as well as other attempts at control. Tolkien really has a remarkably modern view of sexual assault.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

I think it is very interesting that the negative examples of lust certainly are full of issues of power, as Sarumian suggests. It is of course modern legal and psychological definitions of sexual assault that remove rape from sexual desire and describe it not as desire but as power.

I think that is mostly valid in the context of Tolkien, though I would question it in the case of Morgoth. It seems there that the "power" motive might not have been primary, as he already held (as he thought) tremendous power in Middle-earth. In any case, Lúthien would have been, to his mind, completely in his power, being deep inside his stronghold, with countless minions standing between her and escape. In that instance, it appears that a sexual lust was possibly independent of a desire to assert power.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

I think that is mostly valid in the context of Tolkien, though I would question it in the case of Morgoth. It seems there that the "power" motive might not have been primary, as he already held (as he thought) tremendous power in Middle-earth. In any case, Lúthien would have been, to his mind, completely in his power, being deep inside his stronghold, with countless minions standing between her and escape. In that instance, it appears that a sexual lust was possibly independent of a desire to assert power.

There is power and power. Sure, she was inside his stronghold, and seemingly helpless. That's one type of power. But Morgoth has a desire to posess her - not only to have control over her, but more like Ungoliant wanted to devour all Light, and Morgoth wanted to posess the Silmarili. Knowing that you have control is not always enough "power" in this sense.

Saying that, though, it does not mean that there was no sexual lust whatever.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

There is power and power. Sure, she was inside his stronghold, and seemingly helpless. That's one type of power. But Morgoth has a desire to posess her - not only to have control over her, but more like Ungoliant wanted to devour all Light, and Morgoth wanted to posess the Silmarili. Knowing that you have control is not always enough "power" in this sense.

The incident as described in The Silmarillion though would seem to lead away from "possession" as Morgoth's motive.

Then Morgoth looking upon her beauty conceived in his thought an evil lust, and a design more dark than any that had yet come into his heart since he fled from Valinor.

That seems entirely of a sexual nature. The desire to possess was obviously not a new one to Morgoth, and if that had been chiefly in his thought, I don't see why his feelings about Lúthien would have been of such note.

[Aganzir]

Originally Posted by Sarumian

There is also no problem with love that people of the same sex can feel to each other as there is nothing "sexual" in such love. It is a kind of philia or even agape, rather than eros. I would risk to say this about Frodo and Sam as well as about Legolas and Gimli, but in Middle Earth the lack of lust is typical even for relationship between different sexes.

I'm inclined to agree on this regarding Frodo and Sam. There's a deep love between them, and presumably also between Legolas and Gimli, although we know less about that, which also demonstrates itself physically, but I've never been able to see a sexual tension. Not in the book, not in the films (even if the latter did spark discussion about homoerotic elements). I'm happy about it, because it tires me that love is so oftren connected with sexual attraction.

It's true, though, that most lust shown in Tolkien's works is evil. There's also one passage that hasn't been pointed out explicitly but which I find the most outrageous of all - in one of Tolkien's earlier writings, Melkor actually raped Arien because she refused to marry him. Anyhow, pretty much everyone who has been mentioned here as experiencing sexual desire, with the exception of Beren and Lúthien (and elves and their healthy sex lives in general), are evil in one way or another.

[Faramir Jones]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

I think it is very interesting that the negative examples of lust certainly are full of issues of power, as Sarumian suggests. It is of course modern legal and psychological definitions of sexual assault that remove rape from sexual desire and describe it not as desire but as power. In a book about the misuses of power, sexual assault would be prime examples of abuse. Wormtongue, as Legate remarks, is a particularly creepy example.

The ability not to impose one's wishes on others is a central value in LotR and that refers to sexual desire as well as other attempts at control. Tolkien really has a remarkably modern view of sexual assault.

That's very interesting, Bêthberry, considering what Tolkien said about the Elves and their attitudes to sex and marriage in 'Laws and Customs among the Eldar', from Morgoth's Ring, the tenth volume of The History of Middle-earth. In a revised manuscript, which Christopher Tolkien called 'B', he had this to say:

The Eldar wedded once only in life, and for love or at the least by free will upon either part. Even when in after days, as the histories reveal, many of the Eldar in Middle-earth became corrupted, and their hearts darkened by the shadow that fell upon Arda, seldom is any tale told of deeds of lust among them.

In an earlier completed manuscript ('A') on the same topic, he said:

But among all these evils there is no record of any among the Elves that took another's spouse by force; for this was wholly against their nature, and one so forced would have rejected bodily life and passed to Mandos. Guile or trickery in this matter was scarcely possible (even if it could be thought that any Elf would purpose to use it); for the Eldar can read at once in their eyes and voice of another whether they be wed or unwed.

So elves seldom committed sexual misbehaviour, let alone what we would call sexual or sex offences. Also, it was totally against their nature to rape a married elf, the raped elf feeling so violated if it happened he or she would die as a result. I smiled a little when I read how the use of guile or trickery in this area was impossible, elves knowing in the eyes and voice of each other who is married. It would certainly make adultery difficult!

[Aganzir]

Wasn't it also implied that Celebrían suffered sexual violence in the hands of the orcs that captured her, or am I imagining things?

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Aganzir

Wasn't it also implied that Celebrían suffered sexual violence in the hands of the orcs that captured her, or am I imagining things?

Hm. ROTK Appendix A says she

....was seized and carried off (by Orcs). She was pursued and rescued by Elladan and Elrohir, but not before she had suffered torment and had received a poisoned wound.

That event caused her to "lose all delight in Middle-earth", so that she left for the Havens.

And in FOTR, Many Meetings, it says that Elladan and Elrohir rode often with the Rangers, "forgetting never their mother's torment in the dens of the orcs".

I wouldn't say that sexual assault is actually implied in her case, but it's not out of the question.

[Faramir Jones]

According to 'The Council of Elrond' in LotR, Elladan and Elrohir 'rode often far afield with the Rangers of the North, forgetting never their mother's torment in the dens of the orcs'. Later, in 'Appendix A', it is said that during her capture 'she had suffered torment and had received a poisoned wound'.

[Aganzir]

I remember those, but the wide speculation leads me to wonder if there are any further references in HoME. Alas, I don't have copies of the History of the Lord of the Rings.

Still, even if sexual assault was the case, it would be orcs, and thus evil lust again.