17 March 2008
Fun with gender
Posted by Denise Kendrick under: Ash Trey and the Aether Sprite; writing .
Gender confuses the heck out of me. I don’t give it a lot of thought, I generally just go by feel, but sometimes I wonder.
For instance, take that beautiful stereotypical yaoi bishie with the long flowing hair and the even longer jacket, for which the bottom is so flared it might as well be a skirt, how is it that I identify him as male? Sometimes you can’t even tell the character’s gender until they take off their top or are referred to as ‘he’ by another character. But then, after you know they’re male, they’re…male. Right?
They’re certainly not female.
I’ve been thinking about this with regard to our Ash, Trey and the Aether Sprite story, for which we got the edits today.
I’ve been thinking, a) this might be the cutest thing we’ve ever done, And b) how the heck do we describe it? Is it m/m/m or m/m/f?
I mean, everyone gets a penis, but Violet is definitely a girl. (er. woman. whatever makes you comfortable. everyone is of age.)
We have not figured out what we’re going to use for excerpts yet, but this is a sample of what I mean. In this snip, Ash and Trey have answered the door to find two men in black coming to pay them for freelance services rendered. The almost sex has been interrupted. Violet is getting nervous it won’t happen.
“Guys!” Violet called. A minute later, she was pushing her way between them, wearing a towel as a skirt. “When are you coming to bed?”
“Who’s the chick?” Leroy asked, sliding his shades down his nose. He waved a finger between Ash and Trey. “I thought you two were…”
“Oh, we are!” Ash insisted.
“I’m not a chick!” Violet protested, letting the towel fall away.
“Whoa,” Duane said. Leroy lifted his shades for a better look.
Trey and Ash each bent and grabbed part of the towel, pinning it to either side of Violet’s hips. “She’s—er—he’s a friend,” Ash said.
“From out of town,” Trey added.
“I see.” Leroy summed the three of them up in one cool sweeping look from head to toe, then returned his shades to their proper place. “Madam K doesn’t mind her employees getting kinky on their own time.”
“Kinky?” Trey blinked.
“Employees?” Ash squeaked.
The guys refer to Violet as ’she’ the entire time, but a het reader certainly wouldn’t want to read about three penises…I don’t think. The question is would it be shunned, for instance, at a m/m excerpt posting event for not being m/m either? I dunno.
This plus twincest? RD and I are apparently good at writing things that don’t fall within traditional conventions. I look forward to seeing what comes next. 
One Comment so far...
Denise Kendrick Says:
17 March 2008 at 7:59 pm.
Hmm… I neglected to say Violet is an androgynous sprite who temporarily takes on a male body for the purpose of getting into Trey’s pants.
I suppose a better question would have been, how do I know she’s a girl?
