Ambiguous Name: Hermaphrodite

So, for the trope "Hermaphrodite" it's less an ambiguous name than a completely inaccurate one.

1. You would never use this word to describe an intersex person, as noted on the trope page itself, it's an offensive slur to actual intersex people. 2. It's inaccurate to the actual scientific terminology of the word, so it might confuse people who are unaware of its actual meaning. 3. On the trope page itself, it's used for both completely speculative gender structures like Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness and more realistically portrayed intersex individuals. Those are completely different categories and should not be conflated with each other.

It'd be nice if a. The trope was split into categories of speculative sexual structures and relatively realistic portrayals of intersexuality. b. If neither of those tropes used what is considered a slur by the people it's describing.

Hopefully I'm posting about this in the right way.

Hermaphrodite is the correct term for beings that can partake in procreation as both male and female so that name will stay.

However, I don't think intersex/ambiguous genitalia are the same thing so a split may be worth considering. The opening post is a little low on evidence, so I'll set a timer on this thread - a more rigorous analysis of the example section is needed or else the thread will be closed.

edited 28th Aug '17 5:06:42 AM by SeptimusHeap

I feel like the trope as written could be split into 2:

• Hermaphroditic or intersex Individuals (sometimes authors leave this ambiguous.)
• Hermaphroditic Species (Sub-trope of Bizarre Alien Biology)

Would Intersex Umbrella be a descriptive enough name for the trope related to individuals?

Counting up examples, roughly:

• 40 instances of hermaphroditic species or species with a hermaphroditic gender.
• 30 intersexed individuals.
• 50 hermaphroditic individuals.
• 20 individuals whose status is unclear from the written example.

I'd be ok with splitting off full species, and leaving individuals under a carefully-named intersex umbrella trope. Especially as some of those 20 may have been left deliberately ambiguous by the writer.

edited 29th Aug '17 1:00:25 AM by Arutema

Quite a bit should be under the Futanari redirect as well.

I believe the general policy is to avoid Gratuitous Japanese in trope names,

Unless Futanari are actually different from Hermaphrodite, as was the case with Ghost Lights and Hitodama (which became Hitodama Light, IIRC).

edited 29th Aug '17 7:23:24 AM by WaterBlap

A Futanari is literal a hermaphrodite as in they have both working genitals, having a scrotum entirely depends on the author, instead of the usual having male and female characteristics but was born one or the other like most of the examples on the page which would be "Intersex".

In some works like Digital Devil Saga they can get themselves pregnant as well.

edited 29th Aug '17 8:16:55 AM by Memers

Is there a reason why Futanari should be its own page?

It probably shouldn't be split from "Hermaphrodite", possibly making it a subtrope to that is a option though although how many tvtropes safe examples that it would get is questionable.

But if we rename it to "Intersex" then yes it should be its own trope.

edited 29th Aug '17 8:49:29 AM by Memers

Agreeing with the idea that the page should be at least renamed if not split, as functional hermaphroditism (both sets of genitalia in working order) is categorically impossible in human beings, while being intersex (note the inter as in intermediate) is actually not that uncommon, tends to be misunderstood due to confusion with the former, and describes a rather different kind of phenomena.

And I would agree that "futanari" sounds like it falls under the general concepts of hermaphroditism better than intersex conditions.

edited 7th Sep '17 6:11:45 PM by AlleyOop

Also, isn't futanari usually a porn trope?

Typically its used in porn but not always. That aforementioned Digital Devil Saga example is not porn.

Looking at the examples Boku No Futatsu No Tsubasa, Alien, Bra Girl, Angel Sanctuary, Star Trek, Knights Of Sidonia, The Elder Scrolls, Bayonetta 2 are Futanari and those are just examples I know.

edited 7th Sep '17 8:52:39 PM by Memers

I'm a bit confused by one of the above arguments. Why should the page be split just because an element of it (given Tropes Are Flexible) is impossible in real life? That would normally just mean that it gets put on NRLEP, not split.

Real Life Marches On on the terminology of part of what Hermaphrodite means, related more to Gender Bender, replaced with the term 'Intersex'. It is not PC to refer to someone like that, even fictional characters, 'Hermaphrodite'.

The other part of Hermaphrodite however has a completely different meaning, having both male and female sex organs, called Futanari, lit 'two of them' or 'dual form', in Japanese works which handle a majority of the examples of it and have fetishized it. It does not happen in real life to humans, at least fully.

There is also a few examples on the page that are misuse for either No Biological Sex or Single-Gender Race.

edited 8th Sep '17 12:55:30 AM by Memers

Same reason Gender Bender and Transsexual are separate pages. It's more that the fantasy-real barrier causes two kinds of tropes to appear and be used rather differently.

Hermaphroditism tends to have a fantastical/speculative nature, and is often mined for Fanservice. Authentic intersex conditions tend to be portrayed a lot less pruriently and usually treated as a source of angst (Nabari no Ou and High School Nightmare). Also being intersex, while also broad in its clinical manifestation, is pretty well-defined by doctors, and if not split off (with the new page possibly being designated as Useful Notes), deserves elaboration beyond the one paragraph it currently has which is sandwiched between discussion of fantastical hermaphroditism. Even "true hermaphroditism" in the clinical intersex sense is very different from what is generally thought of by the term hermaphrodite and doesn't even qualify for most of the entrees mentioned on this page.

edited 8th Sep '17 2:05:18 PM by AlleyOop

Under no circumstances should Futanari be separated from Hermaphrodite. The instinct to split tropes into "Trope X" and "Trope X But In Japan And With A Japanese Name" should always be resisted.

I agree with the suggestion above that Hermaphrodite should be defined and used to describe what "hermaphrodite" actually is, namely, a being with two opposing and fully functional sets of sexual organs. Anything relating to transgender, which is obviously completely different, should be elsewhere.

Problem is that we have 2 definitions and Hermaphrodite is used for both of those.

A split into 2 tropes with Hermaphrodite being the disambiguate is what needs to be done. However we have a name for 1, intersex, but for the other the only other term is Futanari.

edited 8th Sep '17 2:45:37 PM by Memers

We have Transsexual and this page can stay for beings with two sets of opposite and functional genitalia. Intersex is the issue and needs to be split off.

Yeah, when talking about futanari and other such tropes, hermaphrodite is a term that makes sense and is readily understood as meaning such; therefore it's fine to keep that as the name for this trope. It's just that it's not a good or accurate way to describe real-world intersex people and that's part of where the offense comes from. It might help to append a blue link to the new Intersex page like this:

edited 8th Sep '17 5:15:22 PM by AlleyOop

I dont think that will work, some of these works refer to them as such in the works themselves.

Also its not a useful note, its a trope.

edited 8th Sep '17 5:31:50 PM by Memers

So apparently we have a page for Wrong Genetic Sex, which fits a lot of real-life intersex cases better than Hermaphrodite. Although, IRL intersex conditions encompass both ambiguous genitalia as well as unambiguous genitalia but with a DNA mismatch. I think there's enough material between these two pages to justify launching an independent Intersex page while distributing examples between Wrong Genetic Sex and a heavily revamped Hermaphrodite page (for instances of intersex individuals actively identified as "hermaphroditic").

Locking per New Year Purge.