View Flat HTML
View Metadata
Search Post
Akibel Mowar is on his way home from the blacksmith's when he spots it. People are shrieking and fleeing from it, which seems reasonable, as it's a fuckoff huge snake with a mirror for a face. A big mirror.
Kib can't so much flee. He can shriek - he can lurch in the direction of the nearest house and try the door - it's locked. He can amble briskly...
He can break into a run when the snake gains on him and fall flat on his face.
And he can get eaten up.
And it's too bright too bright too bright and he flings his arm over his eyes.
+ Show First Post
secondchance
He raises an eyebrow.
"My behavior was inexcusable and I regret it."
"My behavior was inexcusable and I regret it."
secondchance
"Thanks. Next time I am obviously about to say something that will cause people to think I'm disgusting maybe you could warn me with that nifty telepathy feature you have."
He flinches. "I will do so."
"I - are you thinking that I think people acquire contamination through impermissible relationships? And, given that I think that, that my good opinion is still worth courting?"
secondchance
"I have no idea how this taboo works at all. For all I knew it was a 'look don't touch and don't discuss it out loud' rule."
"Do - you want an explanation of the cultural assumptions surrounding our taboo on homosexuality."
Maitimo does not look like he can imagine it ever being useful for any purpose other than currently torturing him.
One assumption which I expect to be extremely foreign to you is that the fundamental purpose of sex is reproduction. Yes, people also have it for fun, but the reason it was created was to drive the creation of new life. People who are therefore having sex outside a life partnership with the person they intend to raise children with are - abusing and diminishing a sacred thing, though not everyone even has intuitions about sacred things so I don't know how helpful that is.
Another assumption is that sex between men is dirty and disgusting. I do not care to speculate on the roots of that one.
Another assumption is that if two men are in a relationship one of them has the advantage of the other in a way that affects our judgment of them outside their relationship - if there's an obvious power differential the dynamic is assumed to follow that, otherwise people will speculate - and giving sexual favors to another person is considered less acceptable than receiving them, if you're doing sort of what you'd be doing with a woman that's most acceptable. That's - asking a man out at a dance is assertive enough that the implication isn't just that he might be attracted to men but that he might be willing to let you use him, which is why people will react by being violently insulted.
I don't think there's any particular basis for any of the cultural assumptions.
One assumption which I expect to be extremely foreign to you is that the fundamental purpose of sex is reproduction. Yes, people also have it for fun, but the reason it was created was to drive the creation of new life. People who are therefore having sex outside a life partnership with the person they intend to raise children with are - abusing and diminishing a sacred thing, though not everyone even has intuitions about sacred things so I don't know how helpful that is.
Another assumption is that sex between men is dirty and disgusting. I do not care to speculate on the roots of that one.
Another assumption is that if two men are in a relationship one of them has the advantage of the other in a way that affects our judgment of them outside their relationship - if there's an obvious power differential the dynamic is assumed to follow that, otherwise people will speculate - and giving sexual favors to another person is considered less acceptable than receiving them, if you're doing sort of what you'd be doing with a woman that's most acceptable. That's - asking a man out at a dance is assertive enough that the implication isn't just that he might be attracted to men but that he might be willing to let you use him, which is why people will react by being violently insulted.
I don't think there's any particular basis for any of the cultural assumptions.
secondchance
Kib takes this all in pretty levelly. I don't have a sacredness intuition but I have some etiquette about how to be confused about it from a polite distance. Would the first one trip me up if I did meet a girl I liked, since I am of a non-reproductive species?
Everyone would be extremely confused about how the first one was supposed to apply to you. But once an assumption takes root it rarely manifests in only the forms corresponding to its actual reason for existing. So. Probably wouldn't be a problem.
If you conduct yourself discreetly I do not care how you live your personal life, he says, still looking miserable, and would hope that we could remain friends, even more miserably.
And I am sorry.
Hopefully forever. We're working on it.
He nods.
"My pleasure." His voice is almost normal. He is still rigidly backed against the nearest shrub.
"I can fake being okay if you'd like and it'll be very convincing but I'm worried that will not actually reassure you. I am not exactly the victim here."