Summary

Jens, Sif and Rich talk with our special guest Luci about Bisexuality. In everyday life, but also in our mythology.

00:00:11

Jens: Welcome to the Wyrd Thing podcast episode 29, which is about bisexuality. My name is Jens. I’m joined today by my co-host Sif.

Sif: Hello!

Jens: and Rich.

00:00:24

Rich: Hello there.

00:00:25

Jens: And our special guest today is Luci. Hi, Luci. Hello. Luci is a singer, songwriter, author, illustrator and screenwriter, an inclusive heathen and bisexual. So a great guest for this episode. Did I forget something important there, Luci?

00:00:45

Luci: No, that was quite charming. What you said. Yeah. So hopefully I can add something useful to this conversation tonight.

00:00:54

Jens: I’m convinced about that. Let’s jump in with the simple, difficult question. What does the time bisexuality actually means to you?

00:01:05

Luci: Oh, to me, bisexuality means to be sexually and as well. Like. Oh, God, could I say Rosalie? Fascinated by. Yeah. Not by, but by both genders. But the thing is, like, it’s because I’m quite old. I’m 53. Therefore, um, I always tended to use the term bisexual, which, yeah, became part of my identity. I think if I would be younger today, I would use something like pansexual because I don’t like I’m sure I could be quite fascinated by them person as well. So it’s not, uh, there’s no border concerning only like cis persons or something like that. So for me, bisexuality means being not heterosexual. Maybe.

00:01:57

Rich: Yeah, that’s It’s an interesting point that I was going to take us often people the more common to people. I’ve heard people say pansexual or omni sexual, or often people even just define themselves as queer as is just a catch all term for meaning non cis hetero.

00:02:16

Jens: Yeah, I think it’s.

00:02:16

Luci: Much more inclusive and I think it’s much more correct. It was just that, yeah, in my times when I was young.

00:02:26

Jens: Before the war.

00:02:27

Luci: This term, I don’t know if it didn’t exist, but it was not common to use it. So I just got used to the term bisexual and it meant that. Yeah, I’m just not not hetero. I’m not straight, I, I love yeah, I can fall in, in love or be aroused by by women as by men and I’m sure by they then people as well by non-binary people as well. Although I never had experience with non-binary people, so I can’t tell, but I’m sure it would be like that. So.

00:03:01

Jens: That’s a good thing about labels that use your own.

00:03:04

Luci: Yeah, definitely. So. But yeah, I love the fact that the younger generation tries to find definitions for who they are and what they feel. I think I’d rather even would rather define myself not as a woman, but as an agenda if I would be young nowadays, I think. But yeah, it’s hard to describe what it means to be a bisexual woman in the 2020s. Yeah, it’s something about being queer and about, uh, celebrating queer sexuality, I think.

00:03:42

Sif: Mm. I think a lot of people today kind of get a little bit caught up on the bi in bisexual in that they think it informs or like, encourages a gender binary when I think a lot of people, well, myself, at least a few of the people that I’ve seen definitely have not twisted, but tweaked adjusted the definition to basically mean I’m attracted to my own gender and people of other genders to be the two categories. Yeah, and then there’s a lot of crossover there with obviously pansexual identities. But again, it’s I think what we’re learning is that these categories, these labels are not static. They change over time, which I think is quite important as well.

00:04:28

Luci: Yeah, definitely. In my dreams it wouldn’t be necessary to kind of having a label except of being yourself and then, but I think maybe sometimes it’s easier to have a label just to get in contact with the right people. So yeah. So, so labels are not not always bad. I think.

00:04:46

Sif: Yeah. It’s a similar story to like heathen, I guess in that a lot of people are.

00:04:51

Luci: You’re right.

00:04:51

Sif: You probably don’t want to label themselves or their path, but you use that label to follow or find groups of like similar people.

00:04:59

Luci: Yeah, I think I think it’s Indeed there there is a lot of parallels because like, I don’t think that you will find, like any heathen who follows the same path, then another one, I think it might be the same even with a like bigger monotheistic religions, but especially with the heathens. Like if there is something that you can exclude and it means like not being monitored, it’s like defining yourself as queer means like you’re just not heterosexual. And I think that’s yeah, that’s at least something that where you can all come together.

