Gender and sexuality diversity in RPG settings

[JNAProductions]

You might believe such.
But try it at a table. It almost universally ends badly. Especially at mixed gender tables where it can end the adventure faster than a tpk. It's not about "maturity." I've seen it cause a table of 40+ year olds to end. The BEST I've seen is 2 characters insta retire and bring in new ones. The worst resulted in a literal fight and an eaten character sheet.

Which part of that?

Pregnancy? Because, as I said above, at most tables, it'd be counterproductive to fun and therefore not included.
But having a character be gay? Or trans? Why would that cause a massive issue?

[The Glyphstone]

IRL the idea that biological sex and gender as a social construct were two separate things was not recognized until the 1950s, and didn't reach mainstream acceptance for several decades later.

For what little it's worth, this is only true as far as Western European/American culture goes. A number of other cultures across history have recognized various identities that we would classify today as non-binary. Your setting does sound Euronormal though, so it might not be useful or relevant with your thematics.

[BisectedBrioche]

For what little it's worth, this is only true as far as Western European/American culture goes. A number of other cultures across history have recognized various identities that we would classify today as non-binary. Your setting does sound Euronormal though, so it might not be useful or relevant with your thematics.

More specifically, the idea of a very firm binary which necessitates gender segregated areas is a Victorian invention. Prior to that there's evidence of stuff like gendered fashions and what we might call gender roles now which lead up to it, but a lot less emphasis on, say gendering someone from birth.

Or even more specifically, there's always been a lot of back and fourth (just look at what some Greek philosophers had to say about women) on gender equality, and ideas of everything from gender to how many named colours there are in the visible spectrum are in flux ("What do you mean it's light green? Just call it cool or warm and be done with it!").

[Rater202]

More specifically, the idea of a very firm binary which necessitates gender segregated areas is a Victorian invention. Prior to that there's evidence of stuff like gendered fashions and what we might call gender roles now which lead up to it, but a lot less emphasis on, say gendering someone from birth.

Or even more specifically, there's always been a lot of back and fourth (just look at what some Greek philosophers had to say about women) on gender equality, and ideas of everything from gender to how many named colours there are in the visible spectrum are in flux ("What do you mean it's light green? Just call it cool or warm and be done with it!").

I believe there's a passage in the Illiad... or maybe The Odyssy? That describes the ocean as "wine-colored" because at the time Ancient Greek as a language didn't have words that referred directly to colors and the intent was that the ocean had the same shade and hue(rather than pigmentation) as wine.

[Calthropstu]

Which part of that?

Pregnancy? Because, as I said above, at most tables, it'd be counterproductive to fun and therefore not included.
But having a character be gay? Or trans? Why would that cause a massive issue?

Yes, the pregnancy.

Gay usually only causes an issue when the gay person uses it as an excuse to try to hit on the straight people at the table.

And in a fantasy game trans is well... kinda silly. You can be whatever gender you want. Why try to play someone who wants to be the opposite gender when you can BE the opposite gender? At that point you are literally just trying too hard.

[Xervous]

Yes, the pregnancy.

Gay usually only causes an issue when the gay person uses it as an excuse to try to hit on the straight people at the table.

And in a fantasy game trans is well... kinda silly. You can be whatever gender you want. Why try to play someone who wants to be the opposite gender when you can BE the opposite gender? At that point you are literally just trying too hard.

As stated before it’s a fantasy game, you’re playing whatever you want. I may think a drizzt expy doesn’t fit a given theme, setting or whatever but that doesn’t mean the person is wrong for wanting to play the drizzt expy in a vacuum.

[Batcathat]

Gay usually only causes an issue when the gay person uses it as an excuse to try to hit on the straight people at the table.

Wouldn't that be more of the "hitting on people at the table" being an issue rather than "gay" being an issue though?

