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[Birddoggydog]

I think so.

I say this because Dwarves have everything else, from favorite animals (e.g. cows for their haunting moos), drinks (dwarven wine), snacks(some kind of weird multi legged gilled forgotten beast meat) etc... but not as far as I can tell, a favorite sex.

Now don't get me wrong - I'm not saying gay dwarves need the ability to get married, adopt children, have similar tax breaks to other Dwarves etc... except... well... I guess I am saying that.

Additionally I am curious about the Dwarven cultures stance on Abortion.   We've got master medical professionals ("MY LUNGS ARE PUNCUTRED" bubbles the patient, "Oh yes, let me finish this nap, and grab a quick drink, I'll be right over" replies the Dr.).  Why not provide the she-dwraves the ability to control their own reproductive futures.

Think of what Alan Turing would do.

If this has already come up, forgive my ignorance. 

Birdoggydog.

[pisskop]

No point, other than to satisfy the audience, and I do not want it.  Takes up pointless memory.  Dwarves have no sex organs, and reproduce via spores.  Are you gonna tell me some guy (because girls do not produce spores, so not gay females) wants to 'recieve the spores of another man"? 

[Jetman123]

No point, other than to satisfy the audience, and I do not want it.  Takes up pointless memory.  Dwarves have no sex organs, and reproduce via spores.  Are you gonna tell me some guy (because girls do not produce spores, so not gay females) wants to 'recieve the spores of another man"?

Just because they reproduce via spores now doesn't mean that they always will. DF is aiming to be a fairly complete simulator.

However, I am not sure if we can find enough to do with this to be a serious gameplay element. If you did put it in there, you'd probably need social effects, stigmatization, etc etc, and that might be difficult to deal with and touch a nerve with too many folks, some of whom may be suffering from the same situation in their own lives, to say nothing of other triggers. Fantastic racism can make a great gameplay element, but dwarves being socially ousted and mistrusted for liking other people's beards a bit too much would make me instantly want to set fire to my fort, the unempathic bastards.

That being said, homosexual dwarves will probably end up not coming out of the closet due to lack of societal acceptance (like, presumably, most gay people in human history) so one wonders whether it's even worth the trouble of putting in there instead of a simple preference against romance (combined, randomly, with a preference towards getting chummy and spending lots of time around other dwarves). Then, as is always the strength of procedural games like DF, the player can come up with their own story about Urist McClosetedDwarf The Locked Love of Forlornness.

[Birddoggydog]

No point, other than to satisfy the audience, and I do not want it.  Takes up pointless memory.  Dwarves have no sex organs, and reproduce via spores.  Are you gonna tell me some guy (because girls do not produce spores, so not gay females) wants to 'recieve the spores of another man"? 

So.. uh.. yea.  I think that is exactly what I'm saying.... Love is Love man, the implication that all a She-Dwarf wants from a He-Dwarf is his spores is just wrong.  Why would the death of a spouse cause a tantrum spiral if we weren't dealing with serious emotional attachment?

Jetman123:  Your approach seems much more sound, however I feel like we're limiting dwarven society.  A dwarven culture will accept a Vampire Monarch, but not a gay tailor?  Seriously?  Your *masterwork* unicorn cloth pants encrusted with *amethyst* were made by a straight dwarf?

Seems a little... um.. denial based.

Maybe *gay* crafts could be more *Fabulous*!
 
Birdoggydog.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Well, ignoring the random rhetoric...

Homosexuals weren't terribly common in the middle ages. Blame modern civil rights movements, blame omnipresent religion, blame what you like, "out-of-the-closet" homosexuals are more common nowadays than in the time DF strives to emulate.

Dwarven love seems to be a practical affair. They sleep in the same bed, have children, and feel sad when the other dies. Homosexuals don't seem to be something that would happen, it's just a different type of friendship which the church probably frowns on.

