Also I was thinking that homosexuality might be more common in the Imperiums armed forces. They sometimes have to spends months or years isolated from humanity, so its inevitable that something will happen. Hell the higher ups might encourage it as a way to keep the men happy. As long as it doesn't interfere with their combat efficiency then they'll likely not give a ****.

Hate to point this out to ya. But I don't think that the IG are gay. For several reasons: First being in the military before I know that no matter how long you are away from women,(if you lean towards women initially) You can take care of your urges yourself in private manner, trust me on this; Secondly In the gaunts ghosts novels you find out that they have a whole city of eives, children, and loved ones that follow them from warzone to warzone, not to mention the required ladies of the night.

But he was right in one reguard/ In Sparta the Spartains were Gay. They believed that you would fight harder for your lover then your friend. Not saying I agree with it, but there you have it.

LordMunchkin said:

You talk about it like it's something you can turn on or off, or that the environment causes it. There is a big difference between what you've written and the average homosexual relationship. Afterall, we live in a society where there are plenty of the opposite sex around, so it's not like these relationships are forced by circumstances upon people.

Real homosexuality would occur BEFORE the people are recruited and continue through their recruitment and retirement. It won't be 'fallen into' through lack of choices. Sure there may be a higher incidence of it amongst the otherwise heterosexual population (I can only think of prison populations for this), but that would make them bisexual.

Hellebore

Varnias Tybalt said:

I find it inspiringly hypocritical that the individual who spent so much time arguing that sex has no place in a story/does nothing for it feels that his story is improved by making forcible impregnation more sexual, both physically and that it's also the villains porn preference. And here I thought he said sex didn't have any impact.

Hellebore said:

I wouldn't bother too much with such a semantic disctinction. There is no binary relationship between gay/straight, or tripartite relationship between gay/strait/bisexual. Rather, these behaviors exist an a wide spectrum with eachother. Various pressures and tensions can cause these behaviors to arise depending on circumstances. Availablitly is a primary factor, and under normal circumstances men and women will opt for either the gender they prefer or the one society forces them to embrace. Others have such a strong inclination towards one orientation or another that there are few or no circumstances under which they might waver from their preference. Such people represent points on the extremes of that spectrum. How, exactly, the population is distributed along the spectrum is not yet known (it is a hard subject to research).

Gay/Strait/Bisexual are means of self-identification which are unique to recent society, not accurate descriptions of human behaivior.

How would you describe a 'heterosexual' who will spend the rest of their life in prison engaging in sex with other prisoners? What is a woman who is attracted almost exclusively to other women but never acts on that attraction and remains (happily?) married with children for the rest of her life? Is she gay? According to whom? What aboput a man from a very traditional arab culture, who only has sex with other men until the day of his wedding, after which he only sleeps with his wife for the rest of his life? Is he gay? Bi? What part of his life would we examine?

However, there are neurological responses and cerebral structures which could be studied in order to create clear distinctions, but these are not yet understood.

All that said, I imagine -given how long "deployments" are in the Imperial Navy, Imperial Guard (ten years +)- that sex would be pretty common between guardsmen and sailers on the enlisted/conscripted level, although it might be prosecuted mercilessly by the commissariate and the unit priests. Although there is some suggestion that even Imperial Warships and far-flung armies may have populations of women on board, one would suspect them mainly to be for the use of the officers. Perhaps large compliments of prostitutes would be a common feature in Imperial Military Formations...

Don't forget that, table-top models notwithstanding, much of the background material suggests that women also serve in the Imperial Guard and Navy.

That's true, too. And a couple of units in the fluff are mixed-gender (Guant's Ghosts). I've always been under the impression that this is not that common, however. Perhaps I'm wrong.

DocIII said:

No it isn't. Because sex and **** are two totally different things. If you feel otherwise, I recommend you commiting yourself to a psychiatric clinic, because you need help or failing that: a gunshot to the neck...

Varnias Tybalt said:

Sex and **** are different, however it is the sexually/intimately violative aspect of **** that makes it so horrifying.

If you remove the sexual element (i.e. no invovlement of the genital/sexual organs of either party), you are left with any penetrating assault meant to establish dominance. A stabbing is as violative of the physical body, but without the intimate sexual element is somehow percieved as less horrifying than ****.

As you stated, the ovipositior forced impregnation is essentially ****, but this is insufficient for you. You seem to have a need to make it genitial penetration by an inhuman creature watched as snuff porn to reach the impact you desire. Trying to say this has nothing to do with sex, is at best artificial and hypocritical, and at worse delusional.

That's true, too. And a couple of units in the fluff are mixed-gender (Guant's Ghosts). I've always been under the impression that this is not that common, however. Perhaps I'm wrong.

As are the units in the Ciaphas Cain novels.

Further one edition of the IG codex (I'll have to dig through to find which one) had a sidebar saying that Cadian Guard regiments had units of whiteshields made up of the children of serving guard while on deployment and raised in the regiment.