And in a fantasy game trans is well... kinda silly. You can be whatever gender you want. Why try to play someone who wants to be the opposite gender when you can BE the opposite gender? At that point you are literally just trying too hard.

I would imagine it being an interesting character concept for the same reason that a character really wanting to be a knight (but not being able to) might be a more interesting character concept than someone who just is a knight. A struggling character, whatever form those struggles take, is more fun to some people.

There are other reasons for playing a trans character too, I'm sure, but "why play a character who wants to be something instead of playing a character who just is that" seems like an odd argument.

[Segev]

Yes, the pregnancy.

Gay usually only causes an issue when the gay person uses it as an excuse to try to hit on the straight people at the table.

And in a fantasy game trans is well... kinda silly. You can be whatever gender you want. Why try to play someone who wants to be the opposite gender when you can BE the opposite gender? At that point you are literally just trying too hard.

To be fair, the cursed belt that sex-swaps your character goes back to 1e AD&D, at the least, and I could see a PC who was motivated to find another of those belts to undo the curse. Given that, I could see a PC who was cursed by one in his backstory and was motivated to adventure to find another or some other way to lift the curse. Finally, I could see somebody who wasn't cursed by a magic item but heard about one and wanted to BE "cursed" that way as a motivation.

If somebody is living out their own fantasies through their PC (which is fairly common, I imagine), they may want to live out the fantasy of finding the way to gain what they want, rather than "just having it." Some people might want to play out the fantasy of being a prince by building a prince PC. Others might want to play out the fantasy of winning their way from commoner status to being a prince by their own achievements. (Via conquest, standard hero reward, adoption, mercantile success and accepting "merchant prince" as close enough, or any other means they can think of to tell such a story.)

[BisectedBrioche]

Yes, the pregnancy.

Gay usually only causes an issue when the gay person uses it as an excuse to try to hit on the straight people at the table.

And in a fantasy game trans is well... kinda silly. You can be whatever gender you want. Why try to play someone who wants to be the opposite gender when you can BE the opposite gender? At that point you are literally just trying too hard.

I've touched on this earlier in the thread:

Firstly; remember there are nonbinary folk, who can't simply disappear via medical transition either way. ;)

Secondly, being trans is more than a medical procedure. Every trans person has to think carefully about their gender identity and what makes them feel comfortable (far from an end point, medical intervention is just an event in a process that may never end).

Trans women are women, cis women are women. If the status as cis or trans of either group is irrelevant, you'd just say "woman". If a trans woman and a cis woman drove to the supermarket, bought some groceries, and went home, then "the two women went to the store to buy food" is all the info you need. Much in the same way you wouldn't need to throw in any other traits of the two women (you could use cis and trans to distinguish them, I guess, but that wouldn't tell you much).

I've told this story here before, but in a recent D&D game, the DM OK'd a trans character. I mentioned this to a friend, and she said "why wouldn't you just play a cis woman?". On the basis of why I'd want problems from my own life in the game. Thing is (aside from the fact the DM promised not to make transphobia a significant thing), this came from a (well meaning) assumption that the ideal of womanhood is cis womanhood, and that's what I aspire to. Why wouldn't I want to be represented in a literal representation of myself in the campaign setting? While my womanhood will always be different to that of a cis woman, there are many different ways woman are women (and men are men, and ways people twist, bent, or break the gender binary), and mind is just as good as the rest without being invalidated.

The same applies to representation in media. You could certainly create a setting where trans people are moot (whether or not that's realistic), but if your aim is to represent the experiences of trans people positively (that is to say, trans representation), you need to try harder.

[Xervous]

Wouldn't that be more of the "hitting on people at the table" being an issue rather than "gay" being an issue though?

It feels more like inviting a vegan to a steakhouse while fully aware of their vegan status. Nobody present expects a positive reciprocation, at best it’s a joke among friends, otherwise it appears to be harassment.

