Re: New Arvorec words

Aidan Grey sikayal:


>     This was fascinating to me. Excellent background.
> I might suggest one thing, though, for your
> consideration. No matter how anti-gay a culture is,
> there are usually some areas where it persists. Even
> Islamic culture, for example, has a wealth of gay
> poetry from the middle ages. You might think of
> alternate relationships, or "black market"
> relationships, somewhere in your culture.
This is true, and doubtlessly there were homosexuals among the Yivríndi,
and probably in about the same proportions.  (BTW, does anyone know if the
percentages of homosexuals is different in tolerant and non-tolerant
cultures?)  There probably exists Yivríndil gay poetry, but since I'm not
gay I'm not in a big hurry to create it ;-).

>    Perhaps prostitutes have exclusively same sex
> clientele, so that the emphasis on family isn't
> violated on accident. In which case, you'd have some
> inncuous and non-derogatory "secret terms" for gay sex
> and so on. Of course, I'm not terribly familiar with
> Yivrindil society, and a lot of this depends on how
> large or small the culture is. It would have to be on
> the bigger side in order for this to show up at all...
These things are probably true in the major cities, especially, and the
Yivríndi do have cities.  The terms "yísaon/é" are pretty neutral, and so
might be used, and I'm sure that other gay couples get along fine with the
gender-neutral "ayan", meaning "lover".  But I'll think about this.

About family structures in general:  The Yivríndi have two levels of
familial organization.  First the "enna", which is a married couple and
any children living with them.  Children which have left the home are no
longer part of their parents' enna.  However, all people sharing a living
ancestor are part of an "ennura", which is the most important social unit.
The ennura controls most economic and legal functions for its members.
Sex is only sanctioned within marriage, and all marriages are expected to
produce children.  (With those conditions, homosexual marriages are
obviously impossible.)  However, lifelong bachelorhood is fairly common
among the Yivríndi, more common than it is today in America.  I suspect
that a large proportion of such bachelors are secretly gay.  The only real
disadvantage to bachelorhood is that when you get old you have no ennura
and so lack many of the social protections that the ennura offers.

>     Still, regardless, it's really intersting...
Indeed.  I've been fascinated to read others' responses.


Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu

"If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are
perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in
frightful danger of seeing it for the first time."
--G.K. Chesterton

Replies