Question: There were multiple articles about sexual culture among humans influenced by the gods, but what about the gods themselves? In many pantheons, rape culture is prevalent, but do the goddesses who aren't already protected virgins have to lie down and take it (no pun intended) whenever their man wants it, or are they powerful enough to refuse? Because I can see goddesses like Ishtar ripping someone's nuts off if they tried to force her.
This is actually a lot of questions all hiding in a single wrapper. It's addressing the power levels of gods versus goddesses, sexual culture among the gods, marital obligations in ancient societies and Storyteller roleplaying. That's a lot going on!
The reason we always talk about human sexual culture when questions come up about the gods is that the gods are creations of that human culture; they mirror, embody and exaggerate its practices, customs and virtues. The gods of ancient Egypt are expressions of the thoughts and beliefs of the people of ancient Egypt, and therefore their behavior and morals are similar to those of their people. Godly sexual culture is human sexual culture, just on a larger scale, whether the gods obey the rules or occasionally break them to illustrate why they're so important.
So sexual behavior and relations among the gods and goddesses of the pantheon are going to depend on their culture and its thoughts on the subject, just as we've talked about in previous posts. In most cases, ancient cultures viewed sex as an obligation that the wife had to her husband; if he was interested, it was her job to be up for it, and if he wasn't, she was probably doing something wrong and should get better at making him interested. The same cultural expectation is probably in place for most goddesses; it's not that they don't have options, but they themselves are part of that cultural expectation, so if Sif has a headache when Thor's raring to go, she's probably going to just deal with it rather than risk being what her culture would see as a bad wife. Because ancient cultures, as a generalized whole, believed that being married to a guy included the job of having sex with him when he wanted to, the question of rape wouldn't even occur to them; like taking care of the children or doing the sewing, it's something that the wife was supposed to be doing and that the husband would be fully within his rights to reprimand her for if she tried to shirk her duties. The goddesses themselves come from those cultures and are just as likely to believe that as their husbands.
Which brings us to your question about how "powerful" goddesses are, which is an odd one; what makes you think a Legend 12 goddess is somehow less "powerful" than a Legend 12 god? They have just as much cosmic control over the universe as their male counterparts, so it's not as if they're defenseless against the depredations of these sex-hungry dudes. If Ishtar doesn't feel like having sex with Tammuz (though I suspect that doesn't happen a lot), all she has to do is say no; Ultimate Manipulation makes that a pretty solid no, and the guy who tried to initiate it in the first place probably thinks it was his own idea to suddenly change his mind. If Kali doesn't feel like having sex, she's quite capable of throwing a dude into space to get him to leave her alone. Just as gods can use their powers to try to cajole, trick or force goddesses into sex, so they can use theirs to prevent it (or try to force sex themselves - remember, ladies like the Morrigan, Aphrodite or Ishtar can be just as rape-prone as some of these guys when they decide to take a fancy to a curiously intractible young man).
Which brings us down to the final point, which is how the Storyteller decides to play different gods. Just because a god might be married to a goddess and therefore technically always eligible for sex doesn't mean he's going to be constantly bothering her about it; I doubt either Shiva or Ptah is about to nag the temperamental Kali or Sekhmet when she might put very large holes in them, and of course those gods who genuinely love their spouses probably want their wives to be interested as much as they are. These are gods with personalities and motivations of their own, after all; some of them are probably totally willing to just jump their spouses regardless of what they want, but many of them are compassionate enough to romance them instead or smart enough to pick their battles. Just as your average human husband might bring a wife presents, watch a romantic movie to get her in the mood or notice that she's had a really rough day at work and decide that now is not the best time, so a divine husband may be able to judge the best moments for these kinds of things. Not all gods are soulless rapists who view their wives as objects (though some are, so be prepared for them), so how a god and goddess relate sexually really depends on who they are and what their culture suggests for them.
Ishtar certainly could castrate a dude who was getting too fresh with her, but then again, she might castrate a dude for a lot of reasons. She's scary that way.
It's even funnier when both parties of a divine marriage have equal Epic Manipulation. "Not in the mood" "Yes you are" becomes a night-long battle.
ReplyDeleteHa ha, so true. And Epic Charisma can create or dampen "the mood" very effectively, depending on how it's used and by whom.
DeleteI didn't even mention it in the post above, but historically our games have had much more trouble with dudes who were being pressured to have sex than with ladies. People generally don't press the issue too much with Jioni or Eztli, but poor Sowiljr needs a chastity belt made of Mjolnir some days.
