Time Lords: The Asexual Drive
Aug. 12th, 2009 02:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
charameiIt probably says something about Who fandom that our version of 'Yes, but what are your thoughts on yaoi?' is, 'Yes, but what are your thoughts on asexuality?', doesn't it?
It's been bugging me for quite a while; and since most of what I write involves either multiple Time Lords, or Gallifrey, or both, I've put a fair amount of thought into the Great Question of Whether Time Lords Do It.
My answer: No.
I can rant at length about my meta reasons for this stance (they range from my own asexuality to feminism to 'Why can't the goddamned aliens just act alien?'), but that's a rant for another time. Here's my in-universe reasoning.
A note on the vexed question of Canon: My stance on this is that anything featuring an Actual Actor is canon, including the Big Finish audios and spinoffs. Everything else is on a sliding scale of 'whether or not I like the idea'; and since I've read exactly three of the books, most of my information on their contents comes second-hand from the Wiki. One of those three books is Lungbarrow, though.
And a spoiler warning for the end of S04.
Basically, it's about population control.
Time Lords live a long time. That is a known and proven fact. Exactly how long we don't know, and the Doctor's continual lying about his age doesn't help (never mind that Seven gave his age as 953 in Remembrance: Eight spends six hundred years between the end of 8DA S02 and the beginning of 8DA S03, and that's before the Time War - I figure Ten must be at least 2000, probably slightly over). Back in War Games they could live 'forever, barring accidents' (although I'd argue that the existence of Jack disproves that); Three gives his age as 'thousands' at one point, although he's probably lying. Four says that seven hundred is almost middle-aged in Pyramids of Mars, although he's probably being facetious... or lying about his age. Ten thousand seems to be a reasonable ballpark figure, barring accidents (and bearing in mind that the Doctor and Master have each had a great deal of accidents indeed). Time Lords live a long time. Their society was old, too - it's been ten million years since Rassilon, who doesn't come anywhere near the beginning of their history.
If they had human sex drives, as RTD seems to want us to believe, they would never have got to Rassilon. They would have overpopulated and starved long, long before that was possible: probably before making it out of the Stone Age.
Sure, if you follow the theory of Looms (and the belief that they're due to mass sterility) then this isn't a problem after Rassilon. But before him... well, let's just say that any number I were to project for Gallifrey's population if its people bred at the same rate as humans would be vastly inadequate [Warning: TV Tropes link.]
So. How to keep that population down, then? I'm no biologist, but I figure Mother Nature has three basic methods:
1. Increase the male-to-female ratio, thereby preventing too many babies form being carried at once. This seems to be the case, given the ratio of male-to-female Time Lords seen on screen: I believe one of the books sets the ratio at 12:1.
2. Reduce the population's interest in having sex: at least with the opposite gender (see #1), and probably with everyone. May or may not go hand in hand with 3:
3. Make sex a non-pleasurable activity. This prevents the population from doing it recreationally and forgetting to use condoms.
Other possibilities include a high rate of miscarriage, a low fertility rate or high sterility rate (Looms!) or, I guess, some sort of institutionalised culling at regular intervals because Time Lords know better than Nature. I think the first three are more likely: the others are either too artificial (culling) or feature too much risk of extinction if the population were to be suddenly decimated. Besides, empirical evidence suggests that Time Lords really aren't that interested in sex ('You're a very beautiful woman, probably.')
Personally, I would argue for all three of those being the case: I think it's hard to find a mate of the opposite gender, most Time Lords only get the drive to do it every thousand years or so, and when they do it's tiresome, slightly gross and really rather embarrassing for all concerned. And possibly done in public, just to prove they're not backing out on a societal obligation.
And I think that's why Rose ended up with the half-human Doctor.
Contrary to what a lot of people may think, this doesn't by any means preclude romance. I remain adamant in my Doctor/Romana and Doctor/Master pairings, and frankly at this point I think that the Tenth Doctor will fall in love with anything as long as it has a pulse or two.
