# Do wizards have sex?



## Pseudoscience-is-Immoral (Mar 8, 2022)

Not necessarily with each other, but sex in general. Are they asexual? Or do they, like 99.9% of Jedi knights, _have_ the desire, but abstain because their sacred order demands it?


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## HALETH✒🗡 (Mar 8, 2022)

Have you read the rules of the forum? 
Tolkien probably didn't even think about it.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Mar 8, 2022)

Well, I don't believe this question amounts to "sexual content", in the usual connotation of the term.

That said, I know of no evidence for sexual activities among the Istari. For one thing, they "appeared in the form of old men" from the very beginning. For another, they were sent to Middle-earth as "messengers", a_ggeloi_, in other words, "angels". I doubt their mission, laid upon them by the Valar, included having sex with anyone.

But I second Haleth in recommending a thorough examination of the Rules thread -- by everyone. 🙂


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## Ealdwyn (Mar 8, 2022)

I'm sure the issue has been explored extensively in fanfic. AO3 might be the place to go.


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## Ealdwyn (Mar 8, 2022)

And don't forget Rule 34


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Mar 8, 2022)

Ealdwyn said:


> I'm sure the issue has been explored extensively in fanfic.


That's a rabbithole I don't personally want to dive down. 😳

I will point out that there are certainly sexual activities in the Silmarillion-- not all of them pleasant -- but it does show that Tolkien thought about the subject. In fact, he informed Clyde Kilby -- much to his surprise-- that he'd "written a couple of sex stories". 

But he didn't show them to him. 😅


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## LadyGaladriel1980 (Mar 8, 2022)

Pseudoscience-is-Immoral said:


> Not necessarily with each other, but sex in general. Are they asexual? Or do they, like 99.9% of Jedi knights, _have_ the desire, but abstain because their sacred order demands it?


What i really love on Tolkiens book is not only, that he describes nature and characteres so good, i also love, that there is no sex scene on his books. If i read about a wizard in a fantasy book, i dont want to know, if he has sex or not, i want to know, what character he had....is he good and brave like Gandalf or weak and getting evil like Saruman.

In my childhood there was good series like "Little house on the prairie" and "Highway to heaven" and "Robin of Sherwood". In this series the people had never sex, but that doesnt matter, because it was good series.
But times have changed since the 1980s.....today it is even in the afternoon very difficult to find series, in which people dont have sex. Im am really bored by sex scenes, because i think, that is a privat thing, and i dont want to watch other people doing their sex. I cant understand, why people want to see in a serie or movie naked people making sex.....for me that is something, that belongs in private, not in TV or cinema.
But today they show in every movie, serie and often in books, sexual scenes, which are not really necessary for the story.
I never think of Gandalfs or Sarumans Sexuality, because i dont care about it, Sexuality is a natural thing, but in our days people speak to much about it, show it to much, and think to much about it...a totally sexualized society...really horrible.


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## Ealdwyn (Mar 8, 2022)

Squint-eyed Southerner said:


> I will point out that there are certainly sexual activities in the Silmarillion-- not all of them pleasant -- but it does show that Tolkien thought about the subject.


Well NoME certainly demonstrates that he thought about Elf reproduction in great detail.



Squint-eyed Southerner said:


> In fact, he informed Clyde Kilby -- much to his surprise-- that he'd "written a couple of sex stories".


I really, really hope those never come to light.


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## Annatar (Mar 8, 2022)

Ealdwyn said:


> I really, really hope those never come to light.



There are a few rumors that they had been found and were leaked to GRR Martin. In fact, it's said to have even been the basis for "A Song of Ice and Fire".









No, I'm just kidding.


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## Halasían (Mar 8, 2022)

> Do Wizards have sex?


