Na'vi Sexuality
 

:P
I was curious since there wasn't much done with Na'vi mating and attitudes toward sexuality. Do they practice sex without Tsaheylu. Or do they take other lovers besides the ones they are bonded with?
Also how do they handle Gay or Lesbian Sex? Being a former Nat. Geo photographer I have sat infront of many chiefs in either Brazil, Africa, American Indian-so on. I know how real tribes are. Gay and Lesbian are mostly tolerated. Indians think they are touched by the Great Spirit. and of course men talk about the women and men talk about the women. And sometimes in a most graphic way...Just wondering if there was any more out there about the lifestyles of the Na'vi...
Would apreciate any info any one could give..Thanks

:awesome:

I don't think we really know any of that.

I think that in order to have ANY factual foundation on the "reality" that was created in the movie, we would HAVE to take our cues FROM what we have in the movie. Otherwise,
we run the very real risk of just creating our own scenario that might as well be a different story about a different species on a different moon if we depart too far from what Camaron wanted in "HIS" reality.
Niri Te

Ha, I had a dream once where I accidentally (long story) made tsaheylu with a female na'vi, and she was horrified and said we must keep it a secret. But yeah, generally I agree with taylorcraft on this one.

Yeah, there isn't so much detail, but I would definitely think that relationships however they want to have them are fine :)
As for tsaheylu, well, sex without it would be possible, but the question is whether they'd want to when they can have something that amazing.

Um.... lol :P

There was some speculation that the Eastern Sea clan is led by a lesbian couple, but this was based on the idea that the spiritual leader is always female, which I don't think is actually stated anywhere.

That would be cool, but assuming that the spiritual leader is always female, would be like assuming that the clan leader is always male, and that is obviously NOT the case with the Eastern Sea Clan.

I'm down with that.

The most I can say is that maybe it varies between clans?

Thanks for the help...By the way is there a Na'vi word for moon...Cant seem to find any.

Tsaheylu and Sexuality
 

Here is a perspective on Na'vi sexuality from someone qualified to make it from a slightly limited, but objective position.
Almost everyone here knows how I was born, and the fact that, at 28 years of age, I corrected the error in my assigned gender that was forced upon my at less than a month old by my parents.
As a result of that history, I have had heterosexual sexual relations both as a Genitalic Male, and as a Genitalic Female.
As a result, I am fully aware of the physical and emotional experiences of each gender during the sex act.
Because of this, after the surgery, and with the memories that I have from sexual relations that I had before the surgery, I had the physical, and emotional sensations of a Female, and the memories of them as a male WHILE having heterosexual sexual relations as a Genitalic Female.
It was FANTASTIC, but NOT the same as Tsaheylu.
Imagine my being able to remember the sensations of "A Sexual partner of the opposite sex", and THEN just TRY to imagine to imagine the depth and breadth of the experience when you ARE experiencing the ENTIRE act from BOTH partners, not just then physical, but the emotional, and spiritual, simultanously, in real time.
Even I have a hard time wrapping my mind around it.
No, I think that the Na'vi would NEVER have the one without the other, and they would bond ONCE, and for LIFE.
Niri Te

We really needed to make this thread?

Actually, while I think that this thread is unnecessary and a dangerously attractive piece of troll-bait, I will say that I think tsaheylu probably causes parts of the brain to change in order to form the permanence that is used to describe it.

I say that because the same thing happens in humans with everyday things; different parts of the brain have more or less dendritic growth (neurons connecting to each other in response to new facts/things being learned) depending on activity; for example, a third grade elementary school student learning multiplication tables is forming new connections between neurons as they memorize more of the table, and this does equate to an increase in density on a physical level.

Now, if we use this example for Na'vi (and it would likely be applicable, since their brain would have to function similarly to ours) we could conjecture that they would have an extra "partition" or lobe of the brain (perhaps under the hindbrain or at the base of it) to accommodate the extra neural mass and resources needed for tsaheylu. When a pair bond is made, something inside this extra lobe could trigger a series of rapid changes in a certain part of their brain that would strongly reinforce a permanent pair bond.

That conjecture about their neural physiology and the highly monogamistic social structure for their society could be used to explain the permanence of bonding between mated pairs.

I have been "on the net" since around 1995, and I have seen the term "Troll" thrown around, but I STILL don't know what a "Troll" is. I think that it is someone who argues with everyone about everything, is that it? If not, someone please tell me.
Sorry that you don't like the thread Raiden, I didn't start it, I only added my unique perspective to it. If someone like myself is too much of a distraction here, let me know, and I will leave, or at the very least, only lurk.
Niri Te

I wasn't aware that biomedical science was powerful enough for it to work like that. I didn't think it was possible to rebuild the brain chemistry that comprehensively.

IMO, it's a lot simpler to think that it's cultural, not physical; the Omatikaya, and tribes related to them, are monogamous, but that it isn't imposed by Na'vi physiology. (Monogamy has a bunch of benefits to do with children, but there's no reason for that to be physically enforced.)