Air Nomads gettin' freaky? It's more likely than you think!
Okay I couldn’t resist a fun catchy title for this, I had to.
However, fun catchy title aside, there’s a certain… interpretation, I guess, of Air Nomad culture that seems rather pervasive in the fandom at large, and I feel the need to address it. Not only address it, but dispute it too, with research gathered from canon material and other cultural information.
In the fandom, I often see this idea touted in regards to the Air Nomads. Namely, that they don’t believe in things like romance, relationships, marriage, etc., due to their desire to avoid earthly attachments. I’ve even seen some people taking it all the way to saying that Air Nomads were entirely celibate, or even claiming that Aang went against his culture as an Air Nomad by getting married and having children.
This simply isn’t true, for multiple reasons. I mean, obviously, how could the Air Nomad culture continue if nobody was having kids? But it’s more than that. I want to talk about where this specific interpretation and belief comes from, and the things within the material itself that disprove it.
Not only were the Air Nomads not anti-relationship or anti-sex, I have a strong argument that they were the most sex-positive nation within the entire universe.
A few disclaimers: No, this isn’t me saying that every single Air Nomad was out there like, having orgies every single night. Nor is it me saying that every Air Nomad was allosexual, or even saying that no Air Nomad ever took any kind of vow of celibacy. Different preferences certainly would have existed within the community. What I am saying is that we as a fandom need to stop acting like the entire Air Nomad population were sex-repulsed prudes when there is nothing at all in canon to establish that. If anything, canon establishes the opposite.
Lastly, although discussions of sex are the main point of this essay, the discussion is about attitudes and beliefs surrounding sex, both in the fandom and within the A:TLA universe. There are no explicit descriptions of any kind, just general discussion.
Word count: 3880
Before I get into the specific points I want to address, let’s talk a bit about what Air Nomad culture actually is, and how it differs to the cultures we see in the other nations.
Before the Hundred Year War, the Air Nomads were an ethnoreligious group within the world of A:TLA. What this means is that their ethnicity and religion were highly related, and you typically didn’t get one without the other.
Essentially, all Air Nomads follow the same belief system, and that belief system is linked to their ethnicity as Air Nomads.
We actually see this addressed in canon, after Harmonic Convergence creates new airbenders. The Krew attempt to convince a new airbender to train with them, and are given this response:
“I may be an airbender now, but I’m no Air Nomad. I’m no monk!”
Before the Hundred Year War, you didn’t get airbenders that weren’t also Air Nomads. Again, their culture and belief system were intrinsically linked to their ethnicity. After the war, we start to see some separation between the two.
This makes being an airbender much more like being a bender from any other nation. Within the other three nations, we see a large diversity of cultures and beliefs, even among people who can bend the same element or belong to the same nation. The culture of people living in Ba Sing Se is vastly different to the culture of the Sandbender people, despite both populations having earthbenders and living within the Earth Kingdom.
This isn’t the case for the pre-war Air Nomads. All Air Nomads share the same belief system and overall culture. Some diversity exists between the different temples, but again, the overall beliefs stay consistent.
For example, all Air Nomads practice pacifism. All Air Nomads practice vegetarianism. All Air Nomads believe in non-violence.
There are also many ways, seen in canon, that further establish how being an Air Nomad was directly linked to having the ability to airbend. Airbenders are the only type of bender that can bond with Sky Bison. The Air Temples are only accessible with the use of airbending. Within the temples themselves, there are even certain areas that are physically blocked off to those without airbending. Airbending itself is intrinsic to being an Air Nomad.
Prior to the war, being an airbender meant you were an Air Nomad, and vice versa. It’s after the war we start to see this splitting up, in a similar way to other ethnoreligious groups in real life.
For example, a well known ethnoreligious group within the real world are the Jewish people, who practice Judaism. People can convert to Judaism without being ethnically Jewish, and people who are ethnically Jewish don’t always believe or practice Judaism.
In the same manner, the post-war airbenders are similar. There are airbenders who do not follow Air Nomad beliefs (Harmonic Convergence airbenders) and people who follow the Air Nomad beliefs without being airbenders themselves (the Air Acolytes). The only way a person can truly be considered an Air Nomad is if they have both – the ability to airbend and a dedication to the Air Nomad belief system.
Alright, we’ve established the Air Nomads as an ethnoreligious group. What on earth does this have to do with their attitudes surrounding sex?
A lot, actually! With the Air Nomads being an ethnoreligious group, we can talk specifically about Air Nomad culture and beliefs, and understand these things are shared by the entire Air Nomad population. This is how they live. These are things they all learn.
Now, we can start shifting to my overall point.
