Hm....

[selenak]

Talking with alara_r about sexual attitudes (taboos or lack of same, prejudices or, etc.) of some aliens in the Star Trek verse got me thinking about the fanon I have in this regard when it comes to the Centauri and Narn on Babylon 5, and specifically of course of the characters we know best there, and how much it can or can't be extrapolated from canon.



The Centauri are established as polygamous, but in a specifically patriarchal context, i.e. we get examples of a husband and several wives (Londo, Vir in the show finale), but not of a wife with several husbands. Men appear to be able to divorce women, though apparantly there are restrictins when they're the head of a noble family (Londo needs the Emperor's permission to divorce two of his wives); there is no indication a Centauri woman can get a divorce by herself. On the other hand, women aren't presented as completely without rights or restricted. We meet two middle-aged female seers (in season 1 and 3 respectively) who are treated with much deference by the male Centauri they interact with, though in the second case this is also due to the "widow of the former Emperor" status Lady Morella has. All three of Londo's wives as well as Adira and the season 1 seeress travel alone, and again, the fact Lady Morella doesn't appears to be due to her royal status, not to any idea a woman can't travel on her own. Londo mentions "a matriarch" in his family history. As for rules of fidelity, we can't know whether Londo's indifference to Mariel's affairs is typical for Londo or typical for Centauri marriage in general, or at least the arranged type of marriage the nobility has, so that's open to debate. All of which points to the parallel to the Romans JMS is going for with the Centauri most of the times; as vaznetti once put it, a Roman general going abroad for two years or so would count on his wife to manage his estates at home and have affairs only with his allies, not his political enemies. That type of patriarchy. Now, while the Centauri look almost identical to humans they are biologically different when it comes to sexual organs; the men have six tentacles, three at each side of their chest, while the women have six receptive organs on their backs. (No idea how they manage childbirth.) Vir at one point talks with Ivanova about the different stages of Centauri sex, with one being basically the equivalent of mild petting. It's also worth noting that the goddess of passion is depicted with both male and female organs. So far, so canonical.

Now, in my own fanon, I conclude from this the Centauri probably have no same-sex taboos, and "top" and "bottom" thinking would not apply due to the different assortment, but they might apply hierarchical thinking to how many tentacles are employed during sexual contact. (Vir considers it embarrassing that he never made it past One before Lyndisti, so embarassing he can't discuss it with Londo but talks to Ivanova instead.) Also, there could be prejudices regarding interspecies sex that aren't of the obvious kind, i.e. other species aren't forbidden, but anything that happens, be it between Centauri women and non-Centauri men, or Centauri men and non-Centauri women, or m/m or f/f sex involving non-Centauri parties, isn't seen as "real" sex by conventional Centauri because not all sexual organs are employed. (Much like the fannish cliché that insists only penetration counts. :)) Speaking of perceptions: I had fun letting a Centauri call Garibaldi "feminine" in a story because of the later season baldness, which in a species where women shave their head save for one string of hair in the younger ones would be seen this way.) londonkds once made the point that contraception might be difficult for Centauri women, making the decision to reproduce or not the men's choice, but I hope a species that cultivates the art of poisoning to a high degree has also come up with chemistry that allows the women to prevent getting pregnant via getting themselves a drink/injection/pill first.

By contrast, the Narn as a species seem to be a mostly equal society when it comes to gender. Certainly the Narn women we meet, G'Kar's assistants, are all presented as warriors the way the men are, and then there is the canon about Narn being like penguin in that the men, after the earliest stages of pregnancy, take over the pouchlings from the women and carry them to term. (Canon mpreg, indeed.) We don't know about their marriage arrangements. Na'Toth is somewhere between amused and disdainful, emphasis on the later, about G'Kars thing for human women, and Ko'Dath snarls i hostility when a human man hits on her in the bar, which if you think about it makes more sense as a general Narn attitude towards interspecies sex than G'Kar's does, because the species the Narn had most contact with for the last century were the Centauri, and they were the oppressors. Any contact with a species that occupies your world would be associated with slavery and exploitation. Which is why I think G'Kar having sex with human and Centauri women (we never see him interested sexually in a Narn, not even at a time when he openly day dreams of making flutes out of Centauri bones, whereas he hits on the human Lyta in the pilot, is shown with human women in the s1 finale, presented as eyeing both the human and Centauri dancers with approval in "Born to the Purple" and of course is revealed as to having a long-term affair with Mariel in "Soul Mates"; even Prophet!G'Kar in late s5 still flirts with a Centauri lady-in-waiting - "animal magnetism, what can I say?" - and has his moment with Lyta when she throws her "oh, by the way, I have no pleasure threshold" over her shoulder) hints at a possibly quite disturbing backstory from his youth, when sexual preferences tend to be formed. As I said, the only alien species around then were the Centauri, and if G'Kar imprinted on them as a boy, methinks the consent on young G'Kar's side can have been extremely murky at best, given this was also the time things like his father being crucified for resisting happened.