00:05:35

Rich: I think that’s likely would have been the case in the past anyway. You know, in the kind of pure heathen time if we can even project that far. But there’s hardly speculation, but that beliefs would have varied from person to person, village to village. The heathen that was practiced in what is now France would be different to the heat we practiced in Norway. They would have been 1 or 2 points of correlation, but not that much, you know. But equally, I was going to get back. We talk about terms change and evolve. And you know, there’s even the word queer was a very unpleasant derogatory term for a long time. But it’s now been reclaimed. Some have some words which I won’t repeat have not. And perhaps they should remain in the past. But equally with heathens, for a long time people would call themselves an Odinism, which these days is you don’t do that unless you’re making your mark yourself as a that was a particular type of belief. But in the past it was heathen or heathen was not even the word had no currency in terms of the belief system. So things do evolve it. And, you know, and I think for the better. So maybe, maybe bisexuality will fade out. It’ll just be pansexual or queer, which might be the dominant word, you know.

00:06:41

Luci: Yeah. Yeah. That’s right, I think so. Nevertheless, the flag is nice.

00:06:50

Jens: I think we can reclaim the flag for some other purpose, if that’s the most important thing about it. And I have to say, you said before that bisexuals everything, which is not hetero and cis, I think, and I feel I have to contradict because I self-identify so much as gay and not as bisexual.

00:07:11

Luci: Yeah, of course, of course. I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:07:14

Jens: I’m quite fixed in what, uh, what kind of person gets me aroused?

00:07:21

Luci: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:07:22

Jens: They should look very similar to my husband.

00:07:25

Luci: I’m sorry, I, I, I indeed didn’t mention the gays. Goodness, no, of course it’s. And I mean, there’s there’s nothing bad about, like, being completely like, straight gay or straightly heterosexual. It’s just that I think a lot of people aren’t. I think in my opinion, it’s rather the exception than the norm. I think most people I meet have sides that you would call bisexual or pansexual or whatever.

00:07:59

Jens: I think that tells a lot about the people you meet and and what kind of struggles you’re around.

00:08:05

Luci: I don’t know.

00:08:08

Jens: From my experience in the past, bisexual could mean different things. I was rarely speaking with men about that, but then I was speaking a bit more in detail there. And there were different types of there were people who said, yeah, I’m interested in the specific kind of people, but gender is not the qualifier there. So whatever this is, I’m I love ginger, skinny people or whatever, but it doesn’t matter whether they’re male or female or anything in between. And I’ve met other people who said, well, I’m looking for different things, whether it’s men or women. And then there is also, of course, the time dimension that changes with people during their life in various ways. So in short, I think bisexual is also kind of an umbrella term, not as huge an umbrella as non-binary, maybe, but still, we don’t necessarily always mean the same. There are different ways to be bisexual.

00:09:08

Luci: Yeah. And I think like the definitions they they start from women who kiss other women at a party, or men who kiss other men at a party to people who have like, serious relationships with both or with all kinds of genders. But who am I to tell someone how they should define themselves? Yeah, I think the only thing what’s good about this kind of definition is that we all start thinking about, like, how different we all are and how necessary it is to accept each other like we are, isn’t it?

00:09:43

Rich: Exactly. I think it’s also complicated by the people who are gay, but they were straight for just one person the rest of their life. They’ve only ever had, you know, partners of the same gender. And that’s and they’re happy with that. But there was just one person that was the person, not the, you know, not their sort of identity. That was them. And the same as people who were straight at the same sort of things like, well, well, I’m not gay, but what you had this one relationship. Yeah, but it was that person. It wasn’t. You know, we have the word bisexuality for that, but doesn’t really cover it, does it?

00:10:13

Luci: Yeah, that’s true.

00:10:14

Rich: It’s just it feels a bit lacking in depth.

00:10:17

Luci: Yeah. And also many, especially so many women who are in that situation who used to have relationships with women in former times. And now they are in a relationship with the men. And you stay bisexual if you do this. And it is another kind of identity, and I think it’s because there’s still something. That you are missing. If you are in a relationship with only one person, maybe that is something that bisexuality really means. Is that like one gender could or one cisgender could never kind of completely fulfill your sexual needs? And I think it needs yeah, it needs a lot of openness and sometimes a lot of negotiation to have a relationship that is livable despite that paradox. I think most of the bisexual people I know live like including myself, live in kind of open relationships. Because of that.

00:11:24

Jens: I think I will hook in here. Uh, now, I lost my thread. Did I, uh. I think our society still idolises monogamy, and bisexuality. makes it obvious that there is an issue there, which I think is part of why it’s a bit uncomfortable for people because they see. Yeah, but we have this monogamy ideal. How can you live like this? But if you’re really honest to yourself, well, not to yourself. If people are honest to themselves, it’s so rare that you meet the one person who is really your one and only in every aspect and dimension. And we have this idol. We think, yeah, Prince Charming and but honestly, I might be a little bit frightened if I meet a person who is a perfect fit in sexual things, but also in all of my hobbies and my interests. And we fit an absolutely aspect that the question is where is each individual personality? And I think it happens for very, very few couples at all. It’s just less obvious than the heterosexual couples, or in the non bisexual couples there. I think it’s quite healthy to have some kind of openness in the relationship, in whatever aspect. It doesn’t need to be the sexual aspect, but I think everybody in the relationship should have something which was their own.