[Boea]

Eh, there were homosexuals everywhere in the times that weren't the middle ages, somehow; as far as homosexuality, just let them pair up, but still allow them to breed via spores [of course, women get impregnated, and don't fertilize, and men don't get pregnant, and instead fertilize... if your dorfs are still standard sex], the only difference, who they sleep with.

[AutomataKittay]

Well, ignoring the random rhetoric...

Homosexuals weren't terribly common in the middle ages. Blame modern civil rights movements, blame omnipresent religion, blame what you like, "out-of-the-closet" homosexuals are more common nowadays than in the time DF strives to emulate.

Dwarven love seems to be a practical affair. They sleep in the same bed, have children, and feel sad when the other dies. Homosexuals don't seem to be something that would happen, it's just a different type of friendship which the church probably frowns on.

It's more they didn't really had modern concept of homosexuality before around middle/late of 19th century, during medieval/ancient time, it was more blurred. And pretty much limited to buggery, since being a girly man is bad

On-topic, it'd be pretty small adjustment to relationship mechanism, however there'd have to be ethic issues with civilization to allow/disallow it since it -is- an issue that's still being debated over. I don't think in-detail relationship's currently in the work in that area, and you'd have to account for differing view, like ancient greek's frowning on the older man being under the younger man and so on. It's a lot of mechanical complexity, and likely will have to come in once age difference matters or statue of windowed or divocred.

[Birddoggydog]

Dwarven love seems to be a practical affair. They sleep in the same bed, have children, and feel sad when the other dies. Homosexuals don't seem to be something that would happen, it's just a different type of friendship which the church probably frowns on.

My first response is an obvious one.  Church?  What church?  As far as I can tell my dwarves are Pegans.  The diety's worshiped tend to be multiple, not singular, and tend to represent generally naturalist (trees, flavors, emotions etc..) states, rather overarching concepts of god.  Goddesses and Gods (the multiple's being key) exist for many races, and each race worships their own.  As I understand it these are randomly generated each game?  Now my own arguments may fall to this same bias, but why are we assuming that a dwarven culture follows human norms in the first place?

"out-of-the-closet" homosexuals are more common nowadays than in the time DF strives to emulate.

I would argue against this based on scope.  A Vanilla game allows from year 0 to year 1050.  That is 1000+ years of history.  Am I to believe that at no time, EVER in 1000 years of history, did a single homosexual individual come out to their community?  That a greek empire NEVER existed in any of some 100s of randomly generated worlds?  This seems odd considering the frequency with which homosexuality has occurred in our own timeline.  Which is to say, more or less all the time.

So far the best argument I've seen against this is the Gameplay one, which I can't really fault - having gay dwarves doesn't add much game play wise.  Then again neither does having them love osprey leather.  Except.. well.. they do love that osprey leather..

[10ebbor10]

Dwarves have a much longer lifetime than humans, which will reenforce the influence tradition has on society. A society which seems to be very traditionall even now. (Vampire monarch, I know she kills us, but she's the Bloody queen) A thousand year time's is only ten dwarf generations, assuming they reproduce at 100 year age. Also, there's no reason to assume that homosexuality might even exist with dwarves. They clearly have a very different psychology.

Then again neither does having them love osprey leather.  Except.. well.. they do love that osprey leather..

It influences which resources they prefer for artefacts, the quality of the things they make with it, gives happy thoughts and much more.

[AutomataKittay]

Dwarves have a much longer lifetime than humans, which will reenforce the influence tradition has on society. A society which seems to be very traditionall even now. (Vampire monarch, I know she kills us, but she's the Bloody queen) A thousand year time's is only ten dwarf generations, assuming they reproduce at 100 year age. Also, there's no reason to assume that homosexuality might even exist with dwarves. They clearly have a very different psychology.

Then again neither does having them love osprey leather.  Except.. well.. they do love that osprey leather..

It influences which resources they prefer for artefacts, the quality of the things they make with it, gives happy thoughts and much more.