DocIII said:

The genestealer certainly don't percieve it as a sexual act. Rather it works like a parasitic organism, since it isn't only implanting the victim with an embryo but alters the DNA of the victim as well. So while it might be an act of procreation it isn't a sexual act. Genestealers are asexual parasitic species, it is only the human imagination that would make this into an analogy of **** in a disturbing manner. As for the vouyeristic tendencies of the people watching it, they would rather be rapists than simple vouyerists, since they put their victims in the situation where they would get violated by a parasitic organism like a genestealer.

So far this is only a matter of **** and parasitic procreation, not sex. And that my friend, would be the final nail in the coffin of your argument...

Varnias Tybalt said:

1) The perception of the genestealer doesn't matter. Only the perception of the individual's you're trying to affect with the storytelling medium matters (i.e. the players). If it is solely an issue of asexual parasitic procreation then why isn't the ovopositior sufficient? You're the one that has said that violent sexual violation of a woman is what is necessary to establish your intended tone.

2) Let's hear your totally non-sexually related definition of ****.

3) So by your rationale gay **** is a suitable element for advancing a story (b/c according to you its **** not sex), but the general topic of homosexuality is not a viable element for use in story telling? That makes no sense.

I think that one of the main reasons that writer's of Warhammer and Warhammer 40k fiction have avoided including particularly explicit sex scenes is that they are extremely difficult to write well and extremely easy to write very badly indeed. It's just too easy to produce something that's not far above the standard of porn (read any sex scene that James Herbert has written and you'll see what I mean), and I would imagine that most serious authors don't want their work associated with such even if they are aiming for an adult market. If you take as an example the work of Kim Newman/Jack Yeovil - which I would still regard as being about as good as Warhammer fiction got - you will see some extremely mature storytelling that is really quite restrained in it's description of the physical relationship between main players Genevieve and Detleft Sierck, yet still manages to portray how that relationship effects their emotional interaction and character development... and all that.

Now I don't believe that there are many great works of literature that would be enhanced greatly in any way by including more graphic sex. Zombies maybe, but more graphic sex no. Look at the movie adaptions of the graphic novels Watchmen and A History of Violence. Were the sex scenes in either movie benefitial to the story as a whole? I would have to say they were not. In fact, the ridiculous softcore sex involving Nite Owl and Silk Spectre (my gosh the actress who played her was wooden), and the psychotic level of violence employed by them on some muggers in Watchmen were both - in my mind at least - signs that Zach Snyder had missed the point of Moore's original story. A History of Violence included one sex scene that myself and a number of my friends found embaressing and another that I personally found offensive (though I suppose one could argue that the second scene - essentially a **** - was included to show that Viggo Mortenson's character was turning from a caring family man into a total shitbag).

But hey, if you're a gamesmaster then you are free to include as much or as little sex in your games as you want arn't you?

Well this thread has gone to crap. Everyone is basically flailing their thinly veiled political ideals around like its post-election day. Let's just all agree to disagree shall we? What's the worst that could happen? /cue explosion

LordMunchkin said:

Well said. Although I suppose it actually went to crap about 5 pages back. Oh well, its still a more sophisticated level of debate than your average internet sexual/political debate. For that, I pat us all on the back...

I'll admit to being one of the culprits on the last couple of pages. I don't have any particular social or political agenda here, it just irritates me when someone argues from an inconsistant and contradictory position. Sorry.

DocIII said:

1) Why would it not matter?

2) **** isn't about sex, it's about domination of the victim. For instance, convicted rapists that have undergone chemical castration have been noted to find victims anyway and proceeded to **** the victim with a foreign object since their genitalia won't "work properly". So it isn't about sex, it is about domination. Would you wish for this thread to derail even further in me extrapolating further or will you concede to the point I've made?

3) Of course. **** (regardless of the sex of the victim) is a powerful, extreme and in some cases bizarre event, that will certainly spark an innumerable amount of behaviors and reactions in the observer. Sex on the other hand is pretty bland and uninteresting and will not be able to create that giant push in a story that **** would. However **** will certainly be a very narrow pushing factor (because the event can pretty much only cause a certain emotional response), it's not a very versatile tool in that regard. But then again, the emotional response I seek to achieve her is the desired one, hence it is perfectly fitting within the story.

To describe it in simple terms:

Sex will give rise to this reaction: "Oh! Well that pretty much happens every day. Nothing new under the sun..."

A **** on the other hand will be more like this: "Oh my god! That is awful! I think I HATE the rapist!" etc. etc.

Ok, enough with the arguing. No more relitivism, and no more discussion about this topic. All it does is bring people out to start to argue their side of arguments, and it turns into, 'He.She is wrong and god hates him/her for being that way.' To "Your all redneck bigots for believing the bible/old testiment/ blah blah.'

So in order to keep this from growing too far out of hand I am going to ask that mods close it.

Ranek7212 said:

Agree with the sentiment... unfortunately there have been some pretty thinly veiled insults thrown around about intelligence. Geeks don't put up with that... Here's hoping a Flame war doesn't begin...

Zarkhovian_Rhythm said:

Aww, I want my Springer!

JERRY! JERRY! JERRY!

You're all stupid and so's your wife. (e cookies for getting the really bad paraphrasing).

The mods don't really moderate much here, so it will probably be a while before it's locked.

Hellebore