When I was looking for the topic of "gay wizards" in fantasy I stumbled upon a 2007 article from the blog "Medieval Karl" (by Karl Steel) titled "Gay Wizards" and which is... not actually about gay wizards at all. It is merely titled as such because it relies on the back then brand new, hot from the oven debate surrounding Rowling claiming Dumbledore is gay. The article of Karl Steel merely pointed out the difference between the sex life of wizards from literature and the idea of a "sexless wizard" as presented by another article, the hilarious "Is Dumbledore Gay?" by Edward Rothstein, from The New York Times. You probably remember it, or heard about it, it is this infamous article that, among other things, brought up how the summoning of a handkerchief out of a magic wand could be perceived as a sexual metaphor... Which of course triggers in me flashbacks to the opening scene of "Fire and Ice", that some people summoned it as "The evil wizard ejaculates his spell". Let's not even talk of the song about the knob at the end of the wizard's staff...
... Yet speaking of Discworld plunges us right again into the very same topic that Pratchett mocked, played with, subverted and reinvented: the sexuality of wizards. I talked enough of his article "Why Gandalf never married" and how his perception of the "celibacy of wizards" tropes shaped his own handling of the wizards and witches in Discworld, so I'm not going to bring this back up.
But we are swimming in the same water with the confrontation of the texts of Karl Steel and Edward Rothstein, because Karl Steel opposes Rothstein's idea that a wizard in fantasy should be, by default, a sexless and chaste being due to his function, with how Arthurian tales wizards behaved... The exact cases "Medieval Karl" brings up are the many magic-users of Perceforest (Darnant, Zephir, Lydoire), the rapist dwarf of "Ortnit" (compared to the "demonic lover" of Gowther) and Eliavrés in "Caradoc". Wizards of Arthurian legends and medieval poetry/literature were very sexual. In fact they were often sex freaks. Not counting holy men or hermits, they were rapists, sexual harassers and prone to weird fetishes and obsessions. They were the typical "lecherous evil sorcerer" that characters such as Adventure Time's Ice King would be born of.
This is opposed to the thesis brought in Rothstein's article which depicts the wizard of modern-day fantasy in a very religious light. The character of the old wizard, the magical mentor, master of the high arts, is talked about as one would speak of a monk or a nun - due to being fatherly or grandfatherly figure, teacher figures, men at the end of their life, master of secret arcanes and otherwordly matters, busy with cosmic business, they should be "above" carnal matters or not have "time" for sex and thus a wizard by default should be a sexless being. It is an impression and a perception that was very dominant throughout fantasy for quite a while, both in the audience and among the writers. It was after all why Le Guin in her Earthsea had celibate, chaste "high wizards" and "great mages", she was working with the codes and systems established by previous fantasy works - most notoriously Tolkien's. But later, realizing the problems such a consideration bore, she tried to "correct" her own world by pointing out the celibacy of wizards was a mix of a misogynistic environment and high magic weakening the sexual functions of a human being.
It is interesting however to see that it derives from figures such as Gandalf and the other wizars of Tolkien's Legendarium. It is tied to how today some people are surprised to hear "Le Guin wondered what kind of school and life of adventures would have turned a young boy into a Gandalf type of character", because they'll reply "But Gandalf is not a human! He is a Maia, an angelic entity, a nature spirit!". And here we touch a fascinating cultural discrepancy. Today, everybody is aware of the whole "Maia" thing with Tolkien's Wizards, how the Istari are not human beings but celestial powers posing as humans. Yet when the original books, The Hobbit and "The Lord of the Rings" were released, people did not knew this. The whole "Istari" deal came with later material, after the "Tolkien mania" per se. The Silmarillion was not released in the same time, and remained quite obscure for a while, leading in one (or rather several) generations getting the idea that Gandalf is indeed a mortal being, some sort of "Man or Elf", and thus it led to an entire generation of fantasy books presenting wizards as men chosing a Gandalf-like lifestyle. When in truth the reason Gandalf is the way he is is because he is not human - the same way C.S. Lewis' own wizards in Narnia are actually fallen stars in human shape (a concept that would sort-of be reused with the witches of A Wrinkle in Time). Angels and stars are not famous for their sexual life. (Unless you count that one story about the Nephilim)
This is already a first discrepancy that caused the bizarre "sexless wizard" idea in fantasy. But then there's another very bizarre dissonance when you take THE medieval wizard... Merlin.
To take back the articles from which this whole post started, Karl Steel lists Merlin among the "sexual wizards" of medieval literature, alongside all the other sex offenders, yet Rothstein's article rather presents Merlin as THE figure of the chaste, celibate wizards, with a point showing "why" a wizard should avoid sex - the story of how by losing his chastity with the Lady of the Lake, by letting sexuality enter his life by his romance with a woman, Merlin lost his powers and his status, "fell" from his might and was defeated. Which is... a very bizarre yet fascinating take on the Merlin legend, because it is definitively one of the reasons the sex life of wizards is so screwed up nowadays.