I think generation is closer to 20 years, probably 30. My dwarves raised in fortresses are usually married and having kid by that age, and worldgen generation for dwarves seems closer to 40 to 50 years the few times I've checked legends mode.

Human and dwarves aren't that far apart when it comes to age of maturity ( though, neither are elves or goblins, but they're functionally immortal, if they don't get killed ), dwarves have around 30, 40 years longer natural lifespan than humans. Generations seems to be commonly defined by common/average age of first birthing.

[Deathworks]

Hello!

I think it would be an interesting addition as it also has the potential for more social interaction between the dwarves like uneasiness or grudges. Currently, dwarves are a rather homogenous society with very little prejudice, it seems, and part of the reason, I think, is the lack of features that allow for such divisions. Well, we do have skin colors, but do they vary greatly within a fortress? Preferences for items are too diverse to really make up prejudice borders, so you might only use sexism and maybe prejudices against certain professions (like, for instance, tensions between civilians and military personnel).

As for historic evidence, human sexuality has been rather diverse over the entire length of history. Just think about Ancient Greece and young males...

As for superfluous, the entire physical description of the dwarves is currently superfluous, not having any impact on the game. What difference does it make whether a dwarf has green or brown eyes? Black or brown hair? I personally like to be able to look at the description of the dwarves and envision them based on some of the things there...

Thus, I am in favor of more detail in that area.

Yours,
Deathworks

[G-Flex]

I've asked a question related to this before.

See here: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=30026.msg1088744#msg1088744

Heterosexual marriage, children and all that went in fairly quickly to establish world gen with simple, ongoing histories, and so you'd be able to continue on your possibly isolated fortresses as well.  We've even got a marriage sphere, since gods of marriage are very common.  These days it might look like a political stake driven into the ground, but that's simply not the case.  As for where it goes from here, it's sort of a choice of which realities you want to model, which you want to idealize, which you want to omit, and how they are all prioritized -- I've added lots of physical characteristics now, without racism, and that more or less points toward adding sexual orientations and having them all merge in naturally in every society.

So, it seems that Toady has no problem with implementing it, which is fine by me.

And yeah, it doesn't seem terribly superfluous to me. Personal histories, bloodlines, and personalities are a focus of DF, and sexual orientation (and sexual/romantic behavior in general) is part of that. Maybe a dwarf doesn't get married, maybe they get married to someone of the same gender, or hell, maybe they get married to multiple people. Maybe some elven civilizations have odd web-like communal marriage systems, for all we know, and maybe some races or civilizations have kids normally outside of marriage, or even by accident. Expanding that stuff would be good for the game.

[Jetman123]

Actually, weighing in again, I was about to respond that there's a reason that most cultures frowned on homosexuality, and then I remembered that wasn't true, so there you go. _Some_ cultures frown on it, because it's seen as more normal for a strong man-woman bond - feudalism was one example, where inheritance and social position is _everything_, and so people tended to be judgemental, especially when you add in religion into the mix.

But then you have other cultures like Ancient Greece, where homosexuality was fairly normal. In fact, I've heard tales of homosexual soldiers being looked upon favorably, as their love for their companions - platonic or otherwise - would cause them to be a tighter unit. (Of course, then that gets into a tantrum spiral situation in the middle of combat when your lover dies, but then I realized, too... don't we already have that? It'd be interesting if that became a tradeoff in military structure later.) And in Japan, homosexuality was stigmatized in some areas, but in others, it was looked favorably upon as well, though it was rare due to social pressure. In fact, that's exactly why it was looked favorably upon - if two men love each other, then social position has nothing to do with it at all. It's pure, often purer than most matchups.

One wonders whether this could be a part of civilization generation eventually, whether each Dwarven kingdom has it's own social issues, and whether those social issues cause conflict. Humans and elves in earlier versions kept ending up at war with each other because the humans objected to the elves eating sentient people and the elves objected to human deforestation. Perhaps the humans, uniting under a strong religious front and a patriarchal, lineage-based society, wage war upon the dwarves who dare commit the sin of mutual beard admiring?

