Hermaphrodite: Difference between revisions

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|[[Flight of the Conchords]] }}

For most fictional purposes a '''hermaphrodite''' is an individual that's both male and female; specifically, one that has both male and female genitals. Biologists don't use the word that way, but we are talking about storytelling here, not biology. In real life, however, applying the term to a human is not only inaccurate, but likely stigmatizingoffensive and offensivestigmatizing (specifically by reducing people to nothing more than sexual outliers). While sexually ambiguous humans ''do'' exist, [http://www.isna.org/faq/hermaphrodite a true human hermaphrodite has yet to be found, so the term you're probably looking for is "intersex"].

The word Hermaphrodite"hermaphrodite" comes from the Greek deity Hermaphroditus. This child of Hermes and Aphrodite was born a hermaphrodite, according to Diodorus Siculus [[Older Than Feudalism|(1st century BCE).]] According to Ovid, he was a very handsome young man with whom the nymph Salmacis fell madly in love. He rejected her advances, but Salmacis clung to him and prayed fervently to never be parted from him. The [[Jerkass Gods|gods]] [[Literal Genie|granted her prayer]] by [[Fusion Dance|merging the two of them]] into a [[Biological Mashup|single being]], half male and half female. [[Be Careful What You Wish For]].

Hermaphrodites tend to pop up in [[Hentaihentai]] [[Animeanime]] and [[Mangamanga]] (where it's called ''futanari'', literally "dual form"), western erotic comics, and [[Science Fiction]] and [[Fantasyfantasy]] erotica. Sometimes entire alien species or fantasy races are hermaphroditic [[One-Gender Race|One Gender Races]], thanks to [[Bizarre Alien Biology]]. Hermaphroditism is also a popular way to explain [[Mister Seahorse]] situations. Naturally, "shemales" and ''futanari'' are also [[Rule 34|a popular genre of porn]] for obvious reasons, one that is considered offensive by some intersex people as indicated above, among various other folks. We'll leave it at that for the sake of brevity [[Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment|''and'' of tact.]]

* Makoto, the main character of the manga ''[[Boku no Futatsu no Tsubasa]]'' (My Two Wings) is a fullyhermaphrodite functionalwith hermaphrodite[[Gag Boobs]] {{spoiler|thanks to her [[Half-Human Hybrid|alien heritage.]]}}. While she generally identifies herself as a girl, inshe partalso duelikes tosex with women using her fully-functional penis. Also a rare case of an intersex character being a [[GagMs. BoobsFanservice]], she''especially'' decidesafter she likesbecomes sexfully comfortable with womenshowing usingoff her male genitalia betterjunk.

* Very probably Envy of ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]''., who is Referredreferred to as '"it'" in the manga rather than male or female, and according to the author not even Envy him/her/itself can work out ifits it's a he or a shegender. Technically, Envy should be classified as '[[No Biological Sex|asexualbiologically agender]]', as: its true form is {{spoiler|that weird little green slug-fetus with a big mouth-face, while every other form it takes, most likely including the humongous demon-dog made out of corpses, is complete [[Voluntary Shapeshifting]], based more on whim and/or what the situation demands}}. This applies more to the manga and the Brotherhood anime than the first anime series, in which Envy turned out to be {{spoiler|the son of Hohenheim and Dante.}}

* Satan in the [[Go Nagai]] series ''[[Devilman]]'' is portrayed this way, Nagailikely consideringas ita appropriate duenod to beingangels anoften angel, who are oftenbeing considered sexless. Then again, could have been doneand/or justpossibly for shock value. The main villain of ''[[Devilman Lady]]'' got the same treatment.

** In another Go Nagai work, ''[[Violence Jack]]'', there's Blue Mad Saulus's lover. Onis thea outsidewoman it appears to be female but haswith a man's voice (at least in the English dub) and a huge penis in the manga. hasThis amight hugelend peniscredence to the "shock value" interpretation.

* Baron Ashura from ''[[Mazinger Z]]'' is a strange being formed from the halves of two lovers, sewn together down the middle. What his/hertheir genitals look like is a mystery, though, and that's probably for the best.

* Amazume Ryuta's [[Ecchiecchi]]-manga ''Boy meets Girl, Girl meets Boy'' (aka ''Boy Girl'') is a three chapter manga about a teenaged boy and girl who are gradually transforming into the opposite sex. It was published in ''Change H'', an anthology of similar [[Gender Bender]] stories.

