winebrightruby:

nicstoirm:

doe-eyed-harpy:

I’m not a huge fan of assuming modern understandings of sexuality on gods, but as a bisexual polytheist I find myself feeling surprisingly marginalized in the community. Conversations are very gay v. straight and any challenge to that dichotomy is written off as bigotry (which is ironic).

Yeah, this is where the rhetoric about how the Ye Olde Cultures didn’t have strict gender rules like we do bother me, as a lot of time it’s brought up when someone is going, “I feel like this deity would be bisexual!” or “I have a UPG that this deity is pansexual!” or “I feel like this deity is trans!”

It’s like… Yeah the way we consider sexuality and gender didn’t exist centuries ago–so don’t hold deities to the gender binary–but that doesn’t mean we can’t apply these labels to deities because in present society they might take on those types of labels.

Basically, I’m agreeing. It’s bullshit. 

I agree. We all know tumblr doesn’t handle nuanced conversation well, and when we’re talking about deities and sexuality, nuance is important.

It’s inappropriate/inaccurate, in my opinion, to say “(whatever deity) is gay!” or “(whatever deity) is straight!” or “(whatever deity) is (any orientation)”, because we don’t know and because those terms don’t really apply to non-physical divine entities. But I find it very worthwhile to be able to say “(This deity) has historically shown attraction to more than one gender, so if this deity were a present-day mortal, this deity might be bisexual”. Describing actions attested in mythos and how those might look in modern society is a different thing entirely from making blanket assertions about the internal identity of a deity from a culture that may or may not have even considered patterns of attraction a facet of personal identity.