Eorzea views on sexuality...

[HakuroDK]

From what I can gather, romance and sexuality aren't really as tightly woven in Eorzea as they are in real life. For me, it seems like Eternal Binding goes beyond mere romance and extends to, like, the highest tier of friendship two individuals can possibly share.

Something tells me, especially from the Lore Panel at the Fanfest, that people take a lot more issue when being involved with other races infinitely much, much moreso than being involved with someone of the same biological sex.

[QuCont]

There really isn't a need to run around flaunting your sexuality, hetero or not, ingame or not.

[Naraku_Diabolos]

You do realize the only reason that, game-wise (NOT lore), for same-sex marriages in the game was in case one of the two people used a Fantasia potion on their character and switched their character's gender to the same as their in-game partner...right? So it would not complicate character data. I don't think it really has to do with anything equality-wise.

[Rennah]

I don't remember where - it's an old topic - but it's basically been confirmed somewhere (by Ferne, I believe) that Eorzea just doesn't make an issue out of sexuality the way our society does. There's actually quite a bit of dialogue and little side things in the game involving same-sex implications, whether of a romantic nature or purely sexual. It's not really touched on heavily because it's just not a thing. By Eorzea standards, it'd be as odd to make a big deal out of a same-sex relationship's existence as it would for a man to run around shouting about how he likes girls, or for someone to seem stunned by that fact. You'd get a bit of funny looks for that, right?

It has absolutely nothing to do with trying to shove any views on anyone and everything to do with building a world that is societally different from our own.

[Ramesses]

First, I know the topic of sexuality can be a doom-laiden thing to bring up on a MMO, but I am hoping that, as this is a Lore-based question, things will not get heated up and things can go maturely.

Anyway, this is something I have been curious for a while now, and a question in last nights Fan Fest stream made me even more curious. Dose the game or any piece of lore give any hints or indication as to what the races of Eorzea views are regarding sexuality? Is there anything in their cultures that may, or may not, be excepting of such things? I remember a female Miqo'te declared an interest in my female character (A quest in Camp Bronze Lake, I think... could be wrong) so LGBT seems to be something that exists in this world, anyway.

As I said, I was watching the Fan Fest stream last night, and the lore translator stated how the player character, coming from outside Eorzea, has a broader view on some things (This was in regards to romantic race relations, I think...)

Ahhhh... OP, seems you have not yet heard about the worldwide fan-induced speculations on the forums surrounding Haurchefant and Francel. Excellent speculations to be honest; and I had to applaud.

By the way, after watching (and listening) to the English new voice-over for Haurchefant in patch 2.3, he is now arguably one of my favourite NPCs.

[Alberel]

Personally, I don't like it when fantasy mediaeval worlds have to be written to fit modern-day notions of political correctness. For example, imagine such pressure forcing a show like Game Of Thrones to drop all use of misogynist imagery and language, simply because modern-day audiences find them offensive.

The irony here is Game of Thrones DOES feature same sex relationships.

A lot of people argue that it's 'political correctness' but what many fail to realise is that same sex relationships have existed throughout history. They have ALWAYS existed. Just because your history textbooks don't talk about it doesn't mean it didn't happen. There are a LOT of things those history books leave out.

If anything any historical setting trying to pretend same sex relationships don't exist is misrepresentative by omission. The only reason companies do it is because it fits societal expectations based on ignorance and saves them any backlash from the bigots.

[TinyRedLeaf]

A lot of people argue that it's 'political correctness' but what many fail to realise is that same sex relationships have existed throughout history. They have ALWAYS existed. Just because your history textbooks don't talk about it doesn't mean it didn't happen. There are a LOT of things those history books leave out.

Same-sex relationships have always been around. Did I dispute that?

What is also true is that such relationships have been frowned upon in most societies throughout history. That's a historical fact. What I actually think about this is besides the point. Sure, there were societies that turned a blind eye to such relationships, just as there were a handful of other societies that even actively practised such relationships. But it's quite a major leap to go from there to the suggestion that just because such relationships existed, therefore societies were okay with it — if they were, we wouldn't have the culture wars that we're dealing with today!

BUT, as I've already pointed out, all this moot. This is an imaginary world, and there is no rule that all imaginary worlds must mirror our historical experience to a T. I'm willing to go either way, so long as the circumstances are backed with a good amount of lore to explain why it turned out that way in Eorzea.

And I have no wish to drag this out any further than necessary. I'm sure no one wants to argue over this in a game forum. I'm not even for or against either side of the debate, in any case.

[FJerome]

Ahhhh... OP, seems you have not yet heard about the worldwide fan-induced speculations on the forums surrounding Haurchefant and Francel. Excellent speculations to be honest; and I had to applaud.

That's how everyone else read it? I mean, there's no arguing that Haurchefant isn't enthusiastically bisexual but I didn't get the feeling he was helping Francel for any reason other than he was obviously being framed and Haurchefant is a man of honour and integrity as well as a gleeful pervert.

[IceMateria]

Same-sex relationships have always been around. Did I dispute that?

What is also true is that such relationships have been frowned upon in most societies throughout history. That's a historical fact. What I actually think about this is besides the point. Sure, there were societies that turned a blind eye to such relationships...

BUT, as I've already pointed out, all this moot. This is an imaginary world, and there is no rule that all imaginary worlds must mirror our historical experience to a T. I'm willing to go either way, so long as the circumstances are backed with a good amount of lore to explain why it turned out that way in Eorzea.

#Rome #Sparta. 'nuff said.

And if it's a fantasy world making history moot, then why drag your crappy opinion to the thread? You literally said that it doesn't matter, so all your posts are literally pointless.

[Lukha]

What is also true is that such relationships have been frowned upon in most societies throughout history. That's a historical fact.

And by 'most of history', you actually mean European history since about 300AD, when the first Roman Emperor to convert to Christianity reigned.

The taboo against homosexuality is mainly rooted in the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Islam, Christianity), which do not exist in Eorzea, or indeed, in most fictional Fantasy worlds; remove this set of religions, and you remove its influence on culture and societal norms. This isn't to say that your fantasy word can't have taboos regarding sexuality if you want it to, but it also means that there is absolutely no reason why it must. You're building a world from scratch; just because the level of technology is approximately the same as Medieval Earth doesn't, and shouldn't, mean that your cultures are as well.

Now more on topic, views on sexuality could differ a good deal between the various Eorzean cultures.

As previously mentioned, considering the structure of Seeker society, same-gender pairings are pretty likely, for both sexual and child-rearing purposes - one male would have a pretty hard time actively helping to raise the children of twenty to fifty females, so the females might pair off to help each other. in the U tribe's village, we see at least one pair of females apparently cohabiting in one of the houses, talking about one's next scheduled quality time with the Nuhn.

Ishgardians, on the other hand, could very reasonably have taboos against homosexual relations built into their culture. Between their harsh environment and being constantly at war, their people are constantly dying; anything that could get in the way of producing children would pose a serious threat to their ability to keep the population up...and that's not even taking into account the potential for plague, famine or other acts of the gods to suddenly wipe out a chunk of the population.

But we DO have in-game evidence of same-sex hanky-panky going in in the ranks...Note that most of our current Ishgardian NPCs are involved with the war effort, however; whether or not their culture gives a whit about sexuality, it wouldn't be unreasonable if such relations were encouraged, or at least tacitly permitted, within the military. we see soldiers of both genders, and people WILL go on having sex no matter how you try to stop them...but imagine the trouble if half your military force were constantly getting pregnant! Far simpler to turn a blind eye to a minor act of heresy, than risk being undermanned at a critical moment.