I believe the main thing that causes this idea within the fandom is the fact that the Air Nomads are often referred to as being “monks” and “nuns”. The majority of A:TLA fans live in the global North, with many areas having Christianity as the most prominent religion. So when they hear the word “monk” or “nun”, they automatically associate it with the Christian version of both of those roles.
Yeah, that needs to stop.
Monks and nuns exist all over the world, in many different religions. The Air Nomads specifically are based off Tibetan Buddhist monks (though I feel it is important to also note that the Air Nomads are neither actually Tibetan nor actually Buddhist; their culture and beliefs are not a one-to-one representation). In Tibetan Buddhism, most, but not all monks practice celibacy. In fact, from my research, it seems Tibetan Buddhism has some of the least strict rules on monastic celibacy compared to other sects of Buddhism.
Again, monks and nuns can be found in many different religions aside from Christianity. The word “monk” just refers to someone who lives a monastic lifestyle. Monasticism just means devoting your life to your religion. It does not automatically equal celibacy as a requirement.
Which brings me back to the Air Nomads being an ethnoreligious group. See, I told you it had a point!
All male Air Nomads are monks. All female Air Nomads are nuns. If anything, monk and nun are just another way they refer to male and female. They are all monks and nuns because they all devote their lives to their religion, which in this case is the set of beliefs that all Air Nomads follow, as discussed before.
As well, if all monks and nuns were celibate… there wouldn’t even be an Air Nomad culture. You gotta have sex to make babies, sorry to be the one to tell y’all.
Okay, so Air Nomads aren’t automatically celibate just because they’re called monks and nuns. Doesn’t mean they’re having lots of sex, right? Surely they believe sex is just for procreation, right?
(I swear I am not making a strawman argument these are genuinely things I have seen people say.)
And… also wrong! The Air Nomads were a highly sex positive culture who had no negative views on sex, romance, relationships, or anything of the sort. Here’s how I know:
To start off, there is never any indication of any of these views in the original show. Obviously they weren’t going to discuss cultural views of sex with it being a childrens’ show, but A:TLA definitely discussed romance.
Never once, in the show or in any supplemental material, did Aang mention anything about romance and relationships being discouraged in Air Nomad culture. If that were the case, don’t you think it would be, I don’t know, a major plot point?
But it’s not. Aang has explicitly romantic feelings towards Katara, and never once does this specifically conflict with his views or beliefs as an Air Nomad. He doesn’t feel guilt. He doesn't feel uncertainty, or like he’s doing something wrong when he has feelings for Katara. It’s totally normal to him. You can’t argue that he wouldn’t have known that aspect of his culture yet because… look how much he already knows! I promise you, if there was a cultural belief against romance within the Air Nomads, Aang would have known about it at age twelve.
As for Aang’s requirement to detach himself in order to access the Avatar State, while Katara is used as a representation of this concept, Aang was not detaching himself from his romantic feelings towards her. Rather, he was detaching himself from the way his romantic feelings for Katara were taking importance over everything else in his life. He still begins and maintains a romantic, and eventually sexual relationship with Katara, while having full access and control over the Avatar State.
While Air Nomad culture and unlocking the Avatar State are different things, their concepts of detachment are ultimately quite similar.
Air Nomad culture isn’t about breaking ties with all personal relationships to achieve enlightenment. It’s about detaching oneself from worldly affairs, such as money and politics. If a certain relationship is taking more importance than anything else in your life it may ultimately be a problem for your spirituality, but many respected and accomplished Air Nomads were able to maintain both personal relationships and their spirituality.
Furthermore, why is it only romantic and sexual relationships people assume the Air Nomads would be against in order to achieve their desire of detachment? Why not friends, family, mentors, mentees? These relationships are just as deep and impactful as romantic/sexual ones, so why would they be acceptable to maintain, but not romantic/sexual relationships? We see countless examples within the universe of Air Nomads having meaningful, non-sexual or romantic relationships with others that are never stated to affect their spirituality or personal convictions of upholding their culture (ex. Tenzin & Korra, Gyatso & Aang, Kelsang & Kyoshi, etc.).
This could turn into a whole other essay about how fandoms (and people in real life, too!) emphasize romantic relationships over all others, but this one is already going to be long enough. To put it simply, if having deep, long-lasting friendships is acceptable within Air Nomad culture despite their desire for “detachment”, there is no reason to assume that romantic or sexual relationships wouldn’t be.
Another important aspect of my argument is how the Air Nomads view gender. Many people seem to assume they have strict views on it, considering the temples are gender segregated, but that isn’t the case either.