00:12:57

Luci: Yeah, definitely.

00:12:59

Sif: It’s getting deep into the relationship philosophy.

00:13:04

Jens: Yeah, but.

00:13:04

Luci: I think you only can give something if you own something, can.

00:13:08

Sif: Yeah.

00:13:09

Luci: And if you together for quite a long time, you will have to have space where you still own things for yourself as well. Like to share them or to give them away.

00:13:20

Sif: Mhm.

00:13:22

Luci: I live in a relationship with my husband now for like 27 years, and I think our relationship wouldn’t have survived if we wouldn’t have like a lot of spaces where we could have been on our own despite like being together almost all the time because we work in the same flat and we’re almost 24 hours a day together if I’m not traveling. But yeah, there’s still a lot of things that we have for ourselves.

00:13:50

Sif: That’s really interesting because just speaking for myself, obviously I’m in a monogamous, heteronormative relationship and he will be my future husband. We’re engaged. And you know, to be sappy. I do feel like I found the one, but he’s also in the room with me now, so.

00:14:10

Rich: Well, the cat’s out of the bag. He knows now. There’s no going back.

00:14:14

Sif: I think he’s playing the PlayStation. He might not be listening. He’s got his headphones in.

00:14:19

Rich: Well, if he listens to the podcast, he will.

00:14:23

Sif: Yeah. He’ll know. I’ll just say. Yeah, yeah, you can listen to it if you want.

00:14:28

Rich: Also be sitting down about ten minutes. Just just just putting that up. But it’s interesting and I don’t really know how to really quantify this, but a number of people who would describe themselves or identify as bi, but are in heteronormative relationships now, is that because they’ve been conditioned to that by society or they’ve just found a one? I’m not saying you have or you haven’t. I don’t have an answer for that question, but that is an interesting but maybe, you know, there needs to be there are a number of gay people I know who. Oh, yes, I was married. I’ve got a kid. You know, I see them occasionally. Wait, what? You. You were married? When? When? Yeah. So I think maybe it goes both ways. You know, I think maybe in time, as society gets more, more flexible, we’ll see more of that.

00:15:16

Luci: But I don’t know, I think despite finding the one you want to spend your life with. I think like bisexual people or pansexual people have got sexual needs that one person can’t fulfill. Maybe a person, to be honest, that I don’t know. That identifies with both genders. I don’t know. But I think, like if you love and live together with a heterosexual man or cis men, I as a bisexual woman will still be fascinated or will still dream of touching a beautiful female breast, for example. And it’s just natural that the cis men can’t fulfill this. So maybe the bi means more not like both genders because there are so many more, but means having at least two people to fulfill your sexual needs or much more.

00:16:17

Sif: So yeah, it’s definitely interesting. And I think for me it’s about maybe I’m very much a monogamist, but I also totally understand polygamy at me. So I don’t know. It’s such an interesting question because I think a lot of in terms of the culture, I would say that to answer Rich’s question that he posed, I think it is easier to get into a heteronormative relationship if you’re bi, because that’s the default. People are default to people being heterosexual. You know, it’s not assumed unless you’re you’re you come out, you know, that if you’re gay or bi or not heterosexual. I would say on the one hand that it’s that’s probably why a lot of bisexual people are in what looks like a straight relationship, just because it’s considered normal or default. It’s still in the current culture.

00:17:13

Luci: I don’t know, it’s always like if you want to have like a one on one relationship with someone. Yeah, it is easier as a bisexual person to be in a heterosexual relationship, but not only because it’s the norm, but it’s definitely not easy for a bisexual person to be in a queer relationship or in a homosexual relationship, because, I mean, that was what I experienced when I was younger, because people won’t trust you. And because and I think it’s got to do something with self-esteem that a lesbian woman will always feel kind of threatened by the thought that a man could take her place, which is horrible, because it’s a very patriotic way of thinking that in the end I will be replaced anyway by a man, which would definitely not be true. But I think it’s. Yeah, it’s got a lot to do with self-esteem.

00:18:12

Jens: I have seen quite some biphobia from gay men, to be honest. I probably was not in the position to see it within women, but I’ve seen it at gay men quite a lot. It took me a while to recognise it as a pattern. So the first time I was thinking, oh, this is just odd. Why is he behaving like this? Until I had that several times in similar ways and realized, okay, it must be a thing in general. Yeah, the same idea. He will replace me with a woman in the end, because it’s easier maybe there as well. So this idea, he can retreat into mainstream society and I can’t because I don’t have this option here. I think another part of this actually is several people, when they have decided something for themselves, they like that to be the norm for other people as well.

