I'm going to disagree with you about most of this. Spira has spent a thousand years living with Sin, which kills a huge proportion of the population. The only way for communities to survive is to have a lot of babies. I can't see Yevon condoning any kind of relationship that doesn't result in reproduction. I'm not saying that Yevon would persecute people in same-sex relationships, because they have bigger things to deal with. Also, they only need one group to persecute at a time, really, and the Al Bhed make a better target than scattered same-sex couples. I think that Yevon would definitely disapprove of same-sex couples, though.
It's true that the games don't mention it in any way, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have some opinion. Yevon doesn't talk about how it hates bandits, either, but I would assume that it isn't all in favor of stealing other people's stuff. The only prohibitions the game does talk about are those necessary to the storyline: machina, non-guardians in the chamber of the fayth, and murder.
I'd be wary of assuming that sexual morality is a unified body that can be transplanted from culture to culture without change. For example, plenty of cultures think that marrying twelve-year-old girls to thirty-year-old men is totally moral. Many Americans would disagree, and yet share the same nudity taboos.
That said, Spira is definitely a place where you can have same-sex relationships without "the world does not accept us!" angst. Dislike, distrust, and even a little hate don't always translate into discomfort and weirdness as easily as they do into shunning and hate. You can write Spira like New York (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/07/nyregion/07marriage.html) as well as Laramie, Wyoming (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard). (As an added bonus, you can do "I am attracted to a woman" without "I must be a lesbian and will never sleep with men again!" if you want to. Our culture is weird about sexuality.)
Really, what I'm saying is that homophobia doesn't always mean threats of violence and people spitting at you in the streets. It can be a lot like the world you're describing. Some people don't care all that much, and some people are slightly revolted by it. (Personally, I think that such revulsion is almost always culturally influenced.) Cid's mostly okay with it, except that he kind of wants Rikku to settle down with a nice boy and start a family. It doesn't require persecution.
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Date: 2006-07-14 05:19 pm (UTC)I'm going to disagree with you about most of this. Spira has spent a thousand years living with Sin, which kills a huge proportion of the population. The only way for communities to survive is to have a lot of babies. I can't see Yevon condoning any kind of relationship that doesn't result in reproduction. I'm not saying that Yevon would persecute people in same-sex relationships, because they have bigger things to deal with. Also, they only need one group to persecute at a time, really, and the Al Bhed make a better target than scattered same-sex couples. I think that Yevon would definitely disapprove of same-sex couples, though.
It's true that the games don't mention it in any way, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have some opinion. Yevon doesn't talk about how it hates bandits, either, but I would assume that it isn't all in favor of stealing other people's stuff. The only prohibitions the game does talk about are those necessary to the storyline: machina, non-guardians in the chamber of the fayth, and murder.
I'd be wary of assuming that sexual morality is a unified body that can be transplanted from culture to culture without change. For example, plenty of cultures think that marrying twelve-year-old girls to thirty-year-old men is totally moral. Many Americans would disagree, and yet share the same nudity taboos.
That said, Spira is definitely a place where you can have same-sex relationships without "the world does not accept us!" angst. Dislike, distrust, and even a little hate don't always translate into discomfort and weirdness as easily as they do into shunning and hate. You can write Spira like New York (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/07/nyregion/07marriage.html) as well as Laramie, Wyoming (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard). (As an added bonus, you can do "I am attracted to a woman" without "I must be a lesbian and will never sleep with men again!" if you want to. Our culture is weird about sexuality.)
Really, what I'm saying is that homophobia doesn't always mean threats of violence and people spitting at you in the streets. It can be a lot like the world you're describing. Some people don't care all that much, and some people are slightly revolted by it. (Personally, I think that such revulsion is almost always culturally influenced.) Cid's mostly okay with it, except that he kind of wants Rikku to settle down with a nice boy and start a family. It doesn't require persecution.