As to whether the Narn are likely to have same-sex taboos within their own species: I don't think so, but it's certainly open to interpretation, canon-wise, because we have not much to go on. (The only Narn we see interact with each other on a regular basis are G'Kar and Na'Toth during the first two seasons. G'Kar and other Narn get brief scenes, but no regular relationships.) Higher gender equality could be indicating openness to same gender relationships but doesn't have to; after all, the Greek concept of love as best expressed between men went along with an extreme disdain and lack of liberty for women.

Given the canon male pregnancies, I think postulating the Narn probably favour marriages that consist of only two partners instead of poly arrangements isn't far-stretched. (Presumably your partner needs to be in biological sync with you so you can hand over the eggs to him.) They could very well have marriages for same sex couples as well as different gendered ones; when G'Kar is after DNA donations from human telepaths to make the Narn telepathic again, he only suggests sex because of his personal interest, the general idea seems to be that this happens via laboratories, and so the Narn are certainly at a stage where they don't have to couple marriage to the need of biologically reproducing. G'Kar has a canonical threesome in the s1 finale (unless you're convinced he and the scantily clad human women were playing cards), but again, G'Kar might be atypical for the Narn. (Feel free to convince me otherwise, Im not married to the theory.)

Going back to the Centauri, while I - and several fellow Centauriphiles - have happily given Londo an adolescent fling with his old friend Urza Jaddo (aka the one from Knives), interpretations where he spent his entire life until B5 only in heterosexual contacts are as legitimate. What doesn't work for me is a Londo who has a homophobic reaction to the mere idea of m/m relationships (or, come to that, xenophobic reactions to the idea of Centauri-non-Centauri relationships); considering that Londo when drunk and in a great mood tells both Delenn and Garibaldi they are cute ("in an annoying sort of way") and doesn't get upset at Sinclair's joke about kissing G'Kar in the slightest when sober, I think I'm on canonical grounds with this. On the other hand, I don't think that he is genuinenly interested in sexual relationships with non-Centauri, by and and large, and for the most part does prefer women. (G'Kar aside in both categories.) That Centauri traditionalism in Londo goes pretty deep. (One of my favourite examples is that Londo when woken up in the middle of the night and told Cartagia wants to see him takes the time to get dressed first. He's already planning to assassinate the man and considers him a complete lunatic, but I don't think he's lying when he tells Cartagia later that appearing not properly clothed before the Emperor is unthinkable. Mind you, Londo also thinks it's okay to cheat at cards using his tentacle, but that's among non-Centauri.*g*) Which is why in one of my stories I suddenly thought I needed an explanation why Londo would know about where erogenous spots, no pun intended, on Narn are, given that I don't think he had any pre-G'Kar experience in being attracted to one, and the biological difference is big enough you can't just transfer knowledge from your own species. G'Kar, on the other hand, would know the reverse about Centauri - about Centauri women for sure, and the men, well, that leads us back to murky backstories again.

Comments

[misachan.livejournal.com]

Also, there could be prejudices regarding interspecies sex that aren't of the obvious kind, i.e. other species aren't forbidden, but anything that happens, be it between Centauri women and non-Centauri men, or Centauri men and non-Centauri women, or m/m or f/f sex involving non-Centauri parties, isn't seen as "real" sex by conventional Centauri because not all sexual organs are employed.

I wonder if this isn't the attitude about m/m or f/f sex even involving Centauri parties. What two male Centauri can get up to is so different from sex between the men and women that they may well have another name for it. Even if all six tentecles (well, twelve) get involved, they would be used in a way that couldn't be replicated with a woman. When you get down to it, there's not a whole lot that human men and women can do with each other that can't be done by two men or two women. That's not the case with Centauri. (My personal fanon is that m/m sex is considered a bit juvenile and something you're supposed to grow out of, whether everyone does or not.)

I wish we knew half as much Minbari sexual politics.:) Delenn is so atypical we can't use her as a template; it's fairly clear that there's gender equality among the religious caste, but there's no way to tell for sure if that's true across all three (we never even see a female Warrior caste, IIRC). I would imagine that cross-caste sex would be a much bigger deal than m/m or f/f sex.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

What two male Centauri can get up to is so different from sex between the men and women that they may well have another name for it. (...)My personal fanon is that m/m sex is considered a bit juvenile and something you're supposed to grow out of, whether everyone does or not.

Yes, that's my assumption as well. Of course, there would be adult m/m couples, but they're probably discreet about it or are regarded with a bit of condescension, a la "ah, X and Y, yes, well they never grew up". (If they're of the nobility, they'd probably be married anyway for status. I'm presuming if you're a poor Centauri you have far more personal liberty when it comes to marriage, or lack of same.)

I would imagine that cross-caste sex would be a much bigger deal than m/m or f/f sex.

Given what big a deal Brammer's switch from religious to warrior caste was (and how upset about it Delenn still is, with a personal relationship between them hinted), and how important later Neroon's switch from warrior to religious is - yes, that could be likely. Also, what we do know is that they have a very different concept of privacy in terms of sexuality, see all those rituals Sheridan has to go through.

