Caesar's Legion & Homosexuality

[Sheepo]

In New Vegas several NPCs make comments to the effect that homosexuality is not only endemic but permissible in Caesar's Legion:

Major Knight: Oddly enough, Legion's a little more forgiving about... friendships.

Cass: Guess you've got a Legion outlook on things. [Confirmed Bachelor speech check]

Veronica: I hear they mount their soldiers as much as they mount their women, so maybe they did keep a little something from the Empire.​

This impression, though widespread, is contradicted by an actual direct witness to Legion life:

Jimmy: A Centurion there chose me as his tent servant. He was handsome, and gentle, most of the time. Said it was our secret, and he'd protect me. Gave me little gifts, stupid things. But Caesar punishes homosexuality with death, and we nearly got caught, and there were suspicions. So when he took me out into the desert... Well, I knew he was going to get rid of me.​

Personally I always found this a little disappointing. It poses no challenges to the player's modern liberal worldview. It fits a little too easily into our moral preconceptions (Legion = homophobes = bad). Would've been more interesting IMO if the only place in the Mojave where same-sex relationships were fully valued/accepted was with the 'bad guys'. Would've humanised the Legion as well. Imagine you kill a Legionary and his BF goes berserk with grief and rage

On a worldbuilding level there's certainly historical precedent for martial societies tolerating or encouraging homosexuality. Any reader of Plutarch's Lives or the Hagakure has some familiarity with this. In a famous passage from Plato's Symposium, one of the speakers, Pausanias, waxes lyrical about the hypothetical virtues of an army composed of male lovers:

And if there were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made up of lovers and their loves, they would be the very best governors of their own city, abstaining from all dishonour, and emulating one another in honour; and when fighting at each other's side, although a mere handful, they would overcome the world. For what lover would not choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning his post or throwing away his arms? He would be ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this. Or who would desert his beloved or fail him in the hour of danger? The veriest coward would become an inspired hero, equal to the bravest, at such a time; Love would inspire him. That courage which, as Homer says, the god breathes into the souls of some heroes, Love of his own nature infuses into the lover.
(Plato's Symposium, translated by Benjamin Jowett)
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Would've been funny if the first time homos became acceptable in Fallout's America was because some Romaboo got too much power

Maybe I just want this because I always found the Legion scouts in their shorts cute..

 

[Iprovidelittlepianos]

This is something I’ve thought about as well. I think Caesar’s official stance on homosexuality (as we hear from non-Legion NPCs in the game, so perhaps this info is inaccurate, though I don’t see why Jimmy would lie about this) is consistent with his ideology of strict gender roles: men are soldiers and women breed soldiers. Men having sex with women creates more bodies for the legion, whereas men having sex with men does not help the Legion at all. But it also makes sense that a nation made up of former tribals would have less hang ups about homosexuality than a nation descended from the presumably Judeo-Christian heteronormative Vault Dwellers. Though Shady Sands was certainly not founded by Judeo-Christian vault dwellers, so it also makes sense that the NCR wouldn’t care much about old world values like that. But then again, any Hindu influence on NCR culture is gone by the time of Fallout 2. Anyway, I’m rambling.

 

[Sheepo]

Good points. If we take antiquity as our model though, homosexuality and natalism are not mutually exclusive. In the ancient world there was immense social pressure on male citizens to have children and continue their lineage, yet homosexual relationships were not generally perceived as a threat to this goal. Socrates had a wife and kids, as well as some kind of a relationship with Alcibiades.

Another consideration is the fact that Caesar's Legion is not an organic society but one almost entirely contrived by Edward Sallow. So it will reflect whatever prejudices Caesar has as an individual.

Makes me wonder though, how much the Legion made Caesar as much as Caesar made the Legion. Like, he had to work with the tribal material given to him. His power is not some pre-existing unlimited force. It's the sum total of the many hundreds of calculations and concessions he would have had to make to seize and maintain his hegemony. No one with real power can afford to be an idealist. I wonder how different the real Legion is from his unadulterated 'vision' for it (if such a thing ever existed—it seems like the ideology evolved to fit the circumstances he found himself in. It's not like he planned to get captured by the Blackfoots).

