# Is LOTR really a homoerotic drug fantasy? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 23, 2004, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lotr-really-a-homoerotic-drug-fantasy/235954 "2004-03-23T18:49:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Hamish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a5b964/32.png) [@Hamish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamish)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2004, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lotr-really-a-homoerotic-drug-fantasy/235954/41 "2004-03-24T21:08:55Z")
> [@Spectre of Pithecanthropus](#): > > As far as sexuality in the Western literary tradition is concerned, I didn’t mean to say that it didn’t exist. The _Satyricon_ is homoerotic almost from cover to cover. I am not familiar with Plato’s _Symposium_, but if you say a debate was held as to whether which guy was on top, I’ll concede that that’s a likely homoerotic subtext. But, by your statement, there is a passage in the book that definitely suggests that. I don’t see any such passage in LOTR. Nor do I see anything that could be construed as sexual tension between the members of the Fellowship. A bit of a nitpick here, but I feel it’s relevant: homoeroticism usually means that homosexuality is only hinted at, rather than discussed. I’m not sure if there is a similar word for something that talks about homosexuality openly. Maybe “queer-themed”? The bit in _The Symposium_ I mentioned refers to _The Iliad_. _The Symposium_ itself discusses homosexuality at length, and very openly. Anyway, I didn’t see any homoeroticism in the _books_, just in the movie. > [@](#): > > As far as the absence of sex is concerned, I don’t find that so odd at all. People do sublimate, either because they’re frustrated in their attempts to obtain sex, or because they are distracted by being involved in a tremendous struggle, as is the case in LOTR. That’s one interpretation, but I’m more likely to see it as a product of its time. Books aimed at teenagers and pre-teens in that era (post-war, pre-sexual-revolution) had to have even the vaguest hint of sex removed. This got quite ridiculous. When a 1968 reprint of a 1932 Nancy Drew mystery came out, a passage was removed because it seemed (to the editors) to be a very vague metaphor for masturbation. > [@](#): > > The Vaginal Eye. It’s an interesting idea, but you’ll recall from the book that the Eye of Sauron was described as being like a cat’s, with a narrow slit for a pupil and ringed with fire. That is how it looks in the cover illustrations of the older editions. The thing in the movie doesn’t look much like a cat’s eye, and I don’t remember it having a ring (I only saw the first two films). ---
**Author:** ![Hamish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a5b964/32.png) [@Hamish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamish)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2004, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lotr-really-a-homoerotic-drug-fantasy/235954/42 "2004-03-24T21:31:02Z")
> [@well he's back](#): > > -I don’t think McKellan or Jackson deliberately put a homosexual subtext into the film. (Maybe I’m being naive here.) I think it just happened due to the attractiveness of the actors and the situations they were in - and the indiviual viewer’s imaginations. Well, I’ve noticed there seems to be a helluvalot of subtext in any McKellan film. The seen in _X-Men 2_ where Iceman comes out to his parents as a mutant is right out of one of those coming-out-to-your-parents books for gay teenagers. And then there was a scene near the end of _Apt Pupil_, between McKellan and the homeless guy. As for subtext in general, allow me to bring up the scene in _Ben-Hur_ again to show how these things happen. Gore Vidal was working on that movie’s script, and suggested to director William Wyler that the movie would make more sense if Judah Ben-Hur and Messalah were “more than just friends.” That meant the story would be about a pair of lovers seperated by politics and religion, not just a couple of buddies. Wyler’s decision: “Tell Boyd [Stephen Boyd, who plays Messalah], not Heston.” Charleton Heston is major homophobe, and would never have gone for playing a gay role. But the movie is written, directed, and acted (by Boyd), on the assumption that Ben-Hur and Messalah were gay couple. The only one not in on it is Heston, which produces some very funny results – rent the movie, and watch how the two actors interact, and you’ll see what I mean. Something similiar could have happened in LOTR. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2004, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lotr-really-a-homoerotic-drug-fantasy/235954/43 "2004-03-24T21:34:53Z")
> [@Hamish](#): > > The film industry is practically one giant closet, and if you want to hear about a gay screenwriter talk about deliberately adding homoerotic subtext to _Ben Hur_, rent the documentary _The Celluloid Closet_. Gore Vidal, no less. And as for the relative absence of sexuality in LOTR, I don’t know that that’s due to the sensibility of the 1950s (because Tolkein was writing in Britain, which was less restrained when it came to writing about sex, and also writing for adults, not teenagers or pre-teens) but more to a combination of an absence of sex in the medieval literature Tolkein was using as his model, and Tolkein’s conservative English Catholicism, which, at that time, generally viewed sex as negative. ---