[Segev]

It feels more like inviting a vegan to a steakhouse while fully aware of their vegan status. Nobody present expects a positive reciprocation, at best it’s a joke among friends, otherwise it appears to be harassment.

Letting Victor von Vegan know that he is invited to join the group when they go to Sizzling Sam's Smoking Steakhouse is not being rude to Victor. It is letting him know that the group is going to a steakhouse, and that he's not disinvited. Victor can either go for the commaraderie and the parts of it that are enjoyable to him (knowing he's missing out on the main course), or he can pass on it.

I have been invited to join people going to Mexican restaurants in the past, and sometimes I go, sometimes I do not. I can't stand most Mexican food (there's a spice that is almost universally present), and some of them will only serve quesadillas with stuff piled on them. They charge outrageous amounts for a (to me) moderately acceptable meal of which I'll eat only part. So if I go, it's for the friendship; I won't be ordering anything but water, maybe a drink. This is not my friends being cruel to me. They wanted Mexican. That's fine.

But I think this analogy breaks down even further: unless the game is focused on romance, it's more like getting together to go to a carnival with a vegan in the group. The carnival may not have anything vegan available to eat, so he doesn't participate in the food part of it, but the rides, games, and shows are what the group is primarily there for, and he can participate in those just fine. If two of the PCs are involved romantically in a 4-man group, but that's just a background thing and something they RP, it's hardly denying the gay guy anything by not having the fourth PC decide to be gay so they can hook up. The game isn't about that. He isn't a vegan at a steakhouse. He's a vegan at a theater that isn't specifically catering to his veganism. He's not there for the romance, in theory, even if it's a figurative side dish on which he passes because the other PCs aren't of interest to him.

(And if he really wants to pursue it, he can always hit on an NPC. Up to the DM and him whether that goes anywhere.)

[BisectedBrioche]

It feels more like inviting a vegan to a steakhouse while fully aware of their vegan status. Nobody present expects a positive reciprocation, at best it’s a joke among friends, otherwise it appears to be harassment.

That sounds exactly like what Batcathat said, but as an analogy instead of a clear statement.

Having one's character make unwanted romantic advances to other players' characters is bad behaviour, and the sexuality involved is moot.

[KaussH]

Yes, the pregnancy.

Gay usually only causes an issue when the gay person uses it as an excuse to try to hit on the straight people at the table.

And in a fantasy game trans is well... kinda silly. You can be whatever gender you want. Why try to play someone who wants to be the opposite gender when you can BE the opposite gender? At that point you are literally just trying too hard.

Becouse...

That's really all the answer needed. If bob wants to play a elvish barbarian who drinks the souls of people they slay for power, and also wants to be trans, heck why not.

Gay charicters should never be a problem. Players who misuse a character to break the social contracts that's a different matter, but is handled a whole different way.

Right now, in a game I am running I have.. hum.. 2 bi, 2 non binary, one gay, and one st8 player. They are playing one non binary, 2 bi, one asexual, one undeclared ,and one gay charicter . With 2 of them having cross gendered their charicters. And the 2nd non binary player playing a male pc. None of this is an issue at all. Heck works just fine, and isnt that diff of other tables I run.

[Ratter]

If this setting is willing to get a bit... problematic, it would be interesting if the nobility was all women as some kind of way to express their nobility while the peasantry are all turned into men upon being born. It would make gender an actual important part of character creation, which would be pretty chill, ngl.

[Xervous]

If this setting is willing to get a bit... problematic, it would be interesting if the nobility was all women as some kind of way to express their nobility while the peasantry are all turned into men upon being born. It would make gender an actual important part of character creation, which would be pretty chill, ngl.

Such things are probably better reserved for novels that are willing to explore, comment on and/or parody the real world state of things.

[Max_Killjoy]

If this setting is willing to get a bit... problematic, it would be interesting if the nobility was all women as some kind of way to express their nobility while the peasantry are all turned into men upon being born. It would make gender an actual important part of character creation, which would be pretty chill, ngl.

