random thoughts on genderswitch

[pensnest]

So, I'm just wondering, how is it that so many people who write boy-turns-into-girl fics seem to think that a boy's jeans will just slide right off a girl's hips? Because, no!

I just read a (really cool) AJ-as-girl story, in which girl!AJ had to have a belt to hold up his jeans. AJ. Who practically *has* no hips. Now, if she'd been unable to pull them up over her newly-feminine hips, that would have made sense. No doubt a female version of AJ Maclean would be small and wiry and not endowed with lush curves like, say, a female Nick would be (cor!), but there are certain fundamentals, if you'll excuse my saying so, of feminine anatomy, and one is that the hips *exist*.

So, peeps. What's with the hipless wonders?

Comments

[pensnest]

It's just that it seems weird to me that so many of the writers - who are, I expect, female - seem to be unaware that girls have hips! Yes, sure, there are some girls with very skinny hips, but if they're in for an exploration of "what's different when you're a girl" going for the no-hips type seems an odd choice... Not every woman needs a bra, but we don't tend to get stories where the newly girlified boy has breasts that are barely there.

I think it makes sense to translate body type across gender in a recognisable way—so that, say, Chris ends up curved and cuddly, JC becomes slender and model-shaped, etc. I do see the appeal of having the characters still quite boyish, but for me, it works better if they're more definitely women.