This is part six of a multi-part series exploring how I, Lise, see the drow of D&D. For more info, see part 1’s introduction. Also worth reading is the post where this all started: “On making the drow less problematic.”
- Introduction + the banality of evil and social Darwinism
- The law of “don’t get caught”
- The ultimate in “guess” culture
- Chosen ones
- Connoisseurs of sensual pleasures
- Sexual orientation (you are here)
- Gender identity and trans-ness
- Yes, heat vision
- Drow language
- Consent in the matriarchy
- No one is born knowing their society is fucked
- Etc etc
Sexual orientation
As a queer weirdo, it bothers how aggressively… straight the drow can be in canon. As we established in the last post, drow fuck, but after tens of thousands of years, they haven’t gotten creative with it?
Let’s look at the canon character of Jarlaxle — a drow male outlaw who runs a powerful mercenary band, and has the matriarchy wrapped around his finger. He is the ur-drow male in my head; the perfect intersection of “god I wish this were me” and “god I wish someone like this would plow me.”
(Being on the ace spectrum myself, whenever I say things like “plow me,” please understand that this is hyperbole).
Jarlaxle also is incredibly flamboyant and queer-coded.
… like, he wears a rainbow cape and belly shirt and surrounds himself with an almost-entirely male mercenary band; come on.
He’s not just queer-coded, either! Several years ago, Jeremy Crawford, lead rules designer for 5e, came out and said, “yes, Jarlaxle is pansexual.” (And fanboys collectively lost their shit… but that’s another story). And as written in Waterdeep: Dragon Heist (by Chris Perkins and Matt Mercer, among others), he flirts with all the PCs equally, and he is accompanied by both male and female consorts. So that’s pretty neat.
And yet, R.A. Salvatore keeps missing the memo, and so this progressiveness is still lacking from the Drizzt novels.
… even when he spends entire books writing about Jarlaxle — as in the Sellswords trilogy, or the flashback sections of the Generations trilogy. (There’s a reason I refer to these trilogies, respectively, as “Jarlaxle and Artemis Chilling In a Hot Tub Three Feet Apart Because They’re Not Gay” and “Jarlaxle and Zaknafein Chilling In a Hot Tub Three Feet Apart Because They’re Not Gay”).
… even when Jarlaxle’s relationships with other male characters are much more interesting and fleshed out than his relationships with female characters.
… even when there are entirely too many sexual innuendos involving swords.
And this is why I haunt the “Jarlaxle Baenre” tag on AO3.
About the only nod to queerness we get, that I’ve seen, is when RAS offhandedly mentions that the character of Malice also bangs women — and that’s only because he wants to vilify her even more by painting her as “slutty.”
(Listen there are many, many things to hate about Malice, but this ain’t it).
Well, Salvatore may ignore it, but my headcanon is: of course there are queer drow.
To me, homo- and bi/pansexuality are fairly common and accepted in drow culture, within the other limiting factors of the society. Female homosexuality is probably even expected, and totally understandable. (Because of course; ew, males). Especially when they’re at the Academy together, where the closest male drow are students of the warrior and wizard schools — all a good deal younger than them, and probably seen as wildly immature.
Of course, a Matron Mother would also be expected to birth daughters, so she’d probably need a sperm donor somewhere along the line. But as long as she’s got that covered, no one cares who she beds.
Male homosexuality, OTOH, is probably less “accepted” and more “ignored.” As I wrote in Bright Future:
“Always she? I am assuming an awful lot about you, aren’t I?”
“You assume correctly, though.” Honestly, it would have been so much easier if he had fancied other men. There was an entire demimonde that catered to that in Menzoberranzan, and for the most part it was beneath the notice of the priestesses. Of course, that would not have been nearly so profitable.
Bright Future, chapter 15, “Siltrin.”
Same thing about homosexuality at the Academy applies — there aren’t a lot of available drow females, so there’s gonna be a lot of more-or-less normalized M/M sex.
I also think that these queer relationships are assumed to be entirely sexual. This is in line with the discussion in my “drow fuck” post, where romance is almost nonexistent in drow society. And when it’s not — if you actually become attached to the person — it’s either weird (if you’re female) or criminal (if you’re male and you get caught).
As an example, I played Kzandr in my drow intrigue game as bi. I wrote this bit in his character history, about his relationship with Kyrnill (his lover from a higher-ranked house) and Ruvyn (the wood elf slave he caught feelings for):
But Kyrnill would not tolerate that. It was one thing for Kzandr to bed a pretty whore in his free time; it was another to bring that whore into his home. It would betray more attachment than he actually had for Ruvyn, and Kzandr must remember he belonged to Kyrnill.
In the events of the game itself, Kyrnill did find out Kzandr had developed actual affection for Ruvyn, and decided to make his life a living hell. It ended… poorly.
Of course, this covers the gendered aspect of attraction, but what about folks who might identify on the asexual spectrum? (Of particular interest to me!) My take on it is: ace folks exist, but in a heavily sexualized culture like the drow’s, they’re gonna have a bad time.
Such was the story of Jhevaeth, my arcane trickster rogue in Dragon Heist, who basically decided that he’d rather get kicked out of wizard school than fuck an instructor. From his backstory:
Of course, like most things in drow society, passing the exams was more a matter of greasing the right palms, with coin or blood or favors — something Jhevaeth had never been good at.
His sisters, in their own wretched way, tried to help. One of their instructors at Arach-Tinilith held some sort of leverage over the Master of Evocation of Sorcere. (Evocation was always Jhevaeth’s weakest area of study). She also happened to be looking for someone to warm her bed. If Jhevaeth just presented himself at the right place at the right hour…
But no. He wasn’t an idiot; he knew the only thing more disposable than a male student at Tier Breche was a male consort. He assured his sisters he would soldier on without their dubious help.
When the scores were tallied, Jhevaeth came in dead last on the comprehensive exams.
But hey, at least he missed the famous graduation demon orgy.
Later, in game, he actually developed… something?? with an aromantic non-binary drow, and things got a little strange for him. His ace identity is as hard to pin down as mine!
Interestingly, too, a common fanon reading of Drizzt is that he’s demisexual or otherwise ace spectrum! That certainly is consistent with his behavior in the books.
Basically, I see no reason why one’s sexual orientation, qua non, would be a problem in Lolthite drow society. That same society does put limits on the social acceptability of certain pairings for other reasons, however — mostly Because Toxic Matriarchy™️.
Next up, my thoughts on drow gender identity and what it means to be trans or nonbinary in drow society. Unfortunately, it’s a lot darker of an interpretation than this one!