And as long as it doesn't expect him to have sex with it.
It's been bugging me for quite a while; and since most of what I write involves either multiple Time Lords, or Gallifrey, or both, I've put a fair amount of thought into the Great Question of Whether Time Lords Do It.
My answer: No.
I can rant at length about my meta reasons for this stance (they range from my own asexuality to feminism to 'Why can't the goddamned aliens just act alien?'), but that's a rant for another time. Here's my in-universe reasoning.
A note on the vexed question of Canon: My stance on this is that anything featuring an Actual Actor is canon, including the Big Finish audios and spinoffs. Everything else is on a sliding scale of 'whether or not I like the idea'; and since I've read exactly three of the books, most of my information on their contents comes second-hand from the Wiki. One of those three books is Lungbarrow, though.
And a spoiler warning for the end of S04.
Basically, it's about population control.
Time Lords live a long time. That is a known and proven fact. Exactly how long we don't know, and the Doctor's continual lying about his age doesn't help (never mind that Seven gave his age as 953 in Remembrance: Eight spends six hundred years between the end of 8DA S02 and the beginning of 8DA S03, and that's before the Time War - I figure Ten must be at least 2000, probably slightly over). Back in War Games they could live 'forever, barring accidents' (although I'd argue that the existence of Jack disproves that); Three gives his age as 'thousands' at one point, although he's probably lying. Four says that seven hundred is almost middle-aged in Pyramids of Mars, although he's probably being facetious... or lying about his age. Ten thousand seems to be a reasonable ballpark figure, barring accidents (and bearing in mind that the Doctor and Master have each had a great deal of accidents indeed). Time Lords live a long time. Their society was old, too - it's been ten million years since Rassilon, who doesn't come anywhere near the beginning of their history.
If they had human sex drives, as RTD seems to want us to believe, they would never have got to Rassilon. They would have overpopulated and starved long, long before that was possible: probably before making it out of the Stone Age.
Sure, if you follow the theory of Looms (and the belief that they're due to mass sterility) then this isn't a problem after Rassilon. But before him... well, let's just say that any number I were to project for Gallifrey's population if its people bred at the same rate as humans would be vastly inadequate [Warning: TV Tropes link.]
So. How to keep that population down, then? I'm no biologist, but I figure Mother Nature has three basic methods:
1. Increase the male-to-female ratio, thereby preventing too many babies form being carried at once. This seems to be the case, given the ratio of male-to-female Time Lords seen on screen: I believe one of the books sets the ratio at 12:1.
2. Reduce the population's interest in having sex: at least with the opposite gender (see #1), and probably with everyone. May or may not go hand in hand with 3:
3. Make sex a non-pleasurable activity. This prevents the population from doing it recreationally and forgetting to use condoms.
Other possibilities include a high rate of miscarriage, a low fertility rate or high sterility rate (Looms!) or, I guess, some sort of institutionalised culling at regular intervals because Time Lords know better than Nature. I think the first three are more likely: the others are either too artificial (culling) or feature too much risk of extinction if the population were to be suddenly decimated. Besides, empirical evidence suggests that Time Lords really aren't that interested in sex ('You're a very beautiful woman, probably.')
Personally, I would argue for all three of those being the case: I think it's hard to find a mate of the opposite gender, most Time Lords only get the drive to do it every thousand years or so, and when they do it's tiresome, slightly gross and really rather embarrassing for all concerned. And possibly done in public, just to prove they're not backing out on a societal obligation.
And I think that's why Rose ended up with the half-human Doctor.
Contrary to what a lot of people may think, this doesn't by any means preclude romance. I remain adamant in my Doctor/Romana and Doctor/Master pairings, and frankly at this point I think that the Tenth Doctor will fall in love with anything as long as it has a pulse or two.
And as long as it doesn't expect him to have sex with it.
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Date: 2011-04-06 05:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-06 06:50 pm (UTC)