[therahedwig]

I think, the most important thing that should be noted here, in relevance to historical accuracy, is that homophobia didn't really seem common outside of Europe, and that in Europe itself the main two cultures that propagated it were the Romans and the Vikings(in both cases because they considered it bad to lower yourself as a man to the level of a woman).
From what I understand the Hebrew community broke their brains over it because a man can't own a man, like they can own women.
(The Christian church is suspected to have appropriated the three cultures above. In a similar sexual note, medieval Christian writings describe the bond between God and the highly religious to be an erotic one)

In Greek culture, however, the notion was that love between men was more pure because they were more real people than women. Both Greece and Japan practised pederasty, where an older man gave 'practical sex-ed' to his student. Then there's China where homosex seemed common and accepted, but I don't recall if there were such a thing as gay marriage.

Finally, if you look at tribal cultures, ones that use a Shaman, Homosexuals and Transgendered people were considered ideal to be Shamans, because they considered them double-souled in their dualistic nature.

One of the things I would like to point out here is how male homosexuality is regarded next to how women are regarded in a culture. I would also like to point out that in the last FotF posts Toady has made, he said that in the design plans, Dwarves have very strong gender equality.

The last thing that I would like to share with you is the Kingsey scale. I also want to note that in the Sims, all sims are just programmed to be bisexual, becoming more homosexual or heterosexual depending on their romantic interactions with other sims of both genders.

Personally, I would like some rudimentary sexual variation in dwarves, because hey, they also have tastes, but I wonder to what extent sexuality can be modelled in dwarf fortress(Transgender dwarves? Asexual dwarves? Pansexual dwarves? And the influence of stds or I guess in DF terms SSs).

[AutomataKittay]

I think, the most important thing that should be noted here, in relevance to historical accuracy, is that homophobia didn't really seem common outside of Europe, and that in Europe itself the main two cultures that propagated it were the Romans and the Vikings(in both cases because they considered it bad to lower yourself as a man to the level of a woman).
From what I understand the Hebrew community broke their brains over it because a man can't own a man, like they can own women.
(The Christian church is suspected to have appropriated the three cultures above. In a similar sexual note, medieval Christian writings describe the bond between God and the highly religious to be an erotic one)

In Greek culture, however, the notion was that love between men was more pure because they were more real people than women. Both Greece and Japan practised pederasty, where an older man gave 'practical sex-ed' to his student. Then there's China where homosex seemed common and accepted, but I don't recall if there were such a thing as gay marriage.

Finally, if you look at tribal cultures, ones that use a Shaman, Homosexuals and Transgendered people were considered ideal to be Shamans, because they considered them double-souled in their dualistic nature.

One of the things I would like to point out here is how male homosexuality is regarded next to how women are regarded in a culture. I would also like to point out that in the last FotF posts Toady has made, he said that in the design plans, Dwarves have very strong gender equality.

The last thing that I would like to share with you is the Kingsey scale. I also want to note that in the Sims, all sims are just programmed to be bisexual, becoming more homosexual or heterosexual depending on their romantic interactions with other sims of both genders.

Personally, I would like some rudimentary sexual variation in dwarves, because hey, they also have tastes, but I wonder to what extent sexuality can be modelled in dwarf fortress(Transgender dwarves? Asexual dwarves? Pansexual dwarves? And the influence of stds or I guess in DF terms SSs).

Your last line brings up interesting part of transgenderism, since there're no real separate role for women and men ( Currently! ), I don't know how it'd work, beyond biological needs that'd not likely to be met at the time period of setting. A lot of historically known transgenderism involves adopting the other gender's role, it's only recently that biological correction through hormones ( improvement might be better term, but I think correction's more fitting for mis-matched things ) was possible.

Of course that's off-rail, due to lack of gender split outside of purely and usually unimportant biological difference for current and expected versions!