To-do list:
- It was decided to redefine Everybody Wants the Hermaphrodite by narrowing the definition to be about intersex characters being considered intrinsically attractive rather than intersex + androgynous people in general (since most the examples are about intersex people already), as well as rename the trope to Intersex Allure, and send the 'androgyny is attractive regardless of gender' idea to the Trope Idea Salvage Yard or TLP.
- Draft a description for Intersex Allure. Sandbox.Intersex Allure can be used for this.
- Clean up examples.
- Clean up on-page examples.
- Clean up wicks.
Everybody Wants the Hermaphrodite's description says that it's "When a hermaphrodite, intersex, or otherwise androgynous character is so attractive that they inspire worship and desire in both males and females ... The idea is that no matter what gender you like, this person has some characteristics of that". Both the on-page and off-page examples show a wide range of usage, though, and the name has come up before on the Trope names with outdated and/or offensive language
thread, as 'hermaphrodite' is today considered an outdated and offensive way to refer to intersex people.
- Intersex character is lusted after for being intersex: 22%
- Intersex character is lusted after for being androgynous: 4%
- Non-intersex character is lusted after for being androgynous: 8%
- Intersex character is portrayed as the most attractive person in the work: 8%
- Intersex or transgender character happens to be attractive/have a love interest: 10%
- People who can shapeshift are attractive: 2%
- ZCEs and potholes: 24%
- JFF, sandboxes, etc.: 14%
- Other misuse: 8%
So, there's 3 tropeworthy ways this is being used: Androgyny is portrayed as attractive, regardless of the gender or intersex status of the androgynous person (12%), intersex people are portrayed as attractive due to either being naturally androgynous or from fetishized by other characters (26%), or an intersex person is the most attractive person within a work (as considered by other characters), sometimes supernaturally so (8%). Interestingly, none of the examples I found talked about the characters being nonbinary, apart from Transgender Tropes entry that implied being androgynous and being nonbinary were the same thing.
I suggest narrowing the defintion to be about works portraying intersex people in paticular as intrinsically attractive rather than intersex + androgynous people in general (since most the examples are about intersex people already), rename, and send the 'androgyny is attractive regardless of gender' idea to the Salvage Yard.
Wick check:
Everybody Wants the Hermaphrodite's on-page examples seem to be split between characters that are actual hermaphodites (rather than being intersex or nonbinary), characters who are adrogenyous in an attractive way, and characters who are nonbinary. This wick check is to see how it's being used on the rest of the wiki.- Hermaphrodite: If said character is highly sought after, see Everybody Wants the Hermaphrodite.
- Even the Guys Want Him: Defines Everybody Wants the Hermaphrodite as being the intersex counterpart to Even the Girls Want Her and Even the Guys Want Him(?)
- Even the Girls Want Her: If the character is intersex, then it becomes Everybody Wants the Hermaphrodite.
- TabletopGame.Black Crusade: The Hermaphrodite Gift of Slaanesh doubles the degrees of success for interaction tests.
- Attraction to Outliers: Intersex people are portrayed as inherently attractive due to their Ambiguous Gender.
- No Biological Sex: If Everybody Wants the Hermaphrodite is in effect, they may, in fact, have a very active sex life.
- Characters.Total War Warhammer The Daemons Of Chaos: Slaanesh in general embodies this trope and N'kari, with a body and voice that are arrestingly both male and female, is one of the god's greater personifications.
- Characters.Shinshaku Hokuo Shinwa: Is liked by men and women alike in Asgard. This is also something that has put him in danger when he was younger when adults would desire his child body. I guess?
- Literature.Phryne Fisher: Deconstructed in Blood and Circuses. Mr. Christopher the intersex circus performer attracts a wide range of admirers, but it does not end well. In the "murdered by his Abhorrent Admirer who considered Christopher his "perfect woman" even though Christopher lived as a man when he wasn't performing and already had a a fiancee" sense of "not ending well."
- Literature.Jacobs Ladder Trilogy: Mallory, the self-chosen hermaphrodite necromancer, invokes this when trying to talk Rien into having sex by insinuating that it's more interesting with a partner who is both male and female in one. It works on Rien, though whether this trope holds true for everyone else on their Small, Secluded World Colony Ship or Mallory is just starved for attention remains unclear.
- Bisexuality Tropes: Hermaphrodites have something to offer to any gender preference.
- Characters.Terra Ignota: Sniper is an androgynous celebrity who is able to pose as both a man and a woman and deliberately keeps their gender secret, selling sex dolls of themself of either sex. It goes so far that Sniper gets kidnapped occasionally by fans wanting more than just the doll. One character who does that during the story finds out that Sniper actually has both sexual organs and wonders if they were born like that or had had surgery to prevent disappointing fans, seeing as Sniper is not above engaging in the oldest profession for fun.