00:19:04

Luci: Yeah.

00:19:05

Jens: Which I’ve seen on totally other occasions as well, but also on this one. So, Luci, you spoke about most people would be bisexual to a degree. And I think even if that’s right, unless you’re more on the one or the other side, it’s easier just to commit to to the one side and to ignore that. And then you suddenly see a person who lives this. It may also feel threatening because why is he daring to do something I don’t allow myself?

00:19:35

Luci: Yeah. Yeah. It’s true.

00:19:36

Sif: Mhm. Mhm.

00:19:38

Jens: So yeah unfortunately gay biphobia is a thing and it has several dimensions.

00:19:43

Sif: Yeah it’s definitely I’ve experienced it and observed it myself. I know within like Sapphic groups tend to be a little bit touch and go whether they accept kind of bisexual members for instance, or just on social media. But I’ve also seen lesbians who just to be really quite crude about it, and I apologize in advance, don’t want to touch someone who’s had a dick in them. And that’s definitely the rhetoric that kind of goes into like misandry almost in some circles. And yeah, it’s almost like you’ve been tainted, which obviously is extreme. That’s certainly not the my experience of most lesbians. But yeah, there’s you going into all of that in terms of bi-erasure, which is unfortunately quite prevalent still in my experience. Especially in kind of my situation where I have been told that I’ve settled or I’m no longer bisexual because I’m with a straight guy. And obviously that’s nonsense. Your sexuality isn’t determined by the person you’re in a relationship with.

00:20:44

Luci: Right.

00:20:44

Sif: That’s very problematic all around. Especially like, say, if you’re asexual. So on and so forth. It’s, um, many layers of problems with, uh, that people can encounter when they say they’re bisexual and to kind of touch on common misconceptions as well. A certain member of my family told me it was just a phase, or I just really respected women or basically said, oh, so you’re more likely to cheat then? And obviously these are very common if you’re bi and you’re out as bi.

00:21:13

Rich: I’m going to say they’re going for the full bingo card there aren’t they.

00:21:15

Sif: Yeah. They’re going straight across. Bingo.

00:21:18

Rich: Yeah.

00:21:19

Jens: Well, it’s just the face is extremely common. Um, to, I think everything which is outside mainstream there.

00:21:27

Luci: Yeah.

00:21:28

Sif: Yeah, yeah. Very true.

00:21:32

Rich: But in terms of how this pertains to heathen and paganism and things like that, certainly I’m aware in all the sort of pagan heathen groups have been in there seems, at least in my experience, to be a much greater acceptance of people who are anywhere within the remit or quilt back, you know, LGBT plus bisexual or gay, in that tends to be a more accepting because it tends to be a fringe thing, so tends to attract fringe people, but they tend it tends to be a lot more give and take for people who are not what society expects to be normal. That makes sense.

00:22:09

Sif: Yeah.

00:22:09

Rich: Would you agree with that?

00:22:11

Jens: I quite agree with that. I have to say, most bisexual women I’ve met, I’ve met in heathen circles, not in queer circles. Honestly, it looks a bit like a cliche to me. the bisexual heathen woman. I don’t know knowingly any bisexual heathen man. Funnily enough, I’ve met a few outside, but I can’t remember anyone who who said that to me, who was visibly bisexual. Which, of course is a problem because how are you visibly bisexual? By holding hands with a man and a woman at the same time.

00:22:47

Sif: Maybe just wear a shirt all the time? I am bi.

00:22:53

Jens: Maybe heathen men just don’t tell me.

00:22:55

Rich: I mean, I did say that a AUK should do like, you know, one that says I heart Freyr and Freya this to be really mean.

00:23:02

Sif: I’d wear that, to be honest. That sounds great. I might design it myself and then pose it. Oh. Do it. Yeah. I mean, to kind of go on more to the heathen side of things. Absolutely. I see Freya as bi or pansexual. I know that’s what we call up unverified personal gnosis, but we do have in local center depending on the translation. Njordr standing up for his daughter saying it doesn’t really matter who someone sleeps with or who a woman sleeps with. I can’t remember the exact wording there. So I mean, there’s an awareness there. And if we want to get into the historical side of things, you have this kind of absence of information when it comes to lesbian relationships. And some of that can very easily be tied to a description [perception] of sex that was uniquely tied to the penis in terms of penetration. If it wasn’t a penis penetrating, it wasn’t sex. So you have this entire gap in the historical record of, well, potentially women with women was not going to say it was normal in terms of their own standards. But, you know, it wasn’t considered sex, so it wasn’t demonized nearly as much as, you see as gay men, as it were in the literature.

