On second thought this seemed more appropriate under background:Astartes Sexuality

[Lord Anubis]

21st Century liberal lefties: Oh no the astartes perpetuate child slave labour and indoctrinate boy soldiers. They are worse than African Despots! Call Amnesty International!

As opposed to the 21st Century conservative wingnuts who'd sell their children for a dollar and then brag about it to their friends...?

The topic's bizarre enough without adding in backhanded political jabs.

[Denzark]

Oh, do jog on. There's a good fellow.

[madlants]

Well this thread is going downhill fast.

Soooo... Space Marine sex drives...
I always felt like Space Marines were chemical eunichs. They have all the hardware, but all those extra organs/chemicals/etc. in their bodies don't react well with their normal hormones and render them sterile and impotent. This view makes sense from a scientific standpoint. I know it's been briefly mentioned in the fluff that Space Wolves have families, but family doesn't necessarily mean kids, and Fenris is a clan society. You're entire clan is your extended family. I just look at it as the Space Wolves still having ties back home whereas most SMs completely sever all ties when they join the chapter. Besides, when would they have TIME for a wife and kids? The complete absence of sexuality in Space Marine fluff that isn't Slaanesh related actually says quite a lot. Even the Sisters of Battle have BL related fluff about them having romantic relationships, but not SMs. Still, just because their hardware doesn't work doesn't mean they might not occasionally experience certain feelings. In real history, even eunichs still felt certain attractions. However, with how all consuming fighting and training is in SM life, I doubt they have any chance to act on any brief feelings, and the fact that their hardware doesn't work (and I highly doubt SMs take sex ed) would add to this being disregarded. Most of 'em probably don't even know what goes where. The idea that they vent some of those sexual feelings on the battlefield is perfectly reasonable, since the psychological link between sex and violence is well documented.

Now, with Slaanesh worshipers, all bets are off. I'd imagine that getting marked by Slaanesh not only restores activity down below, but probably ties arousal with violence and pain TENFOLD, cause those are the things that Slaanesh is all about. This is why you get thinly veiled fluff references to (horrifying) Slaanesh marine sexy time. Still can't reproduce that way though. I can actually imagine this being a thing Slaanesh worshiping marines are quite proud of. "Loyalists and worshipers of other gods are flaccid! We're the only astartes who are real men! And women, sometimes. Preferably both at once."

And that is absolutely all I feel like writing about what goes on in Space Marine's crotchular regions.

[Just_Me]

Personally, I think this is a very interesting topic. To all those who would rush to say we are "overthinking it" I would say Nabterayl has already provided a response:

?...40K isn't primarily a game I play with toy soldiers. To me, it's primarily a story setting, and I don't think about it any less seriously than I think about any other story setting. I can't imagine I'm the only one for whom that's true.

I share this sentiment and don't really see anything wrong with putting this level of thought into the subject. It happens to be our way to enjoy the hobby and is no more "weird" than "normal" people who obsess over similarly artificial and abstracted aspect of THEIR interests, like fantasy football leagues... If you don't share our perspective that is fine, you enjoy the hobby your way and let us enjoy it in ours.

In answer to the original topic I agree with virtually all of what you said and would only quibble over wording. I agree that to an Astartes REPRODUCTION is a concept inextricably tied with death. This has been well documented in the background writing. The recovery, preservation, and protection of the progenoid glands is a profoundly sacred and reverential process. We have seen Astartes able to die in peace once they know that their geneseed has been recovered. The concept that they can then "live on" through their genetic heritage is evidently very real and meaningful, much as mortals take comfort in knowing that their legacy will be carried on in their children. At the same time we have seen them profoundly disturbed and horrified at the prospect of their geneseed not being recovered or failing to recover/losing a fallen brother's geneseed. This reaction has always appeared far more significant and visceral to them than really anything else, up to and including defeat, death, or dishonor. It generally appears comparable to how a mortal might react to the prospect of castration or infanticide. It is the inextricable connection between death and reproduction that the original post gets at, although I would suggest that this does not result in the anticipation of death so much as it contributes to the fact that they dot not fear death. Why should they fear death if they know that it is through death that they "reproduce?"