Trying to make the reproductive realities of that arrangement work would be a challenge.

[Xervous]

Oh wait, that’s just drow society with extra steps.

[KaussH]

Trying to make the reproductive realities of that arrangement work would be a challenge.

Eh, not really. Much like fire breathing, dark vision, ect it's easy enough to change any/all the reproductive rules if you want.

[Max_Killjoy]

Eh, not really. Much like fire breathing, dark vision, ect it's easy enough to change any/all the reproductive rules if you want.

The only way to resolve this is to somehow alleviate or bypass the key bottleneck of human reproduction -- and the society in question has actually tightened that bottleneck, making the issue more critical.

[KaussH]

The only way to resolve this is to somehow alleviate or bypass the key bottleneck of human reproduction -- and the society in question has actually tightened that bottleneck, making the issue more critical.

Nah.
All children are made by the nobility selecting a mate from the peasantry and elevating them to royalty for a year and a day. At the end of that time the bud is removed from the man, and raised in the noble houses or send back down to pensentry depending on its perceived gender"

Bamn, done. :)

Heck you can also use kids delivered by storks, having them on the wings of fairies, a stable of breeding men, ect. As long as it's a whole set up of the writer and or gm, almost anything works, as long as it stays consistent inside the setting.
I have a number if npc races that I have messed with reproduction wise, and some pc ones in a throwback 2nd ed game I run right now. No problem at all so far even with the odder stuff.

[Max_Killjoy]

Nah.
All children are made by the nobility selecting a mate from the peasantry and elevating them to royalty for a year and a day. At the end of that time the bud is removed from the man, and raised in the noble houses or send back down to pensentry depending on its perceived gender"

Bamn, done. :)

Heck you can also use kids delivered by storks, having them on the wings of fairies, a stable of breeding men, ect. As long as it's a whole set up of the writer and or gm, almost anything works, as long as it stays consistent inside the setting.
I have a number if npc races that I have messed with reproduction wise, and some pc ones in a throwback 2nd ed game I run right now. No problem at all so far even with the odder stuff.

OK, but that's perhaps a far more radical change to the society than the one that originally causes the conundrum.

[KaussH]

Love how you dismiss the core problem by offering up fantastical solutions to the core problem and then treating it that means there was never a problem.

It's like the Rule Zero Fallacy is has grown beyond RPG rulesets.

In this case (and a lot of this thread) the "core problems" seem to be carry overs from the real world. The thing is, we dont have to do that. We have people with impossible abilities and powers and the like, there is no reason at all we cant change anything else that we want to. If a gm wants to craft a setting that has x premises and needs to make y change to support it, go for it.
Add some genders, swap reproduction rules, mix and match cultural details, ect. Heck, do it all if you want to play around a little. This is not a case of "working in the rules" most of those stuff isn't in any mechanical rules and so the gm can have a pretty freehand.

[KaussH]

OK, but that's perhaps a far more radical change to the society than the one that originally causes the conundrum.

Does it have to be? I mean how many games focus on sex and reproduction and child birth in how the setting is written up? As gm it's easy to make the changes, smooth over issues with a "that is how it works here" and then run game.

Beleve me, a whole bunch of changes can be handled with "that's how it works here" . I mean heck, people buy elves right?

[warty goblin]

Nah.
All children are made by the nobility selecting a mate from the peasantry and elevating them to royalty for a year and a day. At the end of that time the bud is removed from the man, and raised in the noble houses or send back down to pensentry depending on its perceived gender"

Bamn, done. :)

Generally speaking the commoners vastly outnumber the nobility. As a practical matter they have to, since nobility exists by extracting wealth from the people working the noble's lands. Absent fossil fuels, a single family cannot produce enough food to feed two families reliably, so you need better than twice as many peasant households as non-peasant households. For most of the history of agriculture, a decent back-of-the envelope estimate is a tax rate of about 10% on peasants, i.e. 10 peasant households can support 1 non-peasant household. But most of these won't be nobles, since you still need to produce and transport basically every non-food good used by society, and nobles live off rents without producing squat, pretty much by definition.