**Author:** ![Hamish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a5b964/32.png) [@Hamish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamish)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2004, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lotr-really-a-homoerotic-drug-fantasy/235954/44 "2004-03-24T21:45:35Z")
> [@Captain Amazing](#): > > …an absence of sex in the medieval literature… Are we reading the same medieval literature? The stuff I have tends to be 90% smut 😛 Granted, I’m mostly familar with Chaucer… I agree that his religious beliefs may have been a factor, though. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2004, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lotr-really-a-homoerotic-drug-fantasy/235954/45 "2004-03-24T22:05:12Z")
> [@Hamish](#): > > Are we reading the same medieval literature? The stuff I have tends to be 90% smut :p. Well, maybe I should say, “An absence of sexuality in medieval literature as seen by the Oxbridge Medievalists in the 1930s and 40s”. C.S. Lewis was seen as controversal for even looking at the medieval concept of love. Sex just wasn’t discussed or analyzed in the Oxford history or literature departments then. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2004, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lotr-really-a-homoerotic-drug-fantasy/235954/46 "2004-03-24T22:05:50Z")
Again, I really don’t care whether there’s homoeroticism in LOTR or not. My _sole reason_ for entering this thread is to challenge SoP’s low-level heterosexism as manifested in his need to tell someone who suggested it to grow up and his sadness at the idea of homoeroticism being inferred. ---
**Author:** ![Hamish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a5b964/32.png) [@Hamish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamish)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2004, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lotr-really-a-homoerotic-drug-fantasy/235954/47 "2004-03-24T22:47:45Z")
> [@Captain Amazing](#): > > Well, maybe I should say, “An absence of sexuality in medieval literature as seen by the Oxbridge Medievalists in the 1930s and 40s”. C.S. Lewis was seen as controversal for even looking at the medieval concept of love. Sex just wasn’t discussed or analyzed in the Oxford history or literature departments then. But doesn’t this bring us back to the literary climate of the period? That in the 30’s and 40’s, some topics were taboo? Granted, the context is somewhat different than the one I initially suggested, but my basic point still stands: the sexlessness of _Lord of the Rings_ is more of a product of its time and place than an attempt at making a psychological point, which is what **Spectre** seemed to be suggesting. ---
**Author:** ![Hamish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a5b964/32.png) [@Hamish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamish)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2004, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lotr-really-a-homoerotic-drug-fantasy/235954/48 "2004-03-24T22:59:06Z")
> [@Otto](#): > > Again, I really don’t care whether there’s homoeroticism in LOTR or not. > > My _sole reason_ for entering this thread is to challenge SoP’s low-level heterosexism as manifested in his need to tell someone who suggested it to grow up and his sadness at the idea of homoeroticism being inferred. I was just trying to remain on topic for once 😉 It was **Spectre of Pithecanthropus** ’s rather extreme reaction that got me into this thread, too, though. I’ve encountered that attitude from people more times than I can count, especially when discussing literature or history. I refer to it as “innocent until proven gay” – the attitude that homosexuality is something that a person can be “damned” of (to use **Spectre** ’s word). **Spectre** has urged people to “grow the f\*ck up” and said how it “saddens” him that anyone would wonder about a relationship in a book. Wondering if there’s a heterosexual relationship in a story never elicits such extreme reactions from anyone. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2004, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lotr-really-a-homoerotic-drug-fantasy/235954/49 "2004-03-24T23:30:38Z")
> [@Hamish](#): > > But doesn’t this bring us back to the literary climate of the period? That in the 30’s and 40’s, some topics were taboo? Granted, the context is somewhat different than the one I initially suggested, but my basic point still stands: the sexlessness of _Lord of the Rings_ is more of a product of its time and place than an attempt at making a psychological point, which is what **Spectre** seemed to be suggesting. Well, yeah, I was just being nitpicky. I agree with you. It does bring us back to the literary, and especially the intellectual climate of '30s and '40s England. I don’t agree with **Spectre** that Tolkien set out to write about sublimation, and I don’t think Tolkien held Freud in high esteem. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lotr-really-a-homoerotic-drug-fantasy/235954/50 "2004-03-25T00:09:41Z")
