Too narrow: Male To Female Universal Adaptor

The description on this page feels too narrow to me. It says the trope applies to "pornographic materials", it's categorized under Porn Tropes, and text seems to suggest that a work needs to actually depict the genitals of the characters involved. However, there are plenty of non-pornographic works where two characters are stated or implied of having "human style" intercourse, even if the work doesn't have any explicit depictions of the genitals or the sex act. Many of the examples on the page fall under this broader definition. If no one disagrees, I'd like to tweak the the description so that it includes any work where the existence of the "adaptor" is either implied or explicitly stated.

I know there's another, non-porn related trope about interspecies intercourse, but that seems to be about the (un)likelihood of interbreeding between the two, not about sex as such. Male-to-Female Universal Adaptor can exist without the potential for producing offspring, so I think the two should be kept separate.

edited 13th Oct '11 5:01:53 AM by Tuomas

There's already Interspecies Romance for non-porn examples, I guess. I think you have a point about some of the examples being non-explicit, but there IS enough detail in most of them to get the point across without having to actually show anything. On the other hand, there's a Ben10 example in there. what.

The issue isn't really about "explicitness" or not, it's about whether this is really just a porn trope, which (as I said on the Trope Talk thread) I feel it definitely isn't.

Yeah. Interspecies Romance may not have an actual sexual component; usually because there would be a Squick factor, or because there's no practical way the couple could have sex. This trope is when sex is explicitly stated to work in practice (even if it's not explicitly shown), and there's either no Squick (because the two characters are similar enough), or the work just doesn't care about being squicky.

Squick doesn't really come into it either (though it can certainly be a reaction to the trope being averted). Again, I understand this as "interspecies couple engages (explicitly or implicitly) in conventional "human-style" sex despite the fact that this would seem to be unlikely and/or impossible given their biology."

The problem is that this is by no means limited to porn, despite the description - using a personal example, the reason I've been following this is that I made a point of averting it in my own works, none of which would possibly be considered more then PG-13. And as straight uses go, I think this may actually be a near-Omnipresent Trope in televised SF Interspecies Romance that doesn't involve Human Aliens or the like.

Bump. So, is anyone against widening the description?

edited 31st Oct '11 7:29:28 AM by Tuomas

Umm, there's technically a bit of misuse going on, caused by the current name. What, exactly, do you want this trope broadened to?

My understanding would be what I said before: "interspecies couple engages (explicitly or implicitly) in conventional "human-style" sex despite the fact that this would seem to be unlikely and/or impossible given their biology." It shouldn't be limited to porn.

Would modified forms no longer count, then?

What do you mean by "modified forms"?

Several examples talk about "assistance", and whether it is a straight example or a subverted example is about 50-50.

Yeah, I think the examples where the sex is done with the help of some sort gadget should be cut, because they're not what the trope is about. It's about two different species being able to have sex without any such gadget. I think the term "universal adaptor" in the title is a bit misleading, because it's supposed to be metaphorical, it shouldn't suggest the use of an actual technological adaptor. So maybe the trope should be renamed as well broadened?

edited 2nd Nov '11 2:32:05 AM by Tuomas

Agreed.

As things stand, those ought to be cut, but this trope might actually be common enough to make listing subversions/aversions worthwhile, which is what that sort of thing qualifies as.

Do we have to come up with new names, or can we just switch with the redirect?

Bumping for further action.

Bump. (Issue is still unsolved.)

This trope isn't about porn, it's about intercourse. Which does, you know, occur in non-pornographic works.

Are we gonna DO anything or just keep bumping this thread until the end of time?!

I thought the trope was about bumping?

Anyway, what's actually left to do?

"In pornographic materials" should probably be changed to "In depictions of sex."

Tweaked that line so it's not porn specific any more.

If there's nothing else to do here, I'm going to lock the thread in approximately 5 hours.