00:24:15

Rich: But even the gay men thing has at least some researchers. And I was just another point of debate, so that’s been too much emphasis been placed on the phobia, whereas Maria Kvilhaug’s viewpoint is that when you look at the source of the actual surviving members, the people who are accused of ergi, unmanly behavior. Yes. Gay is in there, or homosexual acts is in there, but also what seems to be very far away, things like say, you know, SA, that kind of stuff, or domestic violence as well. So that seems to be really what it’s getting at. It’s unmanly behavior. Oh, and you’re gay as well. So I think that’s at least one perspective I know that Dan Coultas has a different view on that. It wasn’t quite as cut and dried. Yeah. And, um, in fact, there was another podcast I was on with Mathias Nordvig, and I think he had to say was that, you know, the surviving sort of the most compromised, you know, maybe the guy who wrote down a lot of them, all the, all the stories were like he was just massive homophobe and everyone else was chill with it. But unfortunately, the guy who wrote it all down, you know, not terribly sorry, but, you know, the the culture was led by, you know, people who had some strong beliefs that other people didn’t.

00:25:20

Sif: I would say that was a valid argument.

00:25:22

Rich: Yeah, it’s impossible to truly know. Of course. Yeah.

00:25:25

Jens: It’s impossible to know. But what we can do is look at the actual stories in the myths, and look at what kind of gender roles are portrayed there and how the gods behave in the stories. And I see lots of mixed up gender roles and quite little homophobia. If I look into that.

00:25:44

Rich: Yes.

00:25:44

Sif: Oh, absolutely. I mean, my topic of interest is the Valkyries. I know that’s news to everyone here, but it’s, uh, they’re purposefully mixing gender roles in terms of trying to getting into, like, a middle ground, which is quite liminal. Um, and it was kind of those that cross boundaries, power awaits them, as it were, like magic in terms of the practice of weird and the manipulation of fate. And all of that can definitely be seen in going against the grain when it comes to social norms. Really fascinating well of research down there.

00:26:19

Jens: So my favourite mix up of gender roles is still Skadi. When she goes to the gods and asks for revenge for her father. Yeah, that’s just a very strong woman. There is not necessarily a sexual connotation. You may project it into it if you like to, but you don’t have to. But it very much shows that the gender roles were not as fixed as we sometimes think of them.

00:26:43

Sif: Yeah. Neil, how was it Neil Price? Can’t remember. There’s only a few academics that say the same thing, but there’s definitely a rich might disagree with me on this, but there seems to be more leeway in terms of women going outside of the perceived gender norms than the reverse of potentially men doing the same, because we see that quite often, although there’s some some instances where it’s not quite the case, like Audr and Laxdaela Saga there’s a few instances of people, oh, I guess Hervor being the most famous.

00:27:13

Rich: Yeah. Hervor saga.

00:27:15

Sif: Yeah, would probably be the most obvious example there. Yeah. There’s a there’s quite a few of kind of warrior women. You got Hervor the Younger and the older who both become kind of like warriors. My favourite admittedly, is probably Hervor the younger because she’s, like leading an army against the Goths. I think, if memory serving me. Yeah. Such a. Yeah. It’s interesting.

00:27:39

Luci: I said something very, very naughty some minutes ago to. Because when you said, oh, I’ve never met a bisexual male heathen in the whole time. And I said, oh, I know at least two men. We both know who you definitely met and who are definitely bisexual. And one day they might tell you.

00:27:58

Jens: I just don’t have that information.

00:28:01

Luci: Yes, exactly.

00:28:05

Rich: Well, next time you need to ask to see their bicard. Like I need to see your identification papers, please.

00:28:13

Sif: Oh, wait, it was Hervor against the Huns. There we go. My brain had a bit of a…. she’s in a Gothic fort.

00:28:21

Rich: Well, the two funny thing were two bits I like about the size one. The annoying argument she has with her dead relatives who refuse to give her the sword. She’s a woman. We don’t have a sword. It’s totally here. I need the magic sword. No, you can’t have it. And if it was here, it’d be poisoned. So it is here. Well, no. No, I didn’t say that. And eventually she gets. But when she takes up the sword, the pronouns change the male. Because there is no way to refer to a female warrior. They have to use the male pronouns in this saga. And I think it’s certainly very interesting. Uh, sort of in terms of gender and things like that. And I think the paper, was it the paper you mentioned before? Was it a Regardless of Sex by Carol Clover? Is that the one?

