History Main / SexyDimorphism

This is because male characters being bestial and inhuman can still fulfill a power fantasy (which often involves being [[MenAreTheExpendableGender guiltlessly slaughtered by the hundreds]] by the human main character), while attractive female characters can still be a source of {{fanservice}}. That way both sexes cater to a male audience's interests.

* ''ComicBook/XXXenophile'': Martian females are all gorgeous, buxom, four-armed women, and the males are tiny, squat, furry, mostly shapeless (and, incidentally, non-sapient) hexapods with disproportionately large sex organs. This is then given an extra twist at the end of the story. After making "First Contact" with a human explorer, a giant battlesuit bursts into the room -- and the Martians assume that the giant robot must be a human female.

** While most [[MechanicalLifeforms male robots]] are your basic TinCanRobot, most fembots have more complex humanoid body shapes and design elements that make them look like stylized metal sculptures of attractive human women. (The distinction is particularly apparent whenever Bender has a LoveInterest.)
*** The gender roles are sometimes reversed, like with the farmer's robot daughters (two of which are humanoid but the one Bender finds most attractive is some kind of sentient harvester vehicle) or the computer that a couple of human women in their underwear are "undressing" by taking off its shell.

** Much more blatant with male Sram from ''Dofus'', who look like skeletons, while the females look like cute girls. In Wakfu, they're changed to be more human looking wearing a skeleton-themed onesie and a skull mask, while the women are more clothed, wearing a similar skeleton-themed onesie, though their shoulders and the top parts of their face are exposed.

Sexual dimorphism refers to physical and physiological differences between the sexes, which, in the case of fictional fantastic species, tends to be [[BizarreSexualDimorphism very pronounced]]. In many media geared towards men, males of a species are depicted in various ways, but females tend to be depicted as feminine humanoids whose secondary sex characteristics (such as breasts, butts, and body fat) tend to closely resemble those of humans. [[MostWritersAreMale Coincidence, obviously]]. Rarely do female members of sapient alien species display more realistic traits (resembling those of nonhuman species on Earth) such as being larger than the males, lacking prominent mammaries, or drinking blood while the males are vegetarians.

* This is notably averted in '''Manga/InterspeciesReviewers''. Men and women of different species tend to heavily resemble each other, such as both male and female treants looking like trees. This fits with the theme of different tastes found throughout the manga.

* ''Franchise/StarTrek'': When the Orion species featured onscreen in ''[[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries The Original Series]]'' and ''[[Series/StarTrekEnterprise Enterprise]]'', there was a notable difference between [[GreenSkinnedSpaceBabe their women]], who coined the GreenSkinnedSpaceBabe trope and are considered among the most beautiful of all humanoid women in-universe, and [[HugeGuyTinyGirl their men]], who were big bruisers (sometimes as much as twice the size of their women), usually ugly and not very smart. ''[[Series/StarTrekDiscovery Discovery]]'' started subverting this, introducing male Orions who were less solidly built and/or more conventionally attractive, such as in a brothel-casino on Quo'Nos with Orion sex workers of both genders.

* ''Manga/MonsterMusume'': Played with as the series goes on, with some of the rare few extra-liminal species males appearing just as good-looking as their female counterparts. ''Definitely'' played straight where the centaurs are concerned, where the males are complete {{Gonk}}s with brains to match while the centauresses are [[AmazonianBeauty considerably more appealing]] -- it's even a minor plot point in-universe that centauresses don't find their menfolk that attractive any more.
** The short-lived browser game based on the series makes [[OurOrcsAreDifferent orc]] into a straight example too: while the males seen in the manga look like typical JRPG PigMan orcs, the orc woman in the game looks like a buxom, bodybuilding, green-skinned [[GyaruGirl gyaru]].

** Whoever did the 5e [[https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d93b44c542e4e299451cbdb/1584025260679-T6E7N8CQN1SH3IBA09BK/Myconid+3.0+-+Page+1.jpg?format=750w Myconid]] art seems to have borrowed heavily from ''Oglaf''...

* ''Webcomic/{{Oglaf}}'': Parodied ([[AffectionateParody like everything else]]) in "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Dimorphism]]" by examining this trope from [[HumansThroughAlienEyes the monsters' perspective]]. A number of different fantasy species (including ''T. rex'', [[{{Treants}} Ents/Dryads]], and [[MushroomMan mushroom people]]) have monstrous males that fit the species name, and females that look like curvaceous humanoid beauties in a SexyWhateverOutfit. The mushroom people decide to wage war with humanity precisely because they're the only race that ''doesn't'' prescribe to this phenomenon (since both males and females share the same physiology, the men are described as "blobby chicks you wouldn't fuck").

** The three of the four playable BeastMan races, [[OurMinotaursAreDifferent Tauren]], [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent Worgen]] and [[PandaingToTheAudience Pandaren]] also use this trope, with animalistic males (hunched back and savage facial features in the first two, large {{Acrofatic}} build in the third), whereas the females have more human-like build(Tauren and Pardaren are much huskier, though), erect posture, visible breasts and slightly more anthropomorphic facial features. The more recently added [[FoxFolk Vulpera]] avoid this, with both males and females being equally anthropomorphic (which is to say, both are very human-like rather than just the women).

* ''VideoGame/{{Shantae}}'' has several creatures with male and female counterparts; in almost all instances, the male will be more monstrous and the female will be a CuteMonsterGirl. For instance, there's the Wetman a humanoid one-eyed lobster, and the Wetgal, a pretty lady made out of water with fins on her head and arms. Averted with the Scorpman and Scorpgal (where both are attractive) and the Muckman and Muckgal (where both are monstrous).