- Literature.Raptor: Thorn (and his alter ego Veleda) is extremely attractive to both men and women. A monk and a nun both sexually pursue him while he is still a child. In his teenage years, Thorn begins taking lovers of both genders, starting with Gudinand. As an adult, Thorn constantly beds female slaves and prostitutes, free men and women, and another hermaphrodite. Thor/Genovefa is even more promiscuous.
- Characters.Codex Equus Equestrian Pantheon: Though androgynous, they're stunningly beautiful. They managed to get Stoltur completely smitten to the point of expressing his desire to "bang" them, though this might be because one of their components is Stoltur's husband, Caerulus Melodia. For their part, they know this and has returned Stoltur's affections, but never moves past flirting out of respect for Winter Opera. That being said, they don't like being objectified for their beauty.
- Ambiguous Gender: Can be one of the attractive things that leads to Everybody Wants the Hermaphrodite.
- Transgender Tropes: Androgynous/nonbinary characters are attractive to people of a variety of genders and sexual orientations.
- Manga.Welcome Back Alice: Kei’s androgynous appearance gets them admiration and attention from boys and girls.
- Literature.The Cornelius Chronicles: Everyone who see C. Brunner follows it (see below), culminating in a mass exodus of European population centers that ends when they all march lemming-like into the ocean.
- Gender and Sexuality Tropes: An intersex character has the most admirers.
- Characters.Pathfinder Empyreal Lords: They canonically "combine the most attractive traits of femininity and masculinity" and their portfolio includes beauty and sexuality.
- Manga.Kimera: Osamu falls for Kimera straight away, Jay says he's going crazy when he first sees him, then later the men who end up raping him, Kianu is also revealed to have been in love with Kimera.
- Characters.Mobile Suit Gundam 00 Crew Of The Ptolemios: She clearly have huge crush with Tieria Erde. Mileina finally confess her feeling to him before Setsuna departure to ELS Wars, saying that no matter how he is now, she will always love him.
- Literature.Chakona Space: Numerous examples of supposedly straight or even bigoted characters falling for Chakats. Other herms aren't always so lucky.
- Haiku.Hermaphrodite: She has a penis
She's proud of her uniqueness
So is her boyfriend. - WebAnimation.Overly Sarcastic Productions: Asu-shu-namir, an intersex person created by Ea, is able to rescue Ishtar by seducing Ereshkigal. Subverted in that Ereshkigal cursed gender non-binary people to be outcasts in retaliation, and double subverted in that Ishtar gave them the gifts of healing and prophecy to counterbalance this and Ereshkigal still wants them.
- Literature.Misfortune: Rose is frequently hit on by people of all genders. Potholed as 'Everybody Wants The Trans Girl'
- WMG.Doctor Who With Spoilers: Not all Time Lords can change gender when they regenerate. And every Time Lord/Lady wants the one who can change gender when they regenerate.
- Literature.Halfway Human: Tedla, constantly.
- Sliding Scale of Beauty: Steven Universe has Stevonnie as Divine Beauty, as they effortlessly attract both female and male characters.
- Theatre.Hedwig And The Angry Inch: Hedwig becomes a sex symbol.
- Characters.The Sandman 1989 The Endless: They milk this for all it's worth to that end.
- Informed Attractiveness: Slaaneshi troops are supposedly entrancing to look at, with Slaanesh hirself being a walking Charm Person spell. Presumably, Everybody Wants the Hermaphrodite in 40K.
- DarthWiki.Cardians Rural: Has a reputation for causing this, as a result.
- Characters.Voyage Of The Eldritch: Just the trope name
- Recap.Sailor Moon S Ep 19 Usagi Dancing To The Waltz: Haruka proves to be so popular for her waltz skills that she gets a crowd of ladies and gentlemen asking her to be their next partner.
- Characters.Grown Ups: Joked about by both male and female characters on Beefcake and her relationship with Marcus.
- Clueless Chick-Magnet: Being made out of two children, Stevonnie is never aware why people seem to be so interested in them. Of BOTH genders no less!
- StevenUniverse.Tropes A To D: It also seems that the more stable and kind a fusion is, the better they'll appear. Stevonnie looks like a perfectly normal (and attractive, judging by the other character's reactions) teenager.
- Radio.Opie And Anthony: Well, Jim Norton would be fascinated, anyway.
- Pantheon.Character Roles: Cluelessly Luring In Dudes and Gals Alike
- Sandbox.Nightelf 37: Desire of the Endless]] (Everybody Wants the Hermaphrodite)
- TropesThatWillNeverHappen.X Meets Y Entries H To N: Magical Hermaphrodite
- Pantheon.Persons Of Desire
- Sandbox.Outdated Or Offensive Trope Names
- It.Elenco Provvisorio E
- TropeNamers.Classical Mythology
- Fanfic.A Dream: Averted. No one wants to be around Colombia and her massive package. Aversions are not notable.