00:29:02

Sif: Yeah, that’s the one.

00:29:04

Rich: I did want to ask Luci another question about, you know, obviously in your time as being a heathen, have you seen a change in attitudes to bisexuality.

00:29:13

Luci: Yes, I think it’s gotten like much easier for bisexual people to define or to be accepted within the queer community. I think biphobia has changed into some. Yeah, kind of interest in how you feel and what you are doing. So I’m relieved. When I started as a bisexual woman in the at that time, only like the homosexual community. It was it was really like not easy to that term that. Yeah, like like lesbians came and threatened me to beat me up if I wouldn’t disappear or something like that because I looked differently and I wasn’t I didn’t want to define myself as a lesbian because I wasn’t. And they hated me for that. But and nowadays it’s much easier because. Yeah, because it’s much more accepted not to fit into to one certain standard that other people set for you. And I think that’s a very good thing. Yeah, that that makes me quite happy that there’s at least an interest, and it’s at least like I feel like not being just something in between, but somehow okay for what I am. When I came out as bisexual, which was quite early, I think I was 17 or something. The girls in my surrounding were kind of, yeah, they felt threatened. They were like kind of disgusted. And later on when, like my record company found out, I lost like an advertisement deal and stuff like that. And so I had like kind of very similar problems to. In, in what you would call a normal homosexual person. It were very similar problems. And of course, like my parents said, it’s just a phase, but they didn’t care for me at all, so they didn’t care for my sexuality anyway. On the other hand, I couldn’t find kind of shelter in the homosexual Sexual community because they felt threatened as well. And that was kind of difficult because of course, I always I wanted to belong somewhere and always felt that I would belong nowhere, that I had to. Yeah. To somehow fight for my own place or build my own shelter to get one. Because I never fit in. Yeah. Wherever I came, I didn’t fit in and. And nobody wanted me.

00:31:35

Sif: I’m sorry.

00:31:36

Luci: No, I mean, it wasn’t that bad, so. So I had a nice life, but I think it would have been even a little bit easier for me if I would have been, like, straightly homosexual. Mhm. Because I would have had like the support of the community. I, I was looking for support because I’ve always like very openly bisexual, which meant that the man I spent my time with threatened as well because they had to explain to other people how I can still be bisexual. At the same time, I had a relationship with them and they felt kind of, oh, not only threatened, but yeah, emasculated. That’s a good word, because they weren’t willing to be a part of my identity, which I can understand because most of them were, like straightly heterosexual, and they expected from me to be the only one, or they expected that they would be the only one for me. And I always lived openly admitted that they weren’t, and most of the men couldn’t cope and most of the women either. So it was kind of difficult until I met my husband.

00:32:58

Jens: I just wanted to say you told us you were married for 27 years now, so that that’s quite a while. Uh, So at some point you met your husband, who is, as far as I’ve experienced him, incredibly relaxed about these things.

00:33:12

Luci: Yeah, yeah.

00:33:15

Jens: I think he really is the most relaxed man I’ve seen on such terms there.

00:33:21

Luci: I knew he was the right guy when we went. Like it was right at the beginning of our relationship. We were at the Christopher Street Day parade in Berlin, and there was a like a very, very famous gay club called The Connection, and it was invited on the wagon of The Connection, and I saw my husband dancing in a black latex suit, dancing in front.

00:33:44

Jens: *laughing*

00:33:48

Luci: 20 sailor boys with naked dicks, just like waving their dicks behind his ass. And he was just dancing. Like, oh, it’s so nice. It’s so beautiful here. And I said.

00:33:57

Luci: Okay, that’s my man.And so he’s very relaxed. He’s completely monogamous.

00:34:06

Jens: Mhm.

00:34:06

Luci: Sometimes I try to talk him into bisexuality as well because sometimes I feel guilty. But I don’t think it works. Maybe with his like oldest friends he will develop something like an like in like age bisexuality or something like that. I don’t know.

00:34:23

Jens: I think that’s a myth, but….

00:34:26

Luci: no of course that was, that was something that was that. Was irony or a joke. I hope that this is allowed.

00:34:36

Sif: Listeners, that was a joke.

00:34:38

Jens: It did remind me of someone we both know as well. Spoke about old age homosexuality. And I thought, no, they’re just coming out late. That’s something different.

00:34:52

Luci: Isn’t it? I don’t know, maybe that would strengthen my theory that everyone has got kind of a bisexual side or almost everyone.

00:35:03

Sif: But I would agree with that.

00:35:05

Jens: We know two people who have five children together, and he identifies as gay and not as bisexual are despite the fact that there are five children.

00:35:15

Luci: Okay. Yeah, but isn’t it free to identify like he wants to?

