should sexual contact between gods and mortals be considered unethical?

[Sharad9]

would you consider this to be an inappropriate relationship? such as an employer sleeping with an employee? or, seeing as gods created humans and are technically their children, delving into pedophilia? should their be rules to prevent this from occurring? and who should be held responsible for such a blasphemy?

[JNAProductions]

I mean... No? At least, not universally. I can see situations in any setting where it's wrong, and likewise, I can see some settings where it's universally considered wrong, but as a universal? Nah.

[TheStranger]

would you consider this to be an inappropriate relationship? such as an employer sleeping with an employee? or, seeing as gods created humans and are technically their children, delving into pedophilia? should their be rules to prevent this from occurring? and who should be held responsible for such a blasphemy?

Well, god/mortal fanfiction mythological tradition has a few different tropes that come into play. On the one hand, you have gods using divine power to trick or coerce a mortal into sex. That's probably unethical by most standards, but who's in a position to censure a god? And if your god condones/does it, who are you to say it's unethical? On the other hand, you have gods concealing their divinity to court mortals. That's probably okay, unless you want to make the argument that mortals are inherently incapable of giving consent in a way that's meaningful to a god, or that divine power is such that sex should always be considered coerced. On the other other hand, you have harems of temple priestesses. That's not really any different than a king having a harem, which isn't exactly uncommon in either fiction or real-world history but would be considered unethical by most modern standards. Is it unethical in your setting? That's up to you.

Your last question might be the most interesting. If god/mortal congress is unethical, what do you do about it? I'd start by saying that 100% of the blame (if there is blame) lies with the god. In any case like this, you blame the person with more power, not the person with less power. That said, victim-blaming is a real thing, so you could make it a thing in this case if you want to. The idea of burning somebody at the stake for smiting evil with a god sets an interesting tone for how the worshippers view their god.

Holding a god responsible for unethical intercourse with a mortal presents some worldbuilding challenges. Do you have some type of church council that hears complaints against their god? A multi-church review board? Do the gods police their own? I don't know what makes the most sense here, other than to say that mortals holding gods to any kind of a standard implies a much more balanced relationship than gods usually have with mortals.

[Bohandas]

would you consider this to be an inappropriate relationship? such as an employer sleeping with an employee? or, seeing as gods created humans and are technically their children, delving into pedophilia? should their be rules to prevent this from occurring? and who should be held responsible for such a blasphemy?

You've incorrectly used "technically" to mean "metaphorically"

[Xuc Xac]

would you consider this to be an inappropriate relationship? such as an employer sleeping with an employee? or, seeing as gods created humans and are technically their children, delving into pedophilia? should their be rules to prevent this from occurring? and who should be held responsible for such a blasphemy?

It's unethical for the same reason as employer-employee or teacher-student relationships (power disparity) but to an enormously greater degree. A god outranks a mortal by much more than a manager outranks their employees.

If the gods are the literal blood ancestors of mortals, it would be incest but so many generations removed that it doesn't really matter (unless mortals were created only a few decades ago). It would be like two Asians having sex even though they are technically distant cousins because they're both descended from Genghis Khan. It's enough generations removed that it doesn't matter now.

It would be pedophilia if the mortal were still an actual child. It's a function of absolute age, not relative age.

Unless you have some bizarrely enlightened setting that subscribes to the rule of law (everyone is equal before the law, no privilege for nobility or royalty, etc.), it's unlikely that anyone can make a rule that restricts the gods unless the gods apply such a law to themselves. I think it's more likely that some Zeus-like "King of the gods" would make a rule for the other gods follow and then ignore it. "Do as I say, not as I do."


That's probably unethical by most standards, but who's in a position to censure a god? And if your god condones/does it, who are you to say it's unethical?

Other than certain Middle Eastern religions, who looks to their gods for ethical guidance? That's what literature, poetry, and philosophy are for. Worshiping the gods is just a way to make sense of a cruel and capricious world. It helps build community spirit like a sports team (e.g. Athens is basically Team Athena) and helps people feel like they are at least doing something to control the uncontrollable things they worry about ("Please bring rain for our crops so we don't starve, but please don't wash our village away in a flood!"). Most ancient gods were symbols for the community to identify with and rally behind, and a kind of mafia protection racket that demands payments and the construction of elaborate temples to prove devotion or the gods will leave. Sort of like a big professional sports team.

[Nifft]

It would be pedophilia if the mortal were still an actual child. It's a function of absolute age, not relative age.

For humans that's certainly true.

For non-humans there ought to be some kind of testable mental maturity criteria.