So let's guesstimate about a 1:99 noble:commoner ratio, which is still probably pretty top heavy. If the nobility is all female, as and the only females are noble, a stable population requires each noble to have 100 children, 1 new noble female and 99 non-noble males to support her.

Needless to say, human women cannot produce 100 children. 20 children is possible for some women, but even if every single woman could manage that, that's 1/5 of replacement rate, and the society would die out extremely fast.

And that's assuming you could set that society up at all in the first place. The women would need to be pregnant virtually constantly, which is unlikely to go over well. Being pregnant is not exactly comfortable, and I suspect very few women would choose to be pregnant basically constantly, let alone orchestrate society so that they had to be. And since they're the nobles, they'd be the ones choosing this arrangement in the first place.

I can't see the non-noble male population signing up willingly either. Most men want to have sex sometime in their lives, generally with women. But even if every noble women chooses a new "husband" for every pregnancy, at the still unachievable 20 children per women, fully 80% of men will never be chosen. Even the lucky 20% get a heterosexual sex life for a very brief period before getting shunted back into the commoner sausagefest. Its probably pretty ok if you're gay or bi, but the other 95% of the male population is, well, not screwed. Still probably better than being ground down by constant pregnancy though.

This isn't even one of those situations where everyone is miserable in some stable configuration, the society would collapse in like two generations and everyone is wretched. So I guess congrats, its actually a social order that's somehow less practical ac and more miserable than Sparta!

[KaussH]

Generally speaking the commoners vastly outnumber the nobility. As a practical matter they have to, since nobility exists by extracting wealth from the people working the noble's lands. Absent fossil fuels, a single family cannot produce enough food to feed two families reliably, so you need better than twice as many peasant households as non-peasant households. For most of the history of agriculture, a decent back-of-the envelope estimate is a tax rate of about 10% on peasants, i.e. 10 peasant households can support 1 non-peasant household. But most of these won't be nobles, since you still need to produce and transport basically every non-food good used by society, and nobles live off rents without producing squat, pretty much by definition.

So let's guesstimate about a 1:99 noble:commoner ratio, which is still probably pretty top heavy. If the nobility is all female, as and the only females are noble, a stable population requires each noble to have 100 children, 1 new noble female and 99 non-noble males to support her.

Needless to say, human women cannot produce 100 children. 20 children is possible for some women, but even if every single woman could manage that, that's 1/5 of replacement rate, and the society would die out extremely fast.

And that's assuming you could set that society up at all in the first place. The women would need to be pregnant virtually constantly, which is unlikely to go over well. Being pregnant is not exactly comfortable, and I suspect very few women would choose to be pregnant basically constantly, let alone orchestrate society so that they had to be. And since they're the nobles, they'd be the ones choosing this arrangement in the first place.

I can't see the non-noble male population signing up willingly either. Most men want to have sex sometime in their lives, generally with women. But even if every noble women chooses a new "husband" for every pregnancy, at the still unachievable 20 children per women, fully 80% of men will never be chosen. Even the lucky 20% get a heterosexual sex life for a very brief period before getting shunted back into the commoner sausagefest. Its probably pretty ok if you're gay or bi, but the other 95% of the male population is, well, not screwed. Still probably better than being ground down by constant pregnancy though.

This isn't even one of those situations where everyone is miserable in some stable configuration, the society would collapse in like two generations and everyone is wretched. So I guess congrats, its actually a social order that's somehow less practical ac and more miserable than Sparta!

And this is exactly what I was talking about. Your post takes a fantastic premise, and then puts all sorts of real world restrictions. Pretty much nothing you said has to be true in the setting. My example had men bearing the children for example. But the could have multiple births be common. A much higher ratio of bi men.. a division of level of nobility so while all nobles are women, for some the title includes a lot more work than others, ect.

