[Lazarus]

Originally Posted by Arisama

So, they use condoms. But condoms break. The pill doesn't always work, and there's no mention ANYWHERE that they have developed perfect 100% birth-control.

My assumption is that it's in the food or something. Common with sci-fi settings is that it's no longer anything that needs to be worried about. There is no indication that accidental pregnancy is an issue. There is no indication that birth control exists. It didn't even come up in the narrative. My examples were to indicate that couples and individuals were not worried about pregnancy in any case. The only time I can think of where it does come up is with the initial situation in "Heart of Gold" - on the other hand, we don't know if the pregnancy was unwanted or not. Under my view of "magic handwavium birth control at 100%", she wanted a child, so went off it.

Conservative Christian is still pretty damn bad for women to carry on with "Amorous" - I didn't see any sign of the local conservatives being Liberals and Left-Wingers promoting women's rights. Also I didn't saythat the 'Verse was entirely fundamentalist, I said it was strong element, and that's shown frequently in the series in the manner of dress and behaviour. How many women wore miniskirts in the series?

Wearing miniskirts != liberal. The show also rarely talked about religion - my base assumption was that it was buddhism as the primary religion, rather than Christianity, and I don't believe that there's really anything that supports one over the other. Sure, the Sheppards are some flavour of Christianity, and all the weird fundamentalist places are Christian, but the Companion's Guild is Buddhist, as is the whole culture on Sihnon... it seems to be a very equal setting, gender-wise.

So, you see a lot of men getting pregnant then do you? I haven't. Not even once. Rape is a helluva lot more common for women than men, so your point fails. If the woman is acting even slightly "Amorous" her risk of being raped - even gang-raped - is a LOT WORSE for her than any man with "Amorous" isn't it?

Rape is more common for women than men, yes. I don't believe it's as lopsided as the reported numbers, but that's just a belief. Rape is also not anything where the acting "amorous" in most cases would matter to the assailant. It's generally about violence, and not sex. I still maintain, however, that if it comes up in the game, then it comes up to make a point. There is no other reason to have it come up.

This counter-argument of yours just died in the ass too, big time.

Disagree. The real world has no implication on what gets brought up during a game. Why would you bring rape up in the game? Because you rolled 95% on the dice? Wouldn't that then cheapen everything going on?

What planet are you living on?!

A slaver would most likely not care who the person they capture is. Unless they're aiming for some specific purpose - they'll want someone muscular for forced labour, "preferred physical sex" for that purpose, whatever. I still venture that the presence or absence of "Amorous" would probably not have much impact either way. If you wish to argue this point, please provide support for your thesis, rather than a simple negation.

Christianity, however, which is encoutered more than half the time in the series in one way or another, is NOT gender neutral. As to other faiths that aren't mainstream and are female-centric, why even bother trying to pretend that "such-and-such oddball religion" is a significant factor when it's so rarely encountered? Another of your counter-arguments just died too.

Religiosity is for those in significant position in their religion, or in a publically visible position, right? This state can be achieved even in the small backwater town on a moon most people ain't even heard of. It may just be localized - I realize that the book doesn't have this option, but you can do it. Just because the book doesn't say you can doesn't mean you can't.

Of course it's not hard to say, anyone can just go and change the entire setting and it's not hard to say either, but we're talking about the 'Verse and the setting of Firefly/Serenity...and there is little evidence anywhere in the series that female-centric religions are mainstream or commonly encountered. Most are definitely patriarchal - Just like in the Wild West genre and post-Civil-War era that the series is based upon.

Do you believe that you must only use the material provided in the short-run series, movie, and book (which invented some stuff, actually, as Jamie Chambers' article on "canon" on the serenityrpg.com site admits)? If not, then why the opposition to including other stuff?

Good, you go and do that. It's not a successful argument just because you can do it, but if you want to re-write the entire setting into being matriarchal, go ahead. It wouldn't be the Firefly/Serenity setting anymore if you did though, so it dies as a counter-argument as well.

It was a statement of something I want to include in my game. A matriarchal world does not cause my game to cease being based upon Firefly/Serenity. Remember, there are dozens of planets, with hundreds of moons. We've seen, what, a couple dozen at most? Who knows what any of the others are like?

Laz