What I think one can make a case for as well: Minbari marriages not being necessarily limited to two, and not in the Centauri sense of having more than one woman but only one man. See Sheridan trying to make a joke out of the Lennier situation with "on earth, we have a saying 'three's a crowd'", and Delenn replying, in seriousnenss, "on Minbar, three are sacred".

[lizamanynames.livejournal.com]

What I think one can make a case for as well: Minbari marriages not being necessarily limited to two, and not in the Centauri sense of having more than one woman but only one man. See Sheridan trying to make a joke out of the Lennier situation with "on earth, we have a saying 'three's a crowd'", and Delenn replying, in seriousnenss, "on Minbar, three are sacred".

YES. Yes, absolutely! Man, everything in this post and its comments makes so much SENSE.

[andraste]

(No idea how they manage childbirth.)

I think we can assume the Centauri birth canal is in the same place as ours (along with the end of their digestive tract) since there's not really anywhere else to put it. It's probably just the sexual organs they keep above the waist.

If G'Kar imprinted on them as a boy, methinks the consent on young G'Kar's side can have been extremely murky at best, given this was also the time things like his father being crucified for resisting happened.

And on the other equally disturbing hand, consider this: G'Kar says that he was fighting the Centauri from a time when he was little more than a pouchling. Allowing for poetic license on his part, he was probably the equivilent of a human teenager when he became a rebel, so he was feeling sexually attracted to the species he was actively trying to kill. I don't really want to think about the kind of thing that might have happened to any Centauri prisoners G'Kar took back in the days he wasn't busy turning their bones into flutes.

Anyway, the trouble with trying to figure out anything about Narn sexuality is that the only example of the species whose personal life we know anything about is a huge pervert *g*. I think it makes sense to assume that Narns in general favour monogamy for biological reasons, and penguins are a good analogy. (As with many humans, and indeed penguins, there is probably a lot of serial monogamy involved.)

Since I imagine a male Narn can only carry one or two offspring in his pouch at a time, it makes little sense for them to impregnate multiple females as a biological strategy. Where would he put the pouchlings? On the other hand, it's possible that Narns might practice polyandry. According to Word Of JMS, Narn female cary their offspring for just three months before giving birth and handing them over to their mate who incubates them for considerably longer. A Narn female with several male mates could produce more offspring than a single partnership. We have no data to suggest that they do anything like this, but it would make a whole lot more sense than polygamy if they do have multi-partner arrangements.

All of which makes me wonder about Narn attitudes toward marriage and fidelity. Human males a prone to get hysterical when they think a woman is trying to pass off another man's child as theirs because they don't want to invest their resources preserving someone else's genes. The huge historical effort many cultures have put into controlling female sexuality is probably partly due to this. How much greater is that biological imperative likely to be for Narn males, who actually carry their offspring and presumably lactate to feed them?

In conclusion: I am frustrated by the lack of data on Narn reproduction and family life!

[selenak.livejournal.com]

And on the other equally disturbing hand, consider this: G'Kar says that he was fighting the Centauri from a time when he was little more than a pouchling. Allowing for poetic license on his part, he was probably the equivilent of a human teenager when he became a rebel, so he was feeling sexually attracted to the species he was actively trying to kill. I don't really want to think about the kind of thing that might have happened to any Centauri prisoners G'Kar took back in the days he wasn't busy turning their bones into flutes.

Point. I had both possibilities as backstory in mind when I wrote the G'Kar/Mariel story for you, and the part where she figures out he must have had sex with a Centauri before and he wonders how fast he can kill her if she says it out loud (which she doesn't, as Mariel is a clever woman) was meant as a hint to this, as was G'Kar's, err, throne room fantasy he wants played out later on.

A Narn female with several male mates could produce more offspring than a single partnership. We have no data to suggest that they do anything like this, but it would make a whole lot more sense than polygamy if they do have multi-partner arrangements.

Hm, yes, you're right. We also don't know whether that century of Centauri occupation has left them with any gender imbalance, though I guess not, given that both genders would have fought with equal vigour, and share the reproduction cycle, so killing more of the men than the women wouldn't have made sense.

The huge historical effort many cultures have put into controlling female sexuality is probably partly due to this. How much greater is that biological imperative likely to be for Narn males, who actually carry their offspring and presumably lactate to feed them?

I could see them placing a traditionally huge weight on fidelity based on this, yes. Though I wonder, would they have a tradition of male wetnurses for other people's children?

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

Human males a prone to get hysterical when they think a woman is trying to pass off another man's child as theirs because they don't want to invest their resources preserving someone else's genes. The huge historical effort many cultures have put into controlling female sexuality is probably partly due to this. How much greater is that biological imperative likely to be for Narn males, who actually carry their offspring and presumably lactate to feed them?

otoh, I think that evolutionary pressures would probably have caused Narn males to develop some inherent biological means of detecting and rejecting a foetus that wasn't their genetic offspring. I'm not sure whether that would have made Narn culture more or less sensitive about fidelity, although it might have caused some unpleasant cultural effects on women whose male partners miscarried for some other reason but who were assumed to have been being unfaithful.