Air Nomads are not held captive at their temple. Air Nomad children, young Air Nomad children, travel around the world on relief missions and other expeditions. By twelve years old, Aang had already traveled enough to have close friends in other nations. Air Nomads get around! I mean, the Nomad part of the name didn’t come from nowhere…
The Air Nomad temples are simply home bases. It’s where children grow up and are trained. Again, they are allowed to travel and do so often. The temples frequently have visitors, and they don’t restrict visitors to being the same gender as the temple inhabitants. There are even instances of temples hosting long-term visitors of the opposite gender of their temple. Air Nomad children absolutely grow up with plenty of exposure to people of other genders.
What’s more, as we learn in the Roku novel, Air Nomads can change their home temple if their understanding of their own gender changes. All gender identities are accepted within their culture.
This explains the seeming lack of specific gender roles in their society. Pretty much all the male characters in A:TLA say or do something sexist, even without meaning to. Aang, the Air Nomad, does not.
(Sure, there’s the moment during TEIP, but Aang isn’t upset at being portrayed as a girl because he’s sexist. He’s upset at the portrayal because the play is making fun of him, trying to insinuate he’s dumb and weak. The Fire Nation, which absolutely holds some sexist ideals, does this insinuation by making his character a girl.)
Outside of that, Aang does not really do anything to suggest he views women as lesser. He isn’t offended at being beaten by girls on Kyoshi Island. He is just as appalled as Katara to learn about the sexism in the Northern Water Tribe, and even does what he can to try and circumvent it because he knows that Katara is just as capable of a waterbender as any man. Although Aang acts childish at times when it comes to chores, we never see him trying to insinuate that things like cooking and cleaning are “womens’ work”.
To me, at least, it’s pretty clear that Aang wasn’t raised to believe there was any difference in strength or capability between men and women. He doesn’t believe that there are specific jobs women “should” do, or that women are “just better” at. As well, he is certainly not the ideal of masculinity in the world, but this is never something that seems to bother him. He isn’t insulted by being called “not manly” or fear he can’t do or wear something because it’s “a girl thing”.
These are views and beliefs that Aang already had at the start of the show. He doesn’t need to learn them or grow into them, they are already part of his character. And the only way that makes sense is if that’s how he was raised by the Air Nomads.
Continuing in that same vein, the Air Nomads are canonically accepting of all gender identities, sexualities, and relationships. We see this during the comic Turf Wars, where Aang’s daughter, Kya, talks about the other nations’ views on same-sex relationships. She happily recalls how accepting Aang was when she came out to him, and mentions that all sexualities were accepted by the Air Nomads.
This is a major piece of evidence that Air Nomads were extremely sex-positive. If Air Nomads truly believed that sex was for procreation and procreation only, they would never be accepting of same sex relationships, because these relationships cannot create children.
And yet, they are. Meaning that within their culture, sex is not viewed as something that is only done to make a baby. In order to be accepting of these kinds of relationships, there has to be an understanding and acknowledgement that people have sex for pleasure.
Romance and marriage are also topics I’ve seen hotly debated. As previously stated, there was never any indication of the Air Nomads having a negative view of romance within the show. In the novels, this continues to be confirmed when Gyatso shares he has a sister – a full sister. Meaning their parents were together long enough to have not just one, but two children. The nature of their parents’ actual relationship still could be debated to be romantic, but at the very least they tolerated each other enough to have multiple kids together.
And while we don’t hear of any specific instances of marriage within Air Nomad culture, that doesn’t mean it didn’t exist or that it was actively discouraged. Likely, living in a transient, spiritual community where children are raised by the community rather than parents, many couples simply wouldn’t see the need to formalize their relationship. While in our modern world we usually see marriage as a symbol of love and commitment, ultimately marriage is, at its core, a contract made between two people that gives some sort of legal obligation to share resources such as money (something Air Nomads don’t use) and provide for any children produced (something Air Nomads wouldn’t require as they don’t raise their own children).
With the main reasons for marriage being unneeded within their culture, a wedding ceremony would only be a symbol, one that many Air Nomad couples would likely see no reason to participate in.
This can explain why Aang and Katara, and later Tenzin and Pema, are actually married. Both married someone outside of their culture, with Katara being Water Tribe and Pema, although an Air Acolyte, ultimately from the Earth Kingdom. In the absence of other Air Nomads, both couples had to raise their own children together. Not to say that love didn’t play a role in this decision as well, but this is a situation in which being married would provide more security and protection to all parties involved.
Moving on from marriage, there is yet more evidence of Air Nomad culture having no issue with sexuality.