You are using logic from our world on a situation that cant exsist here, and of course it isnt going to work. You only changed half the rules .

Allowing for magic and weird powers and ect allows you to apply it to other things than just super powers like spell casting.

[Talakeal]

I think it could easily develop earlier with a more egalitarian backdrop. Now trying to logic out people's motives is always a bit shaky but here me out. Although equality between the binary genders (female and male) does not necessitate accepting/understanding people outside of that binary I think if you reject equality between the binary genders that does encourage rejecting people who are outside of that. Simply because that blurs the line between them. If you can have people between the two (or to a lesser extent off to the side) then that implies there is this continuum between the two, which implies there is no fundamental difference between the two and if there is no fundamental difference between the two then why are they being treated fundamentally different and before you know it they are asking for the vote and this sentence is long enough. Any also getting kind of silly but still through that chain non-binary people can weaken the case for gender inequality so an egalitarian society has less reason to reject it.

Of course people are complicated and masses of them are even more so and they arrive at weird conclusions sometimes but if you want to push that forward a bit, that might be all you need.

The worst resulted in a literal fight and an eaten character sheet.

I would LOVE to hear that story.

For what little it's worth, this is only true as far as Western European/American culture goes. A number of other cultures across history have recognized various identities that we would classify today as non-binary. Your setting does sound Euronormal though, so it might not be useful or relevant with your thematics.

I am not sure about though, I have done some reading, and mostly what I find is just behavior that we would call homosexual, trans, intersex, or asexual.

I suppose euronomral is a fair way to put it, although as someone who grey up in San Francisco in the late 80s and mostly consumed media that were Asian retellings of European folklore, I am not sure how far I would say that goes.

More specifically, the idea of a very firm binary which necessitates gender segregated areas is a Victorian invention. Prior to that there's evidence of stuff like gendered fashions and what we might call gender roles now which lead up to it, but a lot less emphasis on, say gendering someone from birth..

Which is kind of more what I was thinking.

If this setting is willing to get a bit... problematic, it would be interesting if the nobility was all women as some kind of way to express their nobility while the peasantry are all turned into men upon being born. It would make gender an actual important part of character creation, which would be pretty chill, ngl.

I have thought about stuff like that, but honestly it was hard enough finding players for an amazon campaign that I can't imagine a game setting like that finding any sort of an audience.

[Satinavian]

And this is exactly what I was talking about. Your post takes a fantastic premise, and then puts all sorts of real world restrictions. Pretty much nothing you said has to be true in the setting. My example had men bearing the children for example. But the could have multiple births be common. A much higher ratio of bi men.. a division of level of nobility so while all nobles are women, for some the title includes a lot more work than others, ect.

You are using logic from our world on a situation that cant exsist here, and of course it isnt going to work. You only changed half the rules .

Allowing for magic and weird powers and ect allows you to apply it to other things than just super powers like spell casting.

Why would you call them "human ", "men", "women" if they work completely differently ? Your setup is surprisingly similar to many of the lazy attemts to have bug-like aliens with queens controlling the swarm and having high numbers of offspring which are working drones. Sure, you could run that, but you should not present it as just a different human culture with some magic.

[137beth]

That's nice, but not really what I am looking for then. I was more wondering what it would mean to be non-binary would take in a world without strict gender roles and exploring why someone would identify that way in such a setting.

(This was in response to Never Satisfied):
I'm still somewhat on sure of what exactly you are asking. Are you confused about the distinction between gender (a neurological phenomenon present in most humans) and gender roles? In the world of Never Satisfied, other characters know that Lucy (the main character) is nonbinary because they told other people they are nonbinary, presumably since they are most comfortable being thought of that way. Their typical outfit and hairstyle looks like what current U.S. culture would say was a feminine appearance, although in the NSATverse it wouldn't be considered a "feminine attire" because they don't have gender roles.