See, the story of Merlin's romance with the Lady of the Lake (call her Viviane or Nimue depending on your country) comes in two main "versions", two rival traditions that both perpetuated themselves in literature and arts. Both begin the same and end the same: Merlin falls in love with the Lady, who learns magic from him/steals his powers/steal his secrets, before imprisoning him one way or another. But the divide is on who is the villain in the story. In one tradition, Merlin is the fiend, who, faithful to his "demonic" heritage, is a lecherous and sleazy sex maniac who keeps harassing and disturbing the very-virgin-and-wishes-to-remain-chaste Lady of the Lake, and she steals his powers and traps him as a way of self-defense, to protect her body and virtue from his desire. And here we are following a very ancient motif, the one of the old wizard who is mad in love with a young girl and causes her ruin - you can find it in the Kalevala with Vainamoinen's disastrous love life. Yet in the alternate, just as popular version, it is the Lady herself who is the villain. She is an ambitious, manipulative, possessive woman who seduces Merlin solely to steal his wisdom, or who forces Merlin to love her with tricks, and Merlin weakens himself out of love and lets the beauty defeat him because of a romance he cannot stop. Here we fall onto this other traditional motif, the very one that Le Guin reused by accident in A Wizard of Earthsea and that Pratchett denounced in "Why Gandalf never married": magic falling in women's hands will always cause the ruin of the man.
This created a true dichotomy with the character of Merlin, opening the way for many different takes on this duality: a more dangerous, savage Merlin in line with villainous sorcerers and whose powers had to neutralized to maintain respect and honor, or a story showing how love blinds even the wisests and the heart or desire will be the fall of great men. To try to get into who was in the right or wrong, and the many ways the romance between Merlin and the Lady has been reinterpreted, would be way WAAAYYY too much for this simple post, but I noted that the motif of "virgin power" seems to return quite a lot with Merlin in fiction.
By this I mean "magic users obtains their magic from their virginity". It is tied to the whole concept of the holiness or sacredness of virginity, which is usually presented throughout culture and eras as being woman-connected. From stories such as those of the Vestals of Rome, of the huntresses of Artemis, of the ladies with the unicorn, we have obtained a long series of female character who can wield magic or some sort of power thanks to their virginity. The "Conan" franchise uses this idea a lot because... well it IS the Conan franchise. But rarely is this concept applied to men, unless in Christian context - the monks due to being the male version of nuns ; the priests (though only in Catholic branch since the priest celibacy was invented by Catholics to commit medieval tax evasion) ; or, to return to the Arthurian stories, the "pure knight" in quest of the Holy Grail. See Galahad and Lancelot and the whole thing about people possibly not finding the Grail because they boned a lady.
Yet I found here and there this idea of "sacred virginity" tied to Merlin... But always in subversion. For example in Robin Hobb's starting fantasy novel, the urban fantasy tale "Wizard of the Pigeons", the titular wizard (slight spoiler, Merlin reincarnation) has a specific set of rules not to lose his powers, one of which is "Never having sex with a woman". However by the end of the novel it is reveale that this rule doesn't exist and was a self-imposed delusion on his part, as his celibacy does not interfere with his power at all. Or in one of the most famous modern depictions of Merlin in French modern literature, Barjavel's L'Enchanteur, Merlin near divine powers are indeed tied to his virginity and losing it would mean losing all his powers. But it does not stop him from falling in love and living (chaste) though very passionate romances, and it also doesn't stop him from constantly flirting and seducing every woman he comes across.
[One nice case of deconstruction of "virginity = power" for women in fantasy, that I came across recently, was the flawed yet interesting, clunky but charming "La Geste des Six Royaumes" (French fantasy book of the 2000s) where the sorceresses of this world, the Order of the Gray Stars, have a virginity rule and lose all their powers if they ever have sex with a man. And as the story unfolds, part after after, we first learn how this virginity clause isn't about "purity" of any sort or kind but is merely to suscitate frustration and suffering, as it is what truly fuels their power - their magic being essentially a self-harming one - before discovering that no, this rule is actually pure bullshit invented by the founders of the Order just to keep the members entirely dedicated to it and focusing on gaining power - with the loss of their power after sex being now a matter of mental conditioning and of them believing it so much to be true their "make it real". They are opposed to the shamans of this world, mainly women and who wield lesser version of their magic, but who can fully have husbands and kids because they know sex doesn't break magic in any way - but having a family does distract and limit yourself from the occult works and the magical matters, which is why to become a powerful shaman it is not advised.]
Of course to complete such a train of thought I'd have to talk about the opposite motif of "virginity = power", "carnality = power", where the sexual act fuels magic, but this post is too long for now so maybe another time...