From other information seen in the novels, we see that Air Nomads don’t carry a sense of embarrassment about their own bodies. This is a bit of a culture shock for Roku, who finds it strange that Air Nomads don’t particularly care about modesty (which he states is a contrast to the Fire Nation). When Sister Disha strips down to her underwear for a quick swim without a second thought, Roku thinks about how he isn’t used to people acting like that, clearly showing that this isn’t just a Disha thing – it’s an Air Nomad thing.
Another example of this lack of embarrassment can be seen with Yangchen. During one scene she’s described as removing her outer robes for sleep, and when she’s woken up by a maid, she wraps a sheet around herself for cover. The sheet, however, is entirely for the maid’s benefit. Yangchen never shows any signs of discomfort about taking off her clothes, even though she wasn’t alone in the room. Her covering herself is so others won’t be uncomfortable, as well as to properly sell the ruse she’s creating.
The ruse itself just furthers my conviction about this topic. Yangchen, who is both the Avatar and an Air Nomad, largely considered to be one of the most powerful and holy people to walk the earth, creates a ruse in order to make people believe she’s been having sex with her companion.
And how is this ruse taken? How do people react when they’re convinced she’s been having casual sex?
Absolutely neutrally. People care far about her being the Avatar than they do about her being an Air Nomad. A couple quips here and there, some lighthearted jokes, but if having sex was some kind of Big Bad Air Nomad Taboo… wouldn’t their reactions be different? Wouldn’t Yangchen’s thought process behind it be different? We see the times she goes against Air Nomad beliefs in her novels, and the way it causes her so much shame and distress. For this, however, she has no holdups or hesitation at all.
Bringing this point back around to the Air Nomads’ concept of modesty and how that ties in: cultures that hold a negative view of sex often also hold a negative view of the body. Conversely, cultures that view the human body neutrally are often more sex-positive in nature.
Tying this in even further with my point on the cultural Christianity within this fandom. It isn’t necessarily unexpected; A:TLA is an American show written by American authors and consumed by a largely American fanbase. The U.S. is very culturally Christian and very weird about human bodies in comparison to other places worldwide. Have you ever seen how stigmatized it is to breastfeed your baby in public here?
So it isn’t entirely surprising that this fanbase would fall into the idea that the Air Nomads had a sex-negative culture.
However, while not surprising, it is becoming increasingly frustrating to see as a fan who cares deeply about the cultural worldbuilding of A:TLA. It is frustrating not only to see how many people consistently ascribe culturally Christian views to the show, but also to see how many people genuinely believe these certain takes, despite ample evidence (as provided above) to the contrary.
(And to cover my bases, just in case someone tries to accuse me of being anti-Christian or something ridiculous: I am literally a cradle Catholic who is still practicing Catholicism. The difference is that I believe my religion is my own personal business AND I have done and continue to do a ton of work to deconstruct the harmful aspects of the beliefs I was raised with. Something that is becoming increasingly obvious to me that other people do not do.)
This is how we get people who wonder where Air Nomad babies come from if they’re all monks and nuns. This is how we get people saying Aang went against his beliefs and his culture by getting married. This is how we get people saying that sexualizing Air Nomad characters is the same thing as sexualizing real-life Christian nuns.
Personal beliefs on sexualizing nuns aside, as that is not a topic I do not want to get into, I feel it should be obvious that none of these things apply to the Air Nomads. Why?
Because Air Nomads are. Not. Christian.
Furthermore, why does it seem like so many people are genuinely resistant to the idea (and evidence!) that the Air Nomads not only had sex, but had sex just for the fun and pleasure of it? What is so wrong, so unappealing, about this concept?
All of the thoughts that I’ve both pondered and encountered lead back to the same basic beliefs, beliefs influenced by the cultural Christianity seen not only in this specific fandom, but fandom as a whole. That somehow sex, a natural human desire and experience, is not acceptable to want or have outside of extremely specific constraints. Even when viewing a fictional culture within a fictional universe, this attitude frequently remains.
Air Nomad culture has many aspects, thoroughly presented within canon, that we know constitute a sex-positive society. There are little to no gender roles. Bodies are treated neutrally, not shamefully. All sexual orientations and identities are accepted. It is not a leap, but rather a simple step forward to the conclusion that Air Nomads could have sexual relationships in whatever way they wanted: exclusive, casual, lots of sex, no sex at all, and everything in between.
The Air Nomads having casual sex does not make them dirty. It does not make them less spiritual, less holy, less good. It does not make them gross or perverted or unable to understand “true” romance. It does not somehow make them a worse nation or culture. It certainly does not erase their dedication to their beliefs.
After all, freedom is one of the core tenants of Air Nomad beliefs. Why wouldn’t it extend to this as well?