** ''Bra Girl''<ref> This is actually a mis-translation due to the Japanese homophone ''bura'', a better translation would be "Swing Girl"</ref> by the same author is about a girl who had grown a penis (but explicitly no testicles) during the process of puberty, as part of an in-universe phenomenon that gave rise to the "third sex/gender". This example, however, is just an [[Ecchi]]ecchi romantic comedy instead of outright [[Hentai]]hentai; at no point do we actually see her naked genitals, with the most that we get being the bulge of her morning erection through her pajama pants, and... uh, how it "looks" while she's wearing "third sex-compatible" panties.

* [[Big Good|Adam Kadmon]] from ''[[Angel Sanctuary]]'' represents Primordial Man, being God's first creation who existed before the "duality" of gender and power emerged. {{spoiler|[[Mind Screw|Apparently]], replicating a more obedient version was part of [[God Is Evil|YHWH's]] master plan; several angels and demons are His failed experiments in doing so.}}

* The {{spoiler|protagonist, Mashiro Ichijo}} of Setona Mizushiro's manga, ''[[After School Nightmare]]'', possesses a body with the upper half being male and the lower half being female.

* ''[[Cerebus]]'', while consideredidentified male in the overall story, is a hermaphrodite, and would have been able to impregnate himself had his uterus not been irreparably damaged by being stabbed in the belly as a youth.

* Steinbeck of ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X Men]]'' spinoff ''Mystique'' being one of these is a case of [[Fanon]], as {{spoiler|Prudence, able to [[Puppeteer Parasite|possess]] any woman, turned out to have possessed him at the moment he "killed" her, and she, not him, was the [[Big Bad]] of the Quiet Man arc. However, there have also been numerous cases of mutants exceeding the known limits of their powers in extreme situations -- Jean's transformation into Phoenix being such a case before retcons - and Prudence-as-Steinbeck was ''entirely'' [[Ax Crazy]], so it's more likely that she can possess a man when it ''really'' counts, but doing so has consequences.}}

* Desire, one of the Endless from ''[[The Sandman]]'', is aandrogynous hermaphroditeboth in the sense that Desire is androgynous (in appearance and otherwise), and can be either sex, depending on what an individual who sees Desire "desires" at a given moment. An example of this is a survivor of an explosion in a strip joint seeing it as an angel. Desire is always referred to as a concept, an "it" in narration, rather than talking about it as a person like the other Endless. The other Endless usually refer to Desire as their "Brother-Sister" and avoid the whole pronoun mess.

* Shaalis, the main character of Michael Manning's ''Spider Garden'' erotic graphic novel series, is a "true" hermaphrodite, and is more commonly referred to by the titles of "Sacred Androgyne", and "mastress". Although the series revolves around a far-future clan-based society of genetically-modified "metahumans", ''s/he'' seems to be the only 'true' hermaphrodite.

* There's this ''[[Harry Potter]]'' fanfic called ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1913307/1/Resuscitation_of_Agape Resuscitation of Agape]'' in which... well, you'll just have to read it. [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1913307/1/Resuscitation_of_Agape\]

* Hutts in the ''[[Star Wars]]'' universe are gastropods and therefore functional hermaphrodites. A given Hutt is usually referred to as "female" when pregnant,; otherwise it's a matter of personal preference whether they're called "he" or "she".

* The [[Fan Nickname|Xenomorphs]] from the ''[[Alien]]'' films. [[Word of God|According to]] [[H. R. Giger]], the guy who pretty much created the aliens, they're neither male nor female but rather a horrific blurring of both sexes. Yes, this even includes the Queen. ([[MST3K Mantra|Try not to think about it too hard.]] These ''are'' [[Bizarre Alien Biology|aliens, after all.]]) H.R. Giger's new ''Xenorotica Portfolio'' is essentially [[Rule 34]] based around them, much to the joy of [[Nightmare Fetishist|Nightmare Fetishists]]s everywhere.

* ''[[Big Top Pee-Wee]]'' features a hermaphrodite in the circus' side show named Shim, who has a male left half and female right half (or possibly the other way around). Said,According byto the circus announcer, to bethey're the only person who can marry "shimself."

* The dinosaurs in ''[[Jurassic Park]]'' were sequential hermaphrodites as a result of [[Lego Genetics|frog DNA being used to fill the gaps in their own deteriorated helixes]]. All the dinosaurs were engineered female, which obviously was just the sort of population imbalance needed for some of them to turn male and start breeding.

* In [[H. Beam Piper]]'s sci-fi novel ''[[Uller Uprising]]'', the Ullerans are a race of silicon-based, vaguely reptilian [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|Proud Warrior Race Guys]]s who happen to be hermaphroditic. The rather imperialistic Terran colonists have gotten used to every army unit needing to have a few troopers assigned to baby-sitting duty.