00:35:19

Jens: Absolutely. Of course.

00:35:21

Luci: As long as you’re in a relationship, the only people who are important are the ones in the relationship who make the rules. No matter how many people are in that relationship. Mhm. And I think like every relationship is so different from another. And that’s something that people most of the time don’t realise that you have the right to define your own rules and that it’s only you who should be concerned by that rules.

00:35:48

Sif: I think that’s an important lesson.

00:35:50

Luci: Yeah, it’s none of anyone else’s business.

00:35:53

Sif: And the world would be a much nicer place if we all realised that.

00:35:57

Luci: Yeah. Yeah. Right.

00:36:01

Sif: Leave people be?

00:36:02

Luci: Yeah. Of course. But, I mean, of course it should be the same rules for the ones that are in relationship. If one has got different rules from the other. It’s getting painful. Mhm.

00:36:14

Sif: Communication, honesty.

00:36:17

Jens: As long as they agree on that. What. Where’s the problem.

00:36:21

Luci: I mean as long as, as long as they agree on the pain.

00:36:24

Sif: Agree that there is a pain.

00:36:26

Luci: That’s a different sort of pain that you mean. Yes.

00:36:30

Jens: Oh, sorry I misunderstood you there.

00:36:32

Luci: I’m convinced. Yeah.

00:36:36

Jens: I understood the rules. Should be the same for everyone in the relationship. And I said as long as they agree on the rules. Yeah, of course, if they agree, then to all the different even that might be okay as long as they consent to that.

00:36:50

Luci: I don’t think it’s a mistake or it’s a lack or whatever if people can’t. Yeah, it wasn’t the fault of the people I had relationships before Axl with that they couldn’t cope with me being bisexual. Yeah, but I think it’s always important that, you know, with whom you are together with and that you are able to cherish the person instead of wanting to cut something off them because you want to make them fit into certain social standards.

00:37:20

Sif: Mm. Be kind to each other.

00:37:22

Rich: Good to me.

00:37:23

Luci: But I think it’s hard for men, especially for men, to. Yeah, to defend a different kind of lifestyle in front of other people. Yeah. I think it’s got a lot to do with social status and pretending to kind of control your woman or be like, like a proper man who fulfills a woman’s needs and all that shit.

00:37:45

Rich: I think that is changing now. I think it’s changing because when you see the number of people who’ve been like Hollywood celebrities and people like that of of the sort of, you know, 18 to 25 for age bracket who are out or all trans or queer and and have had relationships with men and women. And it doesn’t seem to be a big deal for them or their fans. And that obviously heralds a hopefully a good positive change for the future.

00:38:14

Luci: Yeah, hopefully at the moment, like since a couple of months, it’s all terribly rolling backwards. So hopefully it won’t stay that way.

00:38:24

Rich: Even when things have rolled backwards. It doesn’t stay like, I mean, you’ve only got to look back to say things that were obviously in Germany, but the thing of the the very, very sort of permissive and very, very sort of sexually open Weimar Republic and you know, the the culture came out of that and, you know, and hopefully Germany returned to that. You know, from what I gather, certainly. And Berlin was certainly a very, um, sort of open to, you know, sort of place, uh, 70s and 80s.

00:38:50

Luci: Yeah. That’s right. If you see, like nowadays, people like Gwen Stefani. Aw, yeah. Like completely pointing. Like. Like getting into Christian prayer groups. So it’s. Yeah, I think it’s quite dangerous that we lose a lot of things that have been luckily normalised in the last decades, which is horrible and a nightmare, I think.

00:39:15

Rich: Yeah, but let’s hope for the future. It happens to evolve and representation within ordinary, but also in society at large.

00:39:23

Sif: That’s my thought. I think we’ve got to think that way, to be honest. The alternative is not a nice thought, but I’m very hopeful that these sorts of things, these periods we’re finding ourselves in at the moment is very temporary, and kindness and compassion will win out. Maybe that’s naive of me, but you’ve got to think about it like that.

00:39:43

Luci: Ah, I’m not that optimistic. If I think about like, Berlin in the 1920s, we have been like, especially like women’s rights have been like, yeah, much further than they were in the 1950s. Well, of course, in the 1930s. So I think we really have to watch out to defend what we fought for in the last decades. It all feels so absurd, like, even to think of that, someone could really think of, like, feeling threatened by a trans person or something like that. But it is not absurd. It’s real.

00:40:17

Sif: Yeah, exactly.

00:40:18

Luci: We should all very, very much be aware that it’s very, very easy to lose what we fought for and the stuff that we won in the last decades.

00:40:27

Sif: Yeah. Optimistic but not complacent.