Well, it is believed that Alatar and Pallando _are_ pretty close....​


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## Pseudoscience-is-Immoral (Mar 8, 2022)

LadyGaladriel1980 said:


> What i really love on Tolkiens book is not only, that he describes nature and characteres so good, i also love, that there is no sex scene on his books. If i read about a wizard in a fantasy book, i dont want to know, if he has sex or not, i want to know, what character he had....is he good and brave like Gandalf or weak and getting evil like Saruman.
> 
> In my childhood there was good series like "Little house on the prairie" and "Highway to heaven" and "Robin of Sherwood". In this series the people had never sex, but that doesnt matter, because it was good series.
> But times have changed since the 1980s.....today it is even in the afternoon very difficult to find series, in which people dont have sex. Im am really bored by sex scenes, because i think, that is a privat thing, and i dont want to watch other people doing their sex. I cant understand, why people want to see in a serie or movie naked people making sex.....for me that is something, that belongs in private, not in TV or cinema.
> ...


Fearing sex like you do is very unhealthy.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Mar 8, 2022)

Let's avoid personal accusations.


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## LadyGaladriel1980 (Mar 9, 2022)

Pseudoscience-is-Immoral said:


> Fearing sex like you do is very unhealthy.


I dont fearing Sex, i enjoy it, but i think, Sex belongs in private and not everywhere in series, books, movies....our society is totally sexualized. 
I dont want to see Tolkiens elves naked, with a from the sex sweaty skin. For me elves are ethereal, and it is not necessary to show them while they having sex. It is boring to see in all series and movies naked people having sex. That is not important for the story, so there is no reason to show this boring sex scenes everywhere. I love to have Sex, but i dont want to see people having Sex in every Serie and movie, i think it is not normal, when people want to watch when other people make Sex. Why people want to see this in movies and series? For me it makes no sense to watch other people having Sex, actors who are playing sex. Older movies and series didnt show that, they was very much better than movies and series of today.
Peter Jacksons movies are without Sex, and he shows very good how much Arwen and Aragorn love each other. It dont need sex to show how much two characters love eacht other.


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## Ealdwyn (Mar 9, 2022)

There's a general rule for creative writing that you should aim never to write anything that doesn't either move the plot forward or develop character - and I think this is equally appropriate to a visual medium as well as the written word. So if any scene (including a sex scene) isn't doing that, then it should be omitted.

I should clarify that I'm not saying it's _wrong_ to write sex. But if it's not necessary to plot or character, then it's just there for titillation.


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## LadyGaladriel1980 (Mar 9, 2022)

Ealdwyn said:


> I should clarify that I'm not saying it's _wrong_ to write sex. But if it's not necessary to plot or character, then it's just there for titillation.


Sex is something private, and we know, that elves, dwarfes and other people in Middle earth do in private. 
But that is not interesting, i prefer to see Celeborn and Galadriel in their white and grey dresses, looking very etheral. I really dont want to imagine them having Sex, naked with sweated skin. That dont fit to elves, i think, Sex is their private thing and dont belong into movies or series. 
They have a daugher, so we know, they have Sex, but that is not important for the story. That is their private life, nothing else.


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## Melkor (Mar 9, 2022)

LadyGaladriel1980 said:


> Sex is something private, and we know, that elves, dwarfes and other people in Middle earth do in private.
> But that is not interesting, i prefer to see Celeborn and Galadriel in their white and grey dresses, looking very etheral. I really dont want to imagine them having Sex, naked with sweated skin. That dont fit to elves, i think, Sex is their private thing and dont belong into movies or series.
> They have a daugher, so we know, they have Sex, but that is not important for the story. That is their private life, nothing else.


Elven sex even cannot be portrayed as human sex. Elves give it far grate value than humans due.

http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Elven_life_cycle



Pseudoscience-is-Immoral said:


> Not necessarily with each other, but sex in general. Are they asexual? Or do they, like 99.9% of Jedi knights, _have_ the desire, but abstain because their sacred order demands it?


You can't think about wizards as humans. They are practically gods, their mentality is very different and they even don't need physical form, so...