[Bohandas]

It's no worse than any other situation where someone has sex with a celebrity

[TheStranger]

Other than certain Middle Eastern religions, who looks to their gods for ethical guidance? That's what literature, poetry, and philosophy are for. Worshiping the gods is just a way to make sense of a cruel and capricious world. It helps build community spirit like a sports team (e.g. Athens is basically Team Athena) and helps people feel like they are at least doing something to control the uncontrollable things they worry about ("Please bring rain for our crops so we don't starve, but please don't wash our village away in a flood!"). Most ancient gods were symbols for the community to identify with and rally behind, and a kind of mafia protection racket that demands payments and the construction of elaborate temples to prove devotion or the gods will leave. Sort of like a big professional sports team.

That's a fair point, although it's a bit different in settings where the gods are demonstrably real. But I wasn't making an absolute statement, just pointing out a potential issue with calling a god's behavior unethical. The question is, unethical by what standard? At least in some traditions, the gods play a role in setting ethical standards.

Even if there is some ethical standard you can hold your gods up to, does that have any real effect? You can shake your fist and say, "Dang it Zeus, stop turning into a bull and sexing our women," but it's not like that changes anything, and if you say it too loudly you might get smote.

[Mechalich]

In a fantasy setting with active and interventionist deities ethics is flows from the gods, there's not some philosophical school of ethics based in centuries of debate, there's what society believes the gods have told them its okay to do and not do. And a fantasy society will be much more responsive to these rules than any actual society because the alternative is to get smote (though in many mythologies the gods have been remarkably inconsistent in the application of their smiting). So whether or not a deity having sexual relations with a mortal is ethical by modern standards is largely irrelevant - it only matters insomuch as 'don't squick out your players' is a good design principle to abide by most of the time.

Additionally, the behavior of the gods is going to dictate the behavior of the humans who follow them. So, in the example of a society ruled by Hellenistic deities, the tendency of Zeus and other deities to brazenly take advantage of their divine power and have sexual relations with winsome young maidens and the occasional married lady means that people in power are going to emulate this and you're likely to have a society where powerful men brazenly engage in coercive relationships with multiple women, where kept mistresses are common, men are under little to no obligation to support their illegitimate children, and so forth. It will be extremely patriarchal - which the evidence suggests was pretty true of actual Hellenistic societies.

In general, if the gods are not nice, the world is not going to be nice either. In fantasy the arc of history doesn't bend towards justice, it bends towards whatever the gods want, and if the gods don't want justice, you're not getting any. Exhibit A: Exalted.

[Bohandas]

Given 1.) an old enough setting and given 2.) the absence of some powerful genotype/phenotype controlling artifact (ie. somethig akin to the slaadi spawning stone) and given 3.) exposure to deities seeking such relationships and finally given 4.) that incidents like Hera hypnotizing Hercules into murdering his children are not the untimate outcome of the overwhelming majority of these couplings:
species will naturally evolve to seek out deities (as well as other powerful and omnifertile creatures such as dragons, fiends, celestials, etc.) as breeding partners where available

[Mechalich]

Given 1.) an old enough setting and given 2.) the absence of some powerful genotype/phenotype controlling artifact (ie. somethig akin to the slaadi spawning stone) and given 3.) exposure to deities seeking such relationships and finally given 4.) that incidents like Hera hypnotizing Hercules into murdering his children are not the untimate outcome of the overwhelming majority of these couplings:
species will naturally evolve to seek out deities (as well as other powerful and omnifertile creatures such as dragons, fiends, celestials, etc.) as breeding partners where available

Well that assumes that the gods either shower their lovers/children with gifts or that the children acquire special powers by being born of the gods (there's no guarantee a universe has to work that way, it would kind of interesting to have sons of Zeus who are just like everyone else), but yeah, any situation in which you can breed magical power is going to induce all kinds of nasty incentives that can easily result in some sort of hideous supernatural eugenics. It is also extremely likely that, barring some sort of mitigating factors like 3.X style level adjustment those persons with such gifts will end up dominating the world utterly. Again, see Exalted for a suitable example.

[brian 333]

Ethics and morality are social constructs dictated by a random accumulation of rules learned from history. Within tnat framework there are certain principles which stand out:

Don't kill your neighbor, you might need him when someone worse wants to move in.
Don't steal from friends because they might take a liking to your stuff.
Protect women and children to improve your odds of having a comfortable retirement.

The list goes on, but the essence of morality is to create a system which supports group behavior. Things which interfere with group harmony, such as cutting in line, feuds, abusiveness, drunkenness, etc. become immoral.

So, the question is, how does deific dalliance, in general, affect the community?

If half-mortals are, in the Hellenistic tradition, heroes, then society might actually reward such liaisons. Imagine a girl comes home pregnant with the town's new king. She might be showered in adoration, given a spot at the temple, treated like a queen. Or driven out/killed by the current king who fears being displaced. But it won't be considered bad or immoral.