Whomever I offended with my initial response to the OP, I’m sorry. If your enjoyment of a film is honestly increased by imagining the sexual possibilities, that’s your privilege. I even concede that it’s natural to do so, because we all enjoy the idea of love, romance, and sex, and like to see people getting it. Hooking up, falling in love, getting it on, these are all things that make us happy. I didn’t get that feeling from the OP, which struck me more along the lines of asking what if we didn’t have bellybuttons or something like that. I’m not judging **Nocturnal\_Tick** as a person, since I don’t know him very well as a Doper yet, but that’s just how this particular thread struck me. As basic as sex is, I think it’s necessary to remember that it is not necessarily included in every film and every novel. Given a set of characters and a story we can imagine whatever we want about them, but sometimes what we imagine has no verifiable existence outside the playground of our minds. Hamish said, > [@](#): > > **Spectre** has urged people to “grow the f\*ck up” and said how it “saddens” him that anyone would wonder about a relationship in a book. Wondering if there’s a heterosexual relationship in a story never elicits such extreme reactions from anyone. It would from me, if it were equally gratuitous. ---
**Author:** ![bughunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aeb1de/32.png) [@bughunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bughunter)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lotr-really-a-homoerotic-drug-fantasy/235954/51 "2004-03-25T02:01:32Z")
A long long time ago, in another online life, I once wrote a satirical tabloid news story to post on AOL’s (very active) Tolkein discussion boards. It described the “outing” of Legolas and Gimli’s homosexual relationship, and was hysterically funny. I have long since resigned my AOL subscription, and the hard drive that might have contained a copy died long ago. But if you have an AOL account, and their archives go back 10 years, then maybe, maybe, you could find it… Or maybe you just don’t care. Right. I’ll shut up now. ---
**Author:** ![Beauty\_Personified](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e480ec/32.png) [@Beauty\_Personified](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beauty_Personified)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lotr-really-a-homoerotic-drug-fantasy/235954/52 "2004-03-25T03:38:09Z")
> [@Spectre of Pithecanthropus](#): > > I didn’t get that feeling from the OP, which struck me more along the lines of asking what if we didn’t have bellybuttons or something like that. I’m not judging **Nocturnal\_Tick** as a person, since I don’t know him very well as a Doper yet, but that’s just how this particular thread struck me. I’m not sure I get you. 😕 Someone asks what it would be like if we didn’t have belly-buttons. That would upset you? Why? Such a discussion may not produce much debate, but it would be interesting nonetheless, IMO. Anyhoo… ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lotr-really-a-homoerotic-drug-fantasy/235954/53 "2004-03-25T08:12:17Z")
> [@Draknek](#): > > Sam will kill them if they try anything. The pervy hobbit-fanciers! Regarding the OP: IMO, with the kind of hallucinations the characters see when they slip on the rings, somebody was probably dipping. The hallucinations and the things the characters see, are, in that case, likely intended at least partly to evoke an “I know what you’re talking about” feeling in others who have experimented. Kind of a nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more kind of deal, I imagine. Not quite on the Simpsons level, though (“I haven’t seen a bong since the 60s!”). And yes, the stuff the hobbits smoke all the time is tobacco, although tobacco can be a nudge-nudge, wink-wink euphemism for marijuana. Anyone who’s ever been in a smoke shop should be familiar with this concept: the customer knows it’s not for tobacco, and the shopkeeper knows it’s not for tobacco, but the sign says “tobacco pipes”. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lotr-really-a-homoerotic-drug-fantasy/235954/54 "2004-03-25T14:24:07Z")
OK, so what we have here is… People steeped in 90’s culture: “Its all about drugs/homosexual relationships/whatever else I come up with!” Everyone else: :rolleyes: Am I reading this thread right? ---
**Author:** ![LibrarySpy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f9ae1b/32.png) [@LibrarySpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LibrarySpy)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lotr-really-a-homoerotic-drug-fantasy/235954/55 "2004-03-25T15:18:17Z")
> [@smiling bandit](#): > > OK, so what we have here is… > > People steeped in 90’s culture: “Its all about drugs/homosexual relationships/whatever else I come up with!” > > Everyone else: :rolleyes: > > Am I reading this thread right? I think you’re not giving enough credit to the anti-homosexual cord in the thread. What about the “If Ian McKellan is gay, he’s pushing the gay agenda on any movie he’s in” theme? Anyone can watch the LOTR and see gay subtext _if they want to_. That’s the point of subtext. It’s there for homosexuals like **Otto** and me, and for **Hamish** ’s bishonen-loving girlies. Everyone else can ignore it, because it’s _subjective_ and as **Spectre** keeps pointing out, irrelevant to the plot. As for the historical defense, I’m more on the side of **Otto**. Homosexuality was often [disguised by more socially-appropriate relationship structures](http://www.whoosh.org/issue14/johnson.html). Does it increase my enjoyment of the films? Sure. I hate Tolkien and the fantasy/medieval genre, but I love gorgeous cinematography, good acting, epics, and Faramir. I’m perfectly okay with people who watch the film for other reasons than my own. And, hijacking, the entirety of the X-Men movie franchise is a _metaphor_ for homosexuality, and I believe, entirely meant to be viewed as such. ("Now I think the American people deserve the right to decide if they want their children to be in school with mutants. To be taught by mutants! Ladies and gentlemen, the truth is that mutants are very real, and that they are among us. ") I’m willing to argue that metaphors are different than subtext, that’s why the drug thing makes sense to us all. ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lotr-really-a-homoerotic-drug-fantasy/235954/56 "2004-03-25T15:24:18Z")
> [@Spectre of Pithecanthropus](#): > > What saddens me is that it seems to be the assumption nowadays that if two guys happen to end up together, they’re thought to be gay. … But when straight people make the assumption, it’s as if to say that men can’t have close friendships _without_ being assumed gay. This comment was pretty much criticized by others as being homophobic but I didn’t read it that way. I did not read it as sad because people assume everyone of the same sex who show any kind of affection are gay but that it’s rather sad that people can’t accept the concept of strong platonic love at face value and so must assume that there is something more going on. It seems that people just can’t imagine a friendship where one is willing to go into dangers and risk their life for a friend simply out of platonic love (or familial even, as Pippin and Merry were both related to each other and to Frodo). Or that we can’t imagine a strong platonic friendship/love developing between two people who have shared common dangers and threats. We can’t imagine affection with someone of the same sex without the act of sex being involved or inferred. I don’t think it’s a fear or aversion to homosexuality but a sad commentary on the state of friendships. Don’t most of us have those friendships when we are children? The ones where we risk all sorts of dangers (real or imagined) with our friends and it brings us all the more closer. I remember such things as running up to the door of the neighborhood haunted house with my friends and running back and we survived! Then we hugged and jumped up and down and we were as close as can be and we went off to celebrate with milk and cookies. I remember being afraid of bees but taking a stick and using it to carefully shoo the huge yellow jacket off my friend’s back so it would not sting them and then we both ran like hell and grabbed each other and hugged when we were far enough away. In a child’s mind these things are akin to entering a dark orc filled cave or fighting a balrog and they bring us closer. We are comrades in arms. Later when we discuss and relive these battles, as if they were actual battles, “Hey, remember that time with the bee?” “Yeah, that was great.”, we lock eyes and share a thoughtful and knowing smile glad that our friend was there. I find it sad that we lose these great friendships and apparently lose the ability to believe that those kind of friendships can exist. ---
**Author:** ![LibrarySpy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f9ae1b/32.png) [@LibrarySpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LibrarySpy)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lotr-really-a-homoerotic-drug-fantasy/235954/57 "2004-03-25T15:40:38Z")
**Tiramisu** , interesting point… let me flip it over. I have great friends. Platonic soulmates, that I would gladly give my riches or my kidneys to, and share a foxhole with. Kill for. Whatever was required, and there is a grand adventure/us-against-the-world feel to things, even if it’s, in reality, as benign as shared vacations. I don’t watch movies in order to see what’s depicted in reality, unless it’s a reality I’m unfamiliar with (i.e. _The Dreamlife of Angels_ or _Hate_). However, I am single, and gay. A romantic fantasy in a movie is appealing. It’s something I don’t have, and in LotR, it’s depicted beautifully, on epic scale with sacrifice and earnestness and, we’ll both agree, love. Perhaps it is unfair of me to attack **Spectre** ’s opinion, when, really, it is the same as my own. I’m sad at the thought of something being taken away from me. ---
**Author:** ![Hamish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a5b964/32.png) [@Hamish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamish)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lotr-really-a-homoerotic-drug-fantasy/235954/58 "2004-03-25T16:01:50Z")
> [@Tiramisu](#): > > This comment was pretty much criticized by others as being homophobic but I didn’t read it that way. I did not read it as sad because people assume everyone of the same sex who show any kind of affection are gay but that it’s rather sad that people can’t accept the concept of strong platonic love at face value and so must assume that there is something more going on. Now, see, here’s my problem with this argument. Homosexuality = sexuality = dirty. No one complains that Aragorn and Arwen are a sad commentary on how men and women can’t be just friends, and still be loyal to each other. If there _were_ subtext in _Lord of the Rings_, would that make the relationship less beautiful somehow? Besides, it’s not like gay people aren’t aware of the existence of friendship, or that we don’t don’t see actors playing “just friends” roles as “just friends.” It reminds me of something the openly-gay historian John Boswell said about the problem of bias and interpreting history, in _Same-sex Unions in Premodern Europe_: > [@](#): > > The problem is further comlicated by the fact that the vast majority of heterosexual people experience intense love relations – both erotic and nonerotic – with the same gender but, consciously at least, have only nonerotic feelings for their own gender. It is easy for them to imagine that gay people mistake nonerotic same-sex feelings for erotic ones, since the latter seem inherently unlikely to them, and they can easily identify with intense nonerotic feelings for their own sex. In fact, however, most gay people parallel heterosexuals in this regard, and experience a range of feelings, both erotic and nonerotic, for their own gender. this means that while simple friendship is always a possible interpreation of any particular same-sex relationship, heterosexuals will be more inclined to assume this is the more likely interpretation, while gay people will only consider it one of two distinct possibilities ---
**Author:** ![bifar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@bifar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bifar)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lotr-really-a-homoerotic-drug-fantasy/235954/59 "2004-03-25T16:05:06Z")
> [@](#): > > I think you’re not giving enough credit to the anti-homosexual cord in the thread. What about the “If Ian McKellan is gay, he’s pushing the gay agenda on any movie he’s in” theme? Can I just second this? People seem to be assuming some big McKellen conspiracy thing here. He’s no Orson Welles; it’s very unlikely that as an actor he would be able to influence the films he’s in to the extent mentioned. It’s true, however, that he did suggest to Sean Astin that he take Frodo’s hand in Rivendell. But he wouldn’t have suggested it if it hadn’t kind of been in character. I personally think people are absolutely right in thinking that Sam and Frodo, and everybody else, in the original Tolkien were homosocial rather than homosexual. In the film, though, it’s a different matter. We get an abnormally attractive and girlie-looking male in the stereotypically gay ‘passive’ role, pursued by practically everybody, including a whole troupe of wildly beardy manly men striding around with massive fuck-off swords; we get another girlie type become firm friends with the top beardy man; we get practically no actual girlies at all; and there’s all kind of mention of rings and shots of big taaaalll towers and deep, deep crevasses and flaming vaginas and nasty sticky, dank holes and big hairy scary females… in short, don’t blame Tolkien, blame that man Jackson and his madly camp visuals. (And I love ‘em all. Even the flaming vaginas.) ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lotr-really-a-homoerotic-drug-fantasy/235954/60 "2004-03-25T16:31:37Z")
> [@Hamish](#): > > Now, see, here’s my problem with this argument. Homosexuality = sexuality = dirty. No one complains that Aragorn and Arwen are a sad commentary on how men and women can’t be just friends, and still be loyal to each other. If there _were_ subtext in _Lord of the Rings_, would that make the relationship less beautiful somehow? > > Besides, it’s not like gay people aren’t aware of the existence of friendship, or that we don’t don’t see actors playing “just friends” roles as “just friends.” It reminds me of something the openly-gay historian John Boswell said about the problem of bias and interpreting history, in _Same-sex Unions in Premodern Europe_: Let me clarify something. In Spectre’s post he made the comment; > [@](#): > > But when straight people make the assumption, it’s as if to say that men can’t have close friendships without being assumed gay. He was not saying gay people aren’t aware of the existence friendship or that it was all the gay people’s fault that everyone was making that assumption and neither was I. **I wonder why it can’t just be seen as a friendship and be as simple as that.** As for the Aragorn/Arwen thing, they were presented as a romantic couple so why would we assume anything else? Frankly, I dislike the assumption some people make that Aragorn and Eowyn had something going on, too. She loved him but it was unrequited, he admired and respected her and that was that. Why does it have to be assumed to be more than presented? As for literature and movies in general, one sees or takes what one wants from it. If the author or director do not state that “this is the way it is and that’s that” and someone wants to see a certain subtext in there and that adds to one’s enjoyment then that’s fine. If someone else prefers to see it another way, that should be fine too. It’s all in the individual’s perception. What I don’t like is when people insist that it can only be seen their way and if you don’t agree you have some sort of prejudice against their view. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lotr-really-a-homoerotic-drug-fantasy/235954.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lotr-really-a-homoerotic-drug-fantasy/235954.md?page=4)