00:40:30

Luci: Yeah. Right, exactly.

00:40:31

Sif: So it’s going to be I think it’s going to be a bit of a wild one for a little while.

00:40:37

Rich: It’s a good place to wrap it up do you think.

00:40:40

Sif: Don’t you want to end on a positive?

00:40:41

Rich: Well, I know I mentioned it before. Were you? You said you’re optimistic and, you know, there’s a place. You know, the line you said about complacent, you know, optimistic but not complacent. I think it might be good for That juncture. What do you think? Unless you’ve got a final thought there.

00:40:55

Sif: I’m happy with that.

00:40:56

Jens: I think I would like to look back at heathen a little bit, to see what we can do in our own circles and stay away from the big politics, because, yeah, that’s very big politics and maybe too little bit too big for this podcast here. But interestingly, what can we do there? And if we look maybe look at the gods again. Luci, how do you see the gods in terms of gender roles and sexuality?

00:41:25

Luci: I think I mean, that’s something that I always of course, I don’t preach when I have my readings. I wrote this book, The Stories of Yggdrasil, and I love to travel around eastern, especially around eastern Germany, where there are like lots of sometimes very strange right wing groups claiming parts of our mythology and don’t know anything about it. And I love the fact that you can show to them that there’s so much freedom within the whole pantheon. There is no age norms. There are people changing their gender, gods changing their gender roles. Like, of course, like Loki, even changing his gender like he wants to, or Odin marrying the daughter of his…oh god. It’s also complicated. Like the whole pantheon is so Rainbow Family-esque. What I like best is that there is nothing like you don’t have any kind of blood relatives, but only if you’re a dwarf. You. You will belong to the gods if you join the gods. And if you fight together with the gods for whatever their needs. It’s the best example of a very, very open and multicultural society. And I think this includes sexuality as well, especially like the openness. So I think in history nothing is forbidden anyway. So the only thing that you have is You have to ask yourself if it’s right or wrong, what you’re doing, and you have to decide for yourself if it’s something that’s it’s good for you or not. And so I think that this includes gender norms and sexuality. The only one you have to be in harmony with is yourself. And of course, you only are in harmony with yourself if you are in harmony with your surroundings and the people around you. But there’s no one who tells you like what to do or how to behave. In fact, I mean, so many people want this. Like with this. Like the strange, like nine virtues or whatever people come up with. But there is nothing like that. You have to decide for yourself. You have to be self-confident enough to decide for yourself how you want to live. Yeah, this includes sexuality and gender norms in my opinion.

00:43:39

Jens: Thank you very much for that, Luci. Any final comments from Sif or Rich?

00:43:45

Speaker 2: I think there’s a lot of misconceptions around the Viking Age people that have been reinforced over the centuries. You know, specifically Victorian era around there… 1800s and 1900s. As someone who is more reconstructionist in terms of my approach, it’s very encouraging for me to read about new research coming out recently. That is very much dismissing a lot of these beliefs around sexuality and rigid gender roles and, and all of that. I mean, it was just recently I was really fascinated with the idea that the role of women was way more I don’t want to say free but relaxed compared to, you know, say, the Normans. Um, from that point on. But yeah, I think the beautiful thing about heathenry is that you can find within the stories, within the Eddas, things that affirm your own beliefs in one way or another. And there is the freedom there to have these reflections in the gods or the heroes of the stories. It’s not rigid. It’s not. Yeah, I guess that would be my final thought, that there is room to have your own approach affirmed and your own personal …I don’t want to say essence, but I feel like that’s probably the best word, you see, affirmed rather than seen as against the grain or abnormal or not normal or an outlier. I think that’s quite a nice thing about heathenry specifically.

00:45:18

Rich: Yeah, I do think it’s not just the I would say it comes from the, the very that’s very modern, but also very old concept of community that everyone has something to contribute and everyone has. You’re part of a collective community, be that a real or virtual. And you have to understand that that will be a diverse group of people. I think that’s really where it comes from.

00:45:40

Sif: Yeah.

00:45:42

Jens: Okay. Rich, Sif. Thank you for co-hosting. And of course, Luci. A lot of thanks to you for being our guest tonight.

00:45:49

Luci: Yeah, thanks to you for letting me be your guest.

00:45:53

Sif: You’re wonderful. Thank you.

00:45:54

Rich: Very interesting. Yes.

00:45:58

Luci Thank you.

00:45:59

Jens: Okay. Thanks to all our listeners at this episode of the Wyrd Thing Podcast. You find us on Instagram, Facebook and on the internet on the Wyrd Thing.com. Goodbye.

00:46:10

Rich: Farewell

Sif: Bye bye.