LGBTitp - Part Six

[Danne]

@Lix Lorn: I'm sorry, I hope you find someone soon. *offers hugs*

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So, actually on reflection I have a question for you.

What criteria do you use to determine physical attractiveness? Fitness? Structural (bones and other "fixed" morphology)? Aural or Scent criteria? Motion patterns? Secondary sexual characteristics? Tertiary? "Plumage" cues (deliberate visual changes through clothes, hair color, etc.)? Other?

Please leave off any purely mental and emotional criteria for mates. I realize that's the most important part, but I'm only interested in what goes on to trigger a moment of arousal when such things happen/are necessary.

Question wasn't directed at me, but I also hold to the "sexual characteristics don't matter in a mate" ideology, so I'll answer.

The short answer is that I really depend on the mental/emotional stuff -- given that I'm very social phobic, I can't even conceive of dating someone with whom I don't already have some sort of bond. Skipping over that for the sake of the question, though, purely physical attraction for me is based primarily off of body structure. I prefer stocky men and lithe women, dunno why. I'm also a little faceblind (don't know if it counts as Prosopagnosia itself, as that's a medical condition, but I have a very difficult time remembering faces until I've seen the person a good half dozen times) so I'm pretty dependent on secondary aspects (the ones you termed "plumage"). Hair styles/colors, especially.

</my 2 cents>

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Funny thing happened yesterday/today. We read the short story "Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself" (Radclyffe Hall, 1926) for my English class. Most of the kids interpreted the main character as a tomboy-ish woman who felt constrained by gender roles in the post-WWI era (including one girl who got pretty angry at the idea that a woman would have to adopt a masculine persona just to be independent). To which I said, "Huh. I totally read that as an FtM character. You sure you guys read it right?" (Which made some of them think and just baffled the others.) Anyway, I blame you guys.

For an upcoming paper, I need to pick a short story and analyze the way it portrays differences, and I know I want to do something sci-fi. I was planning on doing "Flowers for Algernon" or "A Rose for Ecclesiastes," but that made me wonder if anyone here might know of a good sci-fi (or even fantasy) short story with a trans character? FtM or MtF, I'm not particular. Any ideas?