* The Titanides from [[John Varley]]'s [[Gaea Trilogy]] are...complicated. Genetically engineered to resemble the [[Our Centaurs Are Different|centaurs]] of myth, they, shall we say, ''divert'' from that model by having ''both'' genitalia on their horsey halves AND''and'' nonetheless sort themselves into males and females based on the ''third'' set of genitals at the base of the humanoid torso. They also universally sport breasts, regardless of which humanoid genitalia they possess, since all of them can bear (and thus nurse) children.

* When the [[Evilutionary Biologist]] villains of [[Jack Chalker|Jack L. Chalker's]] ''[[The Moreau Factor]]'' [[Involuntary Transformation|transform]] their victims into [[Half-Human Hybrid|Half Human Hybrids]] they also make many of them hermaphrodites, apparently [[Power Perversion Potential|just because they can]]-- or—or so the protagonist initially assumes. He later learns that creating a fertile species of any kind is pretty much a fluke when you're [[Playing with Syringes]] and the scientists weren't deliberately aiming for hermaphrodites so much as they were trying to create something -- anything -- thatsomething—anything—that could reproduce.

* Ralf Isau's novel ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20131122174653/http://www.isau.de/shop/index.html Galerie der Lügen]'' (translating to "Gallery of Lies") has a hermaphrodite {{spoiler|protagonist}} and {{spoiler|an ex-hermaphrodite [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] on a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]].}}

* In the ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' episode ''"Earshot''", Buffy is touched by a demon, then learns she will take on an aspect of said demon. She relays the fears of getting a tail or scales to Willow, whose eyes go wide at a sudden thought she's [[Crowning Moment of Funny|kind enough]] to share and add to Buffy's fears.

* The [[wikipedia:Genesis (band)|Genesis]] song "The Fountain of Salmacis" (from ''Nursery Cryme'') tells the Hermaphrodite story.

* In the [[She Wants Revenge]] music video "Tear You Apart", it's implied but not said for the girl to actually be intersex. It results in her being cornered and about to be stripped by a mob of high schoolers. Then the duo burst in and rescue her. Then it results in a [[Cliff Hanger]] with them saying there much to talk about.

* In the [[Mesopotamian Mythology|Babylonian version]] of ''[[Inanna's Descent to the Netherworld|Inannas Descent to The Netherworld]]'', the [[Living MacGuffin|asexual creatures]] used to rescue Inanna (Ishtar) from the underworld become replaced by a [[Hermaphrodite]] being that confuses Ereshkigal, who eventually lets her sister leave.

* Slaanesh, the youngest [[Eldritch Abomination|Chaos God]] in ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]'' and ''[[Warhammer 4000040,000]]'', can be just as accurately referred to as "The Dark Prince" and "She Who Thirsts." Traditional lore portrays it as a rather unusual version of this trope; basically, cut a woman and a man, both exceptionally beautiful, in half vertically and then fuse the woman's right half to the man's left half to make a whole human being. That's what Slaanesh's "main" form looks like. Slaanesh's followers tend to end up rather distorted in terms of gender, but for male worshippersworshipers, having the right pectoral swell into a female breast is considered a high mark of favor, as it makes them more like Slaanesh itself. Of course, as a supremely powerful warp entity, Slaanesh can alter its form to appear male, female, hermaphroditic, or androgynous, but not matter how it appears, it is supremely seductive -- soseductive—so that yes, you'd hit that, and you'd sell your soul for the chance to do so.

** Another, non-fully functional example is Livillia, the actual ''[[Odd Job Gods|goddess of prostitution]]''. As befitting her nature, she's not nearly as [[Squick|Squicky]]y as Marilaq-she looks like a [[Hot Amazon]] since she's supposed to be an example of both male and female attractiveness. Doesn't stop her from wearing a penis sheath.

* Fluffy and Uranus from ''[[Duckman]]'', Duckman's teddy bear secretaries: they appear to be female and have feminine voices but they have male genitals.

* Yuck of ''[[Yin Yang Yo!|Yin Yang Yo]]'' are the combination of all the bad stuff from Yin and Yang (A brother and sister team) creating Yuck. Even when he was seen leaving a bathroom stall, beside the boys' and girls' rooms was a Yuck room.

* As it turns out In ''[[Digital Devil Saga]]'' {{spoiler|Angel is a fully-functional hermaphrodite and both the mother AND father of Sera. At the end of the second game, Serph and Sera merge into a single hermaphroditic being, Seraph.}}

* Kainé from ''[[Nie RNieR]]'' is confirmed from [[All There in the Manual|Japanese-only bonus material]] to be a hermaphrodite even before being possessed by a male shade. The English localization of the game kind of dances around the issue.

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