- Characters.The Secret World Tokyo NP Cs: Subverted. Kaoru has been forced to endure a great deal of prejudice and cruelty from people who have learned her secret. So far, the only person who's displayed any sort of sexual interest after learning the truth is Ricky Pagan, but thanks to their disastrous breakup, Kaoru refuses to believe him. This is Intersex Tribulations
- Characters.Fullmetal Alchemist Envy: Envy's default form is attractive, androgynous, and they wear a revealing outfit that shows off their muscles and curves. This is a fan reaction; no one in-universe thinks Envy is attractive
- Characters.Dungeons And Dragons Races: Subverted; the hermaphroditic lizardfolk are regarded as holy, being made in Semuanya's image, but their intelligence alienates them from their mono-gendered kinsfolk, who regard intelligence as an unnatural and undesirable trait. Furthermore, they're sterile, so they can't have children anyway. Not sure what trope this is, but I don't think this is a subversion
Edited by GastonRabbit on Dec 22nd 2023 at 3:16:24 AM
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
Paging ~Orbiting to the thread.
Anyway, I'm fine with the proposal in the OP, especially because there aren't already that many examples portraying androgyny as attractive (compared to how many examples there are for intersex characters).
Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 22nd 2023 at 10:42:13 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
the Retromancer
Sure.
"androgyny is attractive" sounds like Pretty Boy and Bifauxnen.
TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Pretty Boy isn't about androgyny at all. Pretty Boy is about a softer, more boyish rather than mannish physical attractiveness. It's not really about being feminine as it is about not looking hypermasculine in the burly, rugged, sense. The description even makes note of that dsitinction, "This doesn't necessarily mean he's androgynous or looks like a girl, though...The Pretty Boy also isn't necessarily effeminate or weak." Bifauxnen leans more towards androgyny than Pretty Boy does, but that has more to do with behaving in more princely masculine ways, than just looking like androgynous. Both characters are still dealing with with pretty clear ideas of masculine and feminine rather than androgyny which blurs and even distorts that binary.
I do think there's something to Alluring Androgyny, where androgynous people are considered if not outright attractive, then just compelling and charming in an almost mysterious or preternatural way. But whether that's a separate but related trope, a supertrope to this one, or if this should be reworked into that, I'm not too sure about. Both come from the same place, i.e. androgynous/intersex characters are intriguing because they blur the gender/sex binary (and semi-related is Otherworldly and Sexually Ambiguous, which takes the whole "mysterious and preternatural" idea literally).
Edited by amathieu13 on Aug 22nd 2023 at 10:36:17 AM
the Retromancer
I'd say Bishōnen that specifically uses "androgynous" if it wasn't merged.
TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
I agree that androgynous characters being considered attractive is a trope (and Alluring Androgyny is a good name) and I agree that it's distinct enough from Bishōnen, Pretty Boy, and Bifauxnen. The reason I said it might need to be taken to TLP is because the wick check only picked up four examples of that, compared to the large amount of examples involving intersex characters being considered attractive.
Edit: I saw that this has 111 wicks; I thought it had significantly more for some reason. Well, dividing that by four and rounding down would give 27, which is still thriving, so maybe we could try sandboxing those examples to see if we can split it off via this thread. (Another edit: Disregard this part. I wrote it before 2 AM and being tired messed with my math skills.)
Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 23rd 2023 at 11:30:58 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Bifauxnen says it's specifically about women who physically resemble androgynous men, not about them "acting princely". The "prince young woman" is an archetype you see in some Japanese media, but it's not what Bifauxnen is describing.
Edited by TheMountainKing on Aug 23rd 2023 at 3:12:43 PM
the Retromancer
For the record not against leaving that for TLP. Restricting Everybody Wants the Hermaphrodite for intersex and renaming is fine.
TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
I'm not going to derail the thread by going into an extensive back and forth about related tropes but see the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs on that page. Looking androgynous is very much not the full extent of that archetype.
For sure, if we separated the androgyny idea from the intersex one, it'd def need to get TLP'd due to lack of examples. I just wasn't fully sure if they needed to be separated, given how closely related the two concepts are. I'm 50/50 on it.
Edited by amathieu13 on Aug 23rd 2023 at 2:20:18 AM
She / Her
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
to renaming and restricting to intersex.
Edit: I saw that this has 111 wicks; I thought it had significantly more for some reason. Well, dividing that by four and rounding down would give 27, which is still thriving...
Dividing by four is what you would do if it were a category that made up 25% of the usage. You want to multiply the number of references by the proportion of references that fall into that category. 111*8%=8.88.
"Intersex characters being considered attractive" sounds redundant to Transgender Fetishization (which apparently isn't limited to transgender, but any gender-nonconforming character).
Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him
Transgender Fetishization itself is on the TRS Queue for name and scope issues.
