#Also the societal trends over centuries are showing signs of increasing collapse between the notions of 'effeminate man' (bad)
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serpentface · 1 month ago
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What's the Wardi cultural take on Akoshos sleeping with/partnering with/marrying other Akoshos?
It's not highly regulated to a degree that there are overwhelming cultural norms about it. There's a lot of societal focus on akoshos being theoretically suitable sexual partners for both men and women due to being dual-gendered, but not to an extent that relationships with One Another are stigmatized.
They also largely get to escape from the most severe concerns about penetrator/penetrated power dynamics because they're not regarded as Men (they're regarded as dual-gendered, and they're a female social class on every practical level), there's no status of manhood to Lose by receiving sexual penetration. The only real thing you see in that department is people assuming that one acts as 'the man' and one acts as 'the woman', but this is largely due to preoccupation with a notion of sex being Penetration With A Penis (and that Penetration With A Penis means that one person is in a Man's Role and one person is in a Woman's Role). But this will not be regarded as unnatural as in same-gender male relations, akoshos will Have to take up a position in this sexual dichotomy if they want to have Real Sex (Penetration With A Penis) with each other, and this is not unnatural and doesn't involve gaining or losing status since they are simultaneously male and female, not men.
So like you might see individual culture critics finding stuff to nitpick about it as their annoyance of the week or a singular Guy here or there who thinks it's weird, but this isn't a widespread norm. The vast majority of people don't give a shit about akoshos having sex with each other. The worst thing you're likely to experience Solely by virtue of being in an akoshos-akoshos relationship is someone asking you (probably with genuine curiosity) which one does the man stuff and which one does the woman stuff.
Akoshos also don't experience Hard expectations for marriage (though there are societal pressures that make marriage an attractive safety net all the same, ESPECIALLY marriage to a man) so unofficial life-partnerships between akoshos are pretty much the Only same gender partnerships between unwed people that are going to go unquestioned. ((Sworn brotherhood is technically a same gender life partnership for men that is Functionally similar to marriage (in that it's a kin-making practice between unrelated adults), but the tradition is Built upon the assumption that both parties will be married to women and that a primary goal of this kinship is to provide security for both parties' wives and children)). Marriage obligations in general are more lax in the economically secure but not Wealthy lower mercantile classes (as obligations to support and perpetuate one's family are universal, but these obligations can be filled simply by having at least One son who can get hitched, and marriages in the lower classes have no political functions and therefore there's less reason to ensure All your children are wed (there's still incentives like dowry, but this is not desperately needed when a family is economically secure)). So akoshos in this class group tend to have a Lot more freedom in terms of their life arrangements and chosen partners (though still experience the limiting frameworks of structural misogyny in other capacities).
The only thing that is out of the picture is akoshos/akoshos marriage. Marriage in this society has a predominantly reproductive function, the concept of reproductively non-viable marriages is generally considered absurd. This is not JUST this culture's form of homophobia, as marriage is a very practical arrangement at its core - both in a reproductive capacity and as bedrock for the patriarchal blood-kinship family system that forms the core social unit. The idea of same gender marriage isn't just absurd because 'ewwww weird' it's like, that Cannot work within this system, it Cannot fill core functions of what a marriage intends to do here, the ways on which marriage and kinship are BUILT makes same gender marriage practically (rather than just socially) untenable.
The sole exception to the 'marriage = reproductively viable" rule is that akoshos can be married to men (which in practice is almost always as a remarriage after a man has secured At Least an heir). This has a Little bit of internal logic here in that they perform predominantly female social roles (thus are suited to being a wife, even if they can't bear children) (and also on practical levels of them having the same legal status as women) but it's really more of a 'this is just how it's always been' kind of thing. A lot of the older pre-Wardi identity dual-gender roles that got mashed together under the 'akoshos' name would have involved marriage to a man as a second wife/concubine, in addition to his primary wife who would bear his children. Men potentially having multiple spouses has not been retained as a cultural practice, but the notion that an akoshos Can be a wife to a man has survived into modern day legal and doctrinal practices around marriage.
So like this being said, marriage as it is legally defined is only between a man and a woman, a man and an akoshos, or a woman and an akoshos. In practice the latter two are comparatively VERY rare- a man/akoshos marriage cannot provide children (though an akoshos can practically fulfill all other obligations and duties of a wife), a woman/akoshos marriage Can provide children (and while akoshos cannot function as a male heir, these children Will take their akoshos-parent's family name (though the wife retains her father's family name)), but akoshos are legally grouped with women in terms of rights and privileges (including being permanently under legal domain of their father unless they have been legally handed off to a male husband) and Cannot provide hard power patriarchal support that this family system is built upon and therefore depends upon, which makes these marriages socio-economically insecure. They can obviously still be a good partner and parent, but this is not the same as having the Legal hard power of a patriarch.
Akoshos marrying each other would be reproductively and socially nonviable, and is treated as a similarly absurd concept to a man marrying a man or a woman marrying a woman. It's just not a part of the marriage and kinship framework, it's not a thing that you can Do.
#Akoshos are also probably like.... 1-2% of the population. Like its an Accepted gendered space but not a large one so it's less#'managed' in a lot of senses#It's actually kind of hard to 'access' the akoshos space to begin with. Like parents look for Signs In Early Childhood and most#akoshos are typically assigned their gender early.#If you don't manage to access this space there's a good chance of being Stuck as a man with any deviance from your expected#gender roles being the HIGHLY unaccepted 'male effeminacy' which is a VERY different concept than (though obviously has tensions With)#being akoshos. A lot of akoshos self-label as adults after losing support from their families in part for being '''effeminate men'''#(this is also kind of the only instance in which gender self-identification occurs on a basis that will be Broadly accepted. Though#this happens in the context of already being detached from one's familial support network and people not knowing you self-assigned)#There are also certainly Some cases where akoshos self-identify as adults and this is accepted by their fathers. For a variety#of reasons but unfortunately often it's going to be like-#'we must have missed something but whatever. glad our kid is actually supposed to be this way and isn't just effeminate'#Also much less likely to be accepted if they're an expected male heir without brothers to take up the role in their stead#And VERY unlikely in upper classes where family members are public figures. If you've been introduced as a man here you're probably#out of luck.#(Like you'll see accusations that adult-assigned akoshos are just pretending in order to disguise being male effeminates)#This position isn't freedom from gender norms or like. The equivalent of an accepted trans identity. It's its own assigned gender#space in an Expanded but strict binary with expanded but strict roles#Also the societal trends over centuries are showing signs of increasing collapse between the notions of 'effeminate man' (bad)#and 'akoshos' (normal). At this point the concepts are still very separate but the current societal trajectory is leaning towards the#akoshos role being phased out of its normalization (in tandem with Wardi culture becoming more intensely patriarchal with#the collapse of Wardi groups into one identity)#Like 600 years ago there was NOT a concept of 'effeminate man' and proto-akoshos roles were a#more central concept that enveloped divergences from expected masculinity. Whereas now the akoshos space is significantly narrower#and the concept of 'effeminate man' exists in tandem as a stigmatized descriptor. And things have gotten to the point of#people claiming that ''effeminate men'' will 'pretend' to be akoshos#The akoshos identity becoming stigmatized/phased out isn't inevitable but the tensions around it are definitely growing#Though there's also a sense that Peak Patriarchy has been hit and you're starting to see people pushing back at these norms in fairly#notable ways. There's not going to be like. A feminist revolution but civilian women getting more political freedoms (while the overall#context stays patriarchal) is a likely outcome which could also have side benefits of relaxing masculinity standards Somewhat
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