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## grendel (Mar 9, 2022)

Melkor said:


> You can't think about wizards as humans. They are practically gods, their mentality is very different and they even don't need physical form, so...


Not sure I would go down_ that _path; pretty much every Greek myth started with Zeus being unable to keep it in his pants, so....


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## Pseudoscience-is-Immoral (Mar 10, 2022)

LadyGaladriel1980 said:


> I dont fearing Sex, i enjoy it, but i think, Sex belongs in private and not everywhere in series, books, movies....our society is totally sexualized.


Shortly before her death Joan Crawford said almost that exact same thing.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Mar 10, 2022)




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## Annatar (Mar 10, 2022)

Melkor said:


> Elven sex even cannot be portrayed as human sex. Elves give it far grate value than humans due.


They should, since they will be pregnant for 9 years.


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## Melkor (Mar 10, 2022)

grendel said:


> Not sure I would go down_ that _path; pretty much every Greek myth started with Zeus being unable to keep it in his pants, so....


Not all gods are like the Greek gods...


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## LadyGaladriel1980 (Mar 10, 2022)

Annatar said:


> They should, since they will be pregnant for 9 years.


Elves have an other feel of time....for them tis 9 years was the same time, that 9 months for a human woman. 
In my imagination it is like this: A mayfly lives only one day, but for the mayfly this one day feel as long as 80 or 90 years to men. 
And for Elves thousands of years feel as long as like 80 or 90 years human beeings. 
They had all an different lifetime, but for all their liftime feels the same lenght.


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## Melkor (Mar 10, 2022)

LadyGaladriel1980 said:


> Elves have an other feel of time....for them tis 9 years was the same time, that 9 months for a human woman.
> In my imagination it is like this: A mayfly lives only one day, but for the mayfly this one day feel as long as 80 or 90 years to men.
> And for Elves thousands of years feel as long as like 80 or 90 years human beeings.
> They had all an different lifetime, but for all their liftime feels the same lenght.


1 day for mayfly isn't as 80-90 years for a human. Mayflyes have much longer lifespan (from months to years, depending on species and conditions). They spend most of their lives as nymphs, only their adult life is very short.

I see your point, I just want point fact that mayflies have much longer lifespan than people usually think .


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## LadyGaladriel1980 (Mar 10, 2022)

Melkor said:


> 1 day for mayfly isn't as 80-90 years for a human. Mayflyes have much longer lifespan (from months to years, depending on species and conditions). They spend most of their lives as nymphs, only their adult life is very short.
> 
> I see your point, I just want point fact that mayflies have much longer lifespan than people usually think .


They really have more than a day? The germanword for Mayfly is "Eintagsfliege"; that means, they live only a day, I didnt know, that some species have more. Thank you for that information, that is very interesting.


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## Melkor (Mar 10, 2022)

LadyGaladriel1980 said:


> They really have more than a day? The germanword for Mayfly is "Eintagsfliege"; that means, they live only a day, I didnt know, that some species have more. Thank you for that information, that is very interesting.


All species live more than one day. They live several months or years in the nymph stage in the water. When they metamorph in to the adult (flying mayflies as you know them), they don't have functional mouth parts in this last stage of their lifes. This is reason, why adults live one day or less. Dragonflyes (mayfly closest relative) live in similar way, but adult dragonflyes have mouth parts, so they live much longer (several weeks).

Mayflyes looks most of the life like this:







And adults look like this:


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## Pseudoscience-is-Immoral (Mar 24, 2022)

LadyGaladriel1980 said:


> Sex is something private, and we know, that elves, dwarfes and other people in Middle earth do in private.
> But that is not interesting, i prefer to see Celeborn and Galadriel in their white and grey dresses, looking very etheral. I really dont want to imagine them having Sex, naked with sweated skin. That dont fit to elves, i think, Sex is their private thing and dont belong into movies or series.
> They have a daugher, so we know, they have Sex, but that is not important for the story. That is their private life, nothing else.