& That is a good point though. I can see a universe of this getting merged with Transgender Fetishization even after it goes through TRS since they cover very similar ground (I know trans and intersex aren't the same but in media they are very often treated the same, since it's only been relatively recently that the layperson even understood there is a difference). I wonder if it makes sense to run both threads at the same time.
the Retromancer
? As themayorofsimpleton said, it's already queue'd up and has a wick check and OP on the queue for it (it even mentions Everybody Wants the Hermaphrodite). I asked because all of that work has already been done.
Edited by amathieu13 on Aug 23rd 2023 at 8:26:56 AM
the Retromancer
Somehow missed it. Since Transgender Fetishization has own check and OP, I'd leave it for Gaston if we can add it here since the scope and use has overlaps.
TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
I think sending it to TLP would be better, after thinking about it a bit more, so I agree with doing that.
You're right; it was almost 2 AM when I posted that, so I was tired and had a pretty bad brain fart that hindered my math skills. I've slept since then.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 23rd 2023 at 11:17:35 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Captain of USS Bajor
What about cases with physical Sex Shifters (e.g. Ranma) or people with a non-binary gender identity?
During the wick check I only found one example of a person who can physically shapeshift being seen as attractive for that, and only two examples of nonbinary characters who weren't intersex.
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
Since there are less examples of that than there are for androgynous characters being considered attractive, that would be another think to Yard or take to TLP if we don't already have a trope for it.
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Attractive Sex Shifter can be covered by Attractive Bent-Gender I think.
Also, whether we're cleaning up the definition or yarding, I don't see the need to split the tropes to specific gender identities. IMO, the core definition can be streamlined to two main narrative purpose:
- Gender-nonconformity is rare/unique, therefore more desirable.
- Having both male and female qualities (whether this refers to the actual sex organs, or simply having an androgynous appearance), or neither of them, makes the character more "compatible" with all kinds of orientation, therefore more desirable.
A non-binary/transgender/intersex/characters with Ambiguous Gender or No Biological Sex, etc. that happens to be attractive is chairs.
Edited by Adept on Aug 23rd 2023 at 7:58:12 PM
Just stoic wisdom.
Three days in, has there been enough solidification of options yet for a next step? Transgender Fetishization's OP suggestion per the queue is disambiguation, though it's not due to enter TRS 'til probably near the end of the year.
Vehicle-Based Characterization | Grief-Induced Split | Locker Mail
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
I hooked a crowner with both the OP's suggestion of redefining by narrowing to intersex characters, as well as rewriting to match the definition Adept gave involving gender-nonconforming, androgynous, and/or non-binary characters in addition to intersex characters, to the crowner, as well as having renaming be an option. As I noted on the crowner, we'd only rename if we redefined, and the name choices would depend on which definition is chosen.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 25th 2023 at 12:56:48 PM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Crown Description:
It was decided to redefine Everybody Wants The Hermaphrodite by narrowing the definition to be about intersex characters being considered intrinsically attractive rather than intersex + androgynous people in general (since most the examples are about intersex people already), and send the 'androgyny is attractive regardless of gender' idea to the Trope Idea Salvage Yard or TLP. In addition, it was decided to rename the trope. What should the trope's new name be?
To-do list:
Everybody Wants the Hermaphrodite's description says that it's "When a hermaphrodite, intersex, or otherwise androgynous character is so attractive that they inspire worship and desire in both males and females ... The idea is that no matter what gender you like, this person has some characteristics of that". Both the on-page and off-page examples show a wide range of usage, though, and the name has come up before on the Trope names with outdated and/or offensive language
thread, as 'hermaphrodite' is today considered an outdated and offensive way to refer to intersex people.
Wick check results:
So, there's 3 tropeworthy ways this is being used: Androgyny is portrayed as attractive, regardless of the gender or intersex status of the androgynous person (12%), intersex people are portrayed as attractive due to either being naturally androgynous or from fetishized by other characters (26%), or an intersex person is the most attractive person within a work (as considered by other characters), sometimes supernaturally so (8%). Interestingly, none of the examples I found talked about the characters being nonbinary, apart from Transgender Tropes entry that implied being androgynous and being nonbinary were the same thing.
I suggest narrowing the defintion to be about works portraying intersex people in paticular as intrinsically attractive rather than intersex + androgynous people in general (since most the examples are about intersex people already), rename, and send the 'androgyny is attractive regardless of gender' idea to the Salvage Yard.
Wick check:
Everybody Wants the Hermaphrodite's on-page examples seem to be split between characters that are actual hermaphodites (rather than being intersex or nonbinary), characters who are adrogenyous in an attractive way, and characters who are nonbinary. This wick check is to see how it's being used on the rest of the wiki.She's proud of her uniqueness
So is her boyfriend.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Dec 22nd 2023 at 3:16:24 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.