In my setting, afaict, a person who has a penis and the potential to grow a beard is going to be seen as a man even if they are gentle, wear makeup, jewelry, and dresses, stay home with the children, and like to talk about their feelings.

Okay, I'm with Segev on this one: do people in your world walk around naked? How do you typically know if someone else has a penis otherwise?

Knowing if someone can grow a beard is easier, since you might be able to see a stubble unless their hair folicles are close to the same color as their skin. Does that mean that in your setting, people with PCOS would be considered men (at least by people who haven't seen them naked)? Or does PCOS simply not exist in your world?

Bear in mind that, in the real world, PCOS affects about 10% of people with ovaries, so they are more common than trans women. So, if you really want all sorts of players to be able to "see themselves" in the settings, eliminating PCOS might be a bad idea. And, there are plenty of other reasons AFAB people grow beards. It's moderately common among post-menopausal women due to decreased estrogen. Would they be considered men in your setting? Or does menopause not exist either (which, again, see my previous comment)?

[warty goblin]

And this is exactly what I was talking about. Your post takes a fantastic premise, and then puts all sorts of real world restrictions. Pretty much nothing you said has to be true in the setting. My example had men bearing the children for example. But the could have multiple births be common. A much higher ratio of bi men.. a division of level of nobility so while all nobles are women, for some the title includes a lot more work than others, ect.

You are using logic from our world on a situation that cant exsist here, and of course it isnt going to work. You only changed half the rules .

Allowing for magic and weird powers and ect allows you to apply it to other things than just super powers like spell casting.

At the end of the day a stable population of sexually reproducing organisms needs to produce, on average, one fertile adult female per fertile adult female. More than this and the population grows, less and it shrinks. Technically you can add males to the model, but they usually just make some numbers bigger without altering the population's longterm behavior. Very, very few populations are strongly influenced by male availability.

Note that I'm using male and female here in an entirely biological sense. You can socially code all the peasants as "men" and maybe that's interesting, but if half have uteruses, they impact population dynamics as female.

With that in mind, you can skew the population more male if you want, but the one female per female requirement then mandates more total offspring per female. That's only a real world assumption in the sense that 2+2=4 is an assumption. With the horrific infant mortality of premodern societies, very large sex ratio discrepancies in favor of more males will simply be unsustainable. With modern survival rates, it simply makes life worse for everybody, to the point where I'd expect that for a lot of nobles marrying into or otherwise moving to a society with less demands on their uteruses would be a very high priority, and the pressure of the male underclass trying to emigrate would be simply enormous.

[Segev]

At the end of the day a stable population of sexually reproducing organisms needs to produce, on average, one fertile adult female per fertile adult female. More than this and the population grows, less and it shrinks. Technically you can add males to the model, but they usually just make some numbers bigger without altering the population's longterm behavior. Very, very few populations are strongly influenced by male availability.

Note that I'm using male and female here in an entirely biological sense. You can socially code all the peasants as "men" and maybe that's interesting, but if half have uteruses, they impact population dynamics as female.

With that in mind, you can skew the population more male if you want, but the one female per female requirement then mandates more total offspring per female. That's only a real world assumption in the sense that 2+2=4 is an assumption. With the horrific infant mortality of premodern societies, very large sex ratio discrepancies in favor of more males will simply be unsustainable. With modern survival rates, it simply makes life worse for everybody, to the point where I'd expect that for a lot of nobles marrying into or otherwise moving to a society with less demands on their uteruses would be a very high priority, and the pressure of the male underclass trying to emigrate would be simply enormous.

Put another way, one man and 10 women can produce about 10 offspring in about a year. One woman and 10 men can produce about 1 offspring in about one year.

(There are, of course, other considerations in just how viable raising those offspring will be, but from the pure von Neuman biomechanical perspective....)