So... in your judgment, it's okay to have scenes where Bilbo purchases and cooks murdered fish, but _not_ okay to have a scene showing people having sex?


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## Rōmānus (Mar 24, 2022)

Pseudoscience-is-Immoral said:


> Not necessarily with each other, but sex in general. Are they asexual? Or do they, like 99.9% of Jedi knights, _have_ the desire, but abstain because their sacred order demands it?


Sex is possible as seen with the maia Melian (The Silmarillion) with her husband, the Elf lord Thingol. The Wizards are also maiar, but I do not know that they had sex, however, I’m sure that they can. Even in their old man bodies the Wizards can do this. They look old since they are supposed to come in humble forms (LotR, Appendix B, The Third Age) but they are quite virile physically. When Faramir is on the table pyre Gandalf “leaped up on to the faggots, and raising the sick man lightly he sprang down again, and bore him towards the door.” (The Pyre of Denethor) Gandalf not only jumped atop wood that was piled highly he easily lifted Faramir and jumped down with him in his grasp and carried him to the door. When he does this “Gandalf revealed the strength that lay hid in him.” The Valar are seen to have companions, like Manwë and Varda, and they can take shape and enjoy feasts (The Silmarillion, Of the Beginning of Days). So far as their Order is concerned what is spelled out in Appendix B is that they are not to fight Sauron as if he were their problem to deal with, but to get the people to do so, nor to dominate the Children of Eru.


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## Annatar (Mar 24, 2022)

My guess is that Tolkien didn't actually worry about the sexuality of the 5 Wizards because it ends up being irrelevant.

But I think the following options are possible:

a) Since Tolkien was a Catholic and the Wizards were supposed to be something like saints on a Christian mission (but in the end only 1-3.5 of them really succeeded), they probably suppressed their sexuality because of the higher goal. And this could also apply to those who strayed from their good path, i.e. Saruman, etc., but they may still have suppressed their sexuality out of pure lust for power. But maybe not. Possibly Saruman had playmates from Dunland in the end? Rather unlikely, because they were too primitive and unshaven?  But the Blue Wizards - who knows what they were doing in the East? There are also contradictory statements from Tolkien, whether they remained faithful to their mission or went crazy analogous to Saruman. If I remember correctly, Tolkien once speculated that the Blue Wizards established their own magical cults. Perhaps part of it was sexual rituals? Later, however, Tolkien said that Sauron might have had more success without their good work in the East.

b) Their bodies were already from the beginning too old for sexual activities, i.e. they were actually impotent, and even if they might have found women attractive, it would not have worked "technically" any more. Their physical superpowers, which did not correspond to their age, were only possible for such purposes, which were intended by the Valar for their mission. (It should also be remembered that when Gandalf returned as Gandalf the White, he had even more special powers than Gandalf the Grey.)

c) Despite their embodiment in a human avatar, they remained in sexual respect so far elevated as Maiar, that from their point of view they felt lower beings like humans or elves as no possible, sexual partners - which would be admittedly contradictory to Melian, but maybe she was an exception.

In any case, I think c) is the most unlikely and a) the most probable.
But as I said, the most likely is that Tolkien never thought about it.


If it were up to me, this is what I would say:

- Gandalf, because he was a hardworking nerd and had only good in mind, suppressed his sexuality. If he had time, had a younger body, and Galadriel had been single, then... who knows. 🤣
- Saruman, too, at first, until he was corrupted by the darkness. But even then, for him sexuality in this incarnation was probably rather a waste of time.
- Radagast was like a typical hermit-monk, who was completely absorbed in his love for nature and probably felt only very little sexual pressure or none at all.
- With the two Blue Wizards, however, there are no limits to the imagination. Maybe they were ascetic, maybe they had strange cults where sex played a role, maybe something else entirely. In any case, there would be plenty of room for fan fiction or possible cinematic adaptations for the Blue Wizards and their exploits in the East. (By the way, why didn't anyone go to Harad? Or was that possibly also implied?)


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