 

[Hardboiled Android]

The reason Caesar's stance on homosexuality doesn't quite sit right with me is simply because, realistically, allowing homosexual fraternization is not going to lower birthrates. Children in the Legion are not conceived in the context of a standard heterosexual relationship. In the best of scenarios, they're carried by permanent concubines of high ranking Centurions etc. That's probably not the norm, I think we can all imagine the scenarios that account for most conceptions.

Homosexual fraternization would probably not meaningfully detract from concubines, stud farming, or gang rapes. It would just allow the men a little reprieve, build a little camaraderie.

If we want to make it charitable, maybe the prohibition on homosexuality has nothing whatsoever to do with natalism or gender roles. Rather, it is just part of Caesar's attempt to build a total single-minded society. Allowing fraternization, romances, within the ranks allows men to build loyalty to one another over the Legion, same as maintaining any remnant of pre-existing identity. It could also be seen as an undermining distraction, just the same as chems.

The issue with this explanation is, as Sheepo's quote indicates, this practice is not allowed even for Centurions. To my memory, Caesar does allow his Centurions permanent female concubines as a luxury. Perhaps homosexuality would be considered particuarly pernicious and contagious. The scenarios where men and women are together can be much more easily controlled, whereas homosexual relationships have the potential to spread much more freely.

Makes me wonder though, how much the Legion made Caesar as much as Caesar made the Legion. Like, he had to work with the tribal material given to him. His power is not some pre-existing unlimited force. It's the sum total of the many hundreds of calculations and concessions he would have had to make to seize and maintain his hegemony. No one with real power can afford to be an idealist. I wonder how different the real Legion is from his unadulterated 'vision' for it (if such a thing ever existed—it seems like the ideology evolved to fit the circumstances he found himself in. It's not like he planned to get captured by the Blackfoots).

You are absolutely correct, and IMO that's at the core of Caesar's character and his role within the overall narrative. While he is a smart guy and he does have some interesting points, it's all in the service of massive cope.

 

[Sheepo]

If we want to make it charitable, maybe the prohibition on homosexuality has nothing whatsoever to do with natalism or gender roles. Rather, it is just part of Caesar's attempt to build a total single-minded society. Allowing fraternization, romances, within the ranks allows men to build loyalty to one another over the Legion, same as maintaining any remnant of pre-existing identity. It could also be seen as an undermining distraction, just the same as chems.

Interesting point, and one I hadn't considered. Pretty plausible actually. Caesar demands total obedience. All other bonds, all other possible loyalties—familial, tribal, spiritual, etc.—are suppressed. Romantic love would be a natural target as well. The very qualities that Pausanias praised in Eros (its exclusivity and power to inspire dramatic action) would pose a threat to the slavish, single-minded devotion of Legionaries to their dictator. The essential difference between Caesar's Legion and the ancient societies we're discussing is that those societies had a class of citizens who valued their own freedom or libertas. In the Legion, on the other hand, everyone is a slave.

The concubine thing does seem to raise questions though. Maybe the inequality of the relationship divests it of much subversive potential. Although the men might genuinely fall in love with their concubines, their access to the romantic side of human life is entirely contingent on the social structure of the Legion itself. I.e. they owe it to Caesar and the rigid social forces of his Legion and to the privileged position they've won within it and which they would naturally want to maintain. And perhaps Centurions can only have female and not male sex slaves because the absolute subjugation of women leaves no room for ambiguity about their role. The destiny of any woman in the Legion is totally dependent on the whims of the males in charge of her.

There's another quote from the Symposium that seems relevant here. I feel a little indulgent quoting the text again but I can't help myself, it fits too well:

In Ionia, on the other hand, and in many other place (wherever they live under barbarians), it has been customarily held to be shameful. In the eyes of barbarians, on account of their tyrannies, pederasty as well as philosophy and the love of gymnastics is shameful; for I suspect that it is not to the advantage of the rulers that great and proud thoughts be engendered among their subjects, any more than strong friendships and associations. It is precisely this that love, as well as all these other things, especially tends to implant. And the tyrants here [in Athens] actually learned this by deed; for the love of Aristogeiton and the friendship of Harmodius, once it became firm, dissolved the tyrants' rule. So wherever it has been laid down as shameful to gratify lovers, it has been through the vice of those who have done so —the hankering after more on the part of the rulers, and the lack of manliness on the part of their subjects
(Plato's Symposium, translated by Seth Bernadete)
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Maybe Caesar noted the association in ancient minds between homosexuality and tyrannicide and went "Nope" lol