^ Odin and Frigg
DeleteAnd remember, it's never really rape with Gods like Baldur (unless he really doesn't want you to enjoy Ultimate Appearance/Charisma). ^^
DeleteExplosive statement is explosive! *ducks*
DeleteHa ha, explosive indeed. It's entirely possible for a person with Epic or even Ultimate Charisma/Appearance to rape an unwilling victim - sure, it won't come up most of the time, but anyone with a decent enough resist score not to fall at their feet or who has other reasons for not wanting to have sex right now that having nothing to do with being in the mood (i.e., I have to run into battle right now, or I've sustained greivous wounds and it hurts to move, or you're my brother and that's totally illegal, that kind of thing) could be victimized even if the god in question is someone very attractive and/or likeable.
DeleteOf course, most people will just say yes to Baldur, because Baldur's awesome. But it's definitely not impossible for someone to say no, and if he presses the issue, he's just as guilty of rape as an unattractive/aggravating person would have been.
There's also a strong grey area when it comes to using active social powers like Engender Love or Seductive Mien; sure, that may cause the person to cooperate fully "of their own free will", but it wasn't really of their own free will, and those savvy enough to realize after the power wears off that they were forced into cooperation are not likely to be any happier. (Whether or not a character notices something like that, or how they respond to it, of course depends on the players/ST involved, though.)
I was joking of course, being able to mindrape (pun intended) with divine knacks is another form of coercion.
DeleteBeing guilty of rape in the Aesir is exactly what Boys will be Boys knack is made for :P . That's not to say rape is trivial, mostly if it's a married woman or maiden, and should not be used lightly. Unless alienation of the gods is one of your themes.
And it's a whole other thing with captured enemies or thralls. It could make a good clash between the Gods and their Scions.
Oh, definitely - gods are ancient dudes with ancient morals (and lack of morals, as the case may be), and they often don't really worry about those sorts of things nearly as much as modern humanity does. Geoff trying to deal with the casual attitude of the Aesir toward women, especially women of other cultures who don't really count, has been an uncomfortable theme for him, and there's a lot of that suggested or inherent in Scion's setting anyway (for a lot of gods, especially the unpleasant ones, it's unlikely that they're wasting a lot of energy on romancing a mortal legitimately before getting on with business).
DeleteIt's definitely a place where modern Scions (those with normal consciences, anyway) are likely to clash with the gods.
Like Zeus. His modern rap is pretty bad, but in his original myths he more often than not just takes who he wishes if there not Hera, and lets not forget everyone's favorite god Apollo who forced a nymph to transform permanently into a tree to escape being raped by him. I guess the strong goddesses do have a say, especially the warrior women like Sekhmet who regularly eat people, but lesser goddesses (below legend 12) and mortals are fair game. I think a story where Ishtar sexed a guy to death through exhaustion/epic appearance implosion would be...interesting.
DeleteI don't think our group has ever had a Scion game where Rape has appeared in their backstory. But that might be because we've never had a game where the Scions were born specifically to be footsoldiers in the war against the Titans. It's always been the result of Gods and Goddesses letting off some steam in the mortal world, and - whoops, the Titans are free, we're ALL pretty guilty of adultery, let's admit it, let's go awaken our kids!
ReplyDeleteEven Zeus (who in our games is the Dos Equis Most Interesting Man in the World...not literally, but based off of) tends to wine and dine his mistresses, or very powerfully Engender Love them, before he has his way with them and vanishes before his wife finds out.
Things are a lot simpler for mortals - if you have, say, three to five Epic Charisma or Manipulation, you don't even have to use powers to be able to get them into bed pretty effortlessly, and they certainly aren't going to think that you did anything other than be really awesome or persuasive. Even a god who appears as a Legend 2 Avatar is more alluring and dreamy than literally any mortal could possibly be if his stats are maxed (i.e., 5 Charisma, 5 Presence and 1 Epic Charisma); imagine the guy or gal who seems to be able to charm their way through life without ever trying and then double them, and that's going to give you a decent picture of even the most low-Avatar'd god's effects on humans.
DeleteIt's only when Legendary creatures are involved and can therefore have some chance of resisting that it really becomes a consideration. Or when gods who don't have those social stats (hi, Raiden, Tlaloc, Set, Hel et cetera) interact with mortals.
Wow, one of my PCs, an Odinson is also based on the Most Interesting Man in the World. He follows the Wanderer myth mostly, so it seemed appropriate for a human background.
Delete