Sexuality, Gender, and the Supernatural World

The world of Horror Shop is an urban fantasy, and therefor it is constricted by how the real world handles issues of gender and sexuality. However, the supernal races each have their own unique cultures, which each have their own specific worldviews.

In regards to horrorkind, most of their number are asexual--they spawn children by carving off portions of their essence and tossing it into the Pit--the yawning maw of oblivion made manifest. This can be done by a single horror, a couple, or even a small group--though involving more than three horrors in a spawning has a significant chance of creating multiple spawn. For a horror, there's no drive to have spawn--it's either a calculated move to advance oneself and establish a house or an alliance, or an emotional desire to have children. Without sexual desire, most horrors don't form strong human-like attachments to their fellows--relationships are usually friendships at best. However, younger horrors have more human-like emotions and thus often have romantic desires. In horror society, it's seen as youthful folly, but since you can't really control romance, it's permitted, expecting that the horrors involved will grow out of it one day. Because of this, in horror society same-gender relationships are typically treated no differently than hetero-gender relationships. Now an individual horror might have prejudices that are taken from human culture and faith, but such prejudices are typically personal and usually kept close to the chest.

Horrors are rather unique that way, with their general acceptance of LGBTQ individuals among their race--the shadowspawn generally don't care, and they let their members live whatever kind of life they want to live. Other supernatural races are far less accepting. Now for the fey, being living stories, it's all about epic love stories and being as dramatic as possible--and for the fey, conquering prejudice and bigotry can be seen as the perfect romantic tale. Fey adore grand declarations of love, epic quests to prove one's worth, and all that cliched stuff--but they also love a good twist on a story. Thus a queer fey might find their sexuality something that others are rather focused on, but they fey almost as accepting as horrors when it comes to their LGBTQ members. One is of course more likely to encounter bigotry among the fey, for some will embody the stories of antagonists, of those villains met to be conquered or challenges meant to be overcome--but one can also find close friends and champions among the courts of Faerie as well, those willing to stand up and defend true love in whatever form it takes.

Jinn, despite being the children of Chaos, are the most rigid in their social structure. Marriage is typically seen as a political play, a way to tie houses together, cement alliances, as a payment for previous services, and the like. Now jinn treat men and women equally, so it's not like only power men have harems among them--queens and ladies and dames can all a number of husbands wedded to them as a display of their power and influence. Of course, being a queer or trangender jinn puts a kink into the whole "marriage as a political tool" thing, and one is always encouraged to repress such desires for the good of the family. There's a reason quite a few queer jinn run away to the mortal realm to escape the life that awaits them in the Elemental Realms. And you know it's bad when Earth--with all our problems with gender--becomes a refuge.

However, unlike every other supernatural race, the jinn are almost entirely dependent on natural reproduction--Chaos produces fewer jinn than Shadow does horrors, Faerie does fey, or the Spirit World does spirits. Plus, very few humans have ever become a jinn. Every year, dozens of humans are drawn into the Pit and become horrors, hundreds are taken into the wilds and Faerie to become changelings, and thousands of humans become ghosts, but maybe only one or two become a jinn. So the children of Chaos, to remain on equal footing with their supernal rivals, put strong emphasis on having children to ensure the future of Jinnistan.

As for the other races, they tend to generally match their prejudices with the humans they're around. Dragons and giants are recovering from near extinction, so they do lean a bit on their young to at least have some kids to ensure the survival of their species. Therianthropes, being already dual-spirted, tend to be rather accepting of LGBTQ members, and queer shifters are actually encouraged to become seers, shamans, and storytellers. Spirits are much like horrors in their asexuality, though some spirits do embody gendered ideals or sexual topics. The undead and reapers are completely asexual in most cases--though vampires are a notable exception, being very sexual beings who are not afraid to indulge their desires.

All in all, the treatment of LGBTQ individuals usually falls back on the prevailing prejudices of the human culture that the supernatural being is tied to or raised in--and as we see in the world today, humanity still has a long way to go when it comes to sexuality.