I would however differentiate between the reproductive drive and the motivation for the sexual act and accompanying sexual release. I believe that while it is through death that they satisfy the REPRODUCTIVE drive, the SEXUAL drive is fulfilled in a different form. For me to understand this I think it is necessary to recognize that asexuality is not the absence of a sexual identity but rather is a discreet sexual identity in and of itself. Be it through training, conditioning, chemical modification, or other indoctrination the Astartes sublimate whatever sexual energies/drives they have into their all consuming purpose; combat. Thus their sexual identity, as defined in relationship to the sex act, is asexual. They do not pursue sex in the way we do because their reproductive drive is satisfied in another way and their "sexual release" is achieved through battle. It is my personal belief that this is accomplished through training and indoctrination into the Chapter's unique mythos and identity and may take different forms depending on the nature of that culture.

It is also worth noting in lieu of my use of the term "sublimate" that this term, along with all of the other Freudian defense mechanisms, is often misunderstood and misused creating an implicit impression of referring to something "broken" or "unhealthy." They represent normal healthy processes by which our psyches adjust to the demands placed upon them. It is only when these adaptations have gotten "out of sync" so to speak and begin to cause impairment in other areas of functioning that they are "unhealthy." As such, the relative usefulness vs unhealthyness of any defense mechanism is highly conditional. While in the context of "normal" society and culture might be seen as psychologically damaged, in the context of the Astartes role and culture there is no such issue. Sublimating their sexual energies into their pursuit of martial excellence is extremely "healthy" given their unique situation in much the same way that the hyper-vigilance which manifests as certain PTSD symptoms in returning veterans was an adaptive and probably life-preserving response to the environment in which it formed, it is only when removed from their context that they become maladaptive.

[The Last Lamenter]

Just-me: that was extremely thought-provoking, I had not really given thought to drawing a clear distinction between reproductive and sexual drives, I'll need to develop that one some more.

[Darren Richardson]

well we know we can add Gaunt to that list as well, the most recent book it turned out he had a son after getting it on with a noble lady from Verghive...

Ian Watson and Sandy Mitchell have never been shy about letting commissars and inquisitors get romantically (or otherwise) involved with all sorts of people, so who knows.
As for the procreation through death thing, it's grim and dark.
So i guess it fits the setting perfectly, but that it's likely being over-thought.

[Darren Richardson]

I think some space marines are capable of the emotionial aspects releating to the whole sexual reproduction aspect, as in some books they certainly gain attachments to their serfs some who are clearly stated as being female as in the novel "Legion Of The Damned" the lead character's serf dies and I read between the lines that the way the author wrote the deaths that the space marine clearly felt some deeply personal lost at that death.

I think that the Sexual urges in space marines could vary depending on how the chapter indoctrinate's it members, as each chapter has it's own processes and not all chapters will use all of those.

When reading about the space marines I see many similarities with the old Spartan culture in Greece and with certain levels of lifestyle in the Roman Empire, with younger males being taken under the wing of the older male, the older male would then teach the younger everything from the art of war to sexual techniques, so there is certainly a level of what today we would classify Homosexuality within the space marine culture, but mostly on the emotional level.

As for physicly that's a different story, after all each space marine is given a potent mix of drugs, genteicly engineered organs and artifical hormones, which would almost certainly affect the normal hormonal changes each recruit would normally undergo during his teenage years if he wasn't within the space marines, but lastly think of the physical size of a space marine, typically being describe from anywhere between 7 to 8 feet tall, to use the reproductive organ would be almost impossible on any ordinary women, the poor women would suffer massive hemoriging after the act, after all the reproductive organ is a muscle and the space marine has undergone masive hormone therepy to increase muscle denisity.

Of course overall everyone who goes on about this too long has waaaaayyyy to much time on their hands, myself included!