If half-mortals tend to be cambions who raise up armies of undead to attack civilization society may well actively punish consorting with deities. In most settings there seems to be a mix of the two, depending on the deity involved

[jqavins]

would you consider this to be an inappropriate relationship? such as an employer sleeping with an employee? or, seeing as gods created humans and are technically their children, delving into pedophilia? should their be rules to prevent this from occurring? and who should be held responsible for such a blasphemy?

The broad and sweeping condemnation of relations (sexual or romantic) with power disparities (such as employer/employee) is a new thing, and not always a good thing. Don't hit that Reply button too fast, I'm not saying sexual harassment and coercive relationships are OK. But consensual relationships with power disparities do exist. To say that consent in such a situation is fraught is true, and to strongly discourage such relationships in the name of caution may be reasonable, but to say that consent is such a situation is impossible is just wrong.
Mortals are figuratively the children of the gods, but technically are not. Unless the very thing you're asking about is already rampant.
Whether or not there "should" be rules is dependent on scads of other social factors, both in the society of mortals and in the society of gods.
"Blasphemy" is speaking out or acting against [God|the gods]. "Heresy" is speaking out or acting against the religious authorities. The word you're looking for is, perhaps, "atrocity" (if god-mortal whoopee is one).
Whatever else I might have said about deception and rape, enforceability, and so forth has already been said.


So whether or not a deity having sexual relations with a mortal is ethical by modern standards is largely irrelevant - it only matters insomuch as 'don't squick out your players' is a good design principle to abide by most of the time.
Hear hear. And if such relationships are to be judged by other standards, they can only be the standards of the setting, which you likely have already either decided on, or decided on other things from which they would naturally follow. This is what I'm saying in the third bullet above.

[JakOfAllTirades]

Two things:

1) This is highly situational. In other words, "it depends" is a valid answer.

2) The gods make the rules. And some gods might have authority over others.

For the pantheon I'm working on, most of the lesser deities are siblings, children of the elder gods. Naturally they're forbidden to mate with each other. Rather, they're commanded to partner with Ascended Mortals. In other words, they have to find a worthy heroic mortal who's capable of rising to their own level, or something close to it. This doesn't happen often, but the gods are patient. They've also been known to "help" their favorites achieve such levels of greatness.

The pantheon also includes the offspring of an lesser god who violated this rule with an elder god (her creepy uncle) and the resultant offspring was an insane evil abomination deity which can only create horrific monsters. Whoops!

[Anymage]

If you overthink what beings so much more competent than humans can do, sex is actually one of the lesser problems. Someone so intelligent that their starting a business could radically alter surrounding economies, or so charismatic that a casual chat can turn people into fanatics, you start raising some serious questions. Superhero fans have long discussed similar issues, and I'm sure they could talk your ear off about it.

Handwaving all that, because nobody wants to play supers only to have the government study them and then Harrison Bergeron them, assume that it would be moral if someone who was merely a talented human in that field wanted to do the same thing. A god who used threats, mind control, or even tried something like disguising themselves as someone's spouse would be out of line. (Even though it's extremely unlikely that anybody would be able to hold the god accountable.) A god who accepted a willing petitioner at a temple, or one who just felt like disguising themselves as a random human and picking someone up at the tavern, would be in the clear.

[Blackjackg]

Like a few other people in the thread, I think the term "unethical" may be part of the problem here. For a thing to be unethical requires some sort of generally accepted ethics-- either a detailed code or a few basic principles, or both. Do the gods have rules against sex with mortals? If so, then it's unethical for gods to do.

This is distinct from the question of good vs. evil which requires some sort of moral metaphysics but doesn't necessarily need a specific ethic. It might be evil if, for instance, gods have total power over mortals and sex under those conditions is evil in your metaphysics. But that's a separate question from unethical.

[Solaris]

Let's snatch that "boss and employee" example from upthread, although I think I rather prefer to think of it in terms of kings and subjects.

It would be unethical, but not immoral, if I were to engage in a consensual relationship with an employee. That's because our society has rules against this sort of thing, but nobody's actually getting hurt.

It would be both unethical and immoral, if I were engaging in the ol' quid pro quo or leveraging my position for coercion. This one's the reason our society has those rules against this sort of thing.

Same with gods and mortals.

The question about pedophilia is silly; either the gods are effectively adults (and at least so far as this is concerned, there's really no difference between adults and adults), or it's more akin to bestiality than pedophilia because they're just that far beyond mortals. In any D&D setting where you can bump uglies with a deity, the former is far likelier than the latter.