Discussion Main / MermaidProblem

is this really common enough discussed to be a trope

This is a real life issue with some fish, most notably sharks, that are oviviparous or viviparous, and they do have organs through which males can inseminate females that look and work much the way their mammal counterparts do (even if they might have totally different origins). I don't think the problem is necessarily that mer-people in fictitious depictions should lack such organs. The real problem is that they are depicted as naked below waist without their naughty parts, analogous to the way cartoon animals are shown lacking the same organs. Couldn't anyone draw mer-people with their versions of pants or skirts? It seems that some of the older depictions of mermaids do feature them wearing mermaid dresses that cover the appropriate parts.

mermaid sex makes perfect sense if the mermaid and her sweetie are lesbians. why assume there has to be a penis in order for there to be sex? awfully heterosexist, don't you think? not to mention, unimaginative...

This needn't be as much of a problem as some people think.

First off, in olden times, people were much less precise about the use of the word "fish" - it basically meant anything that lived in the sea. It's quite possible that mermaids are actually a type of cetacean, or maybe even a close relative of humans via the Aquatic ape hypothesis.

Alternatively, some fish (such as the Elasmobranchii basically mate the same way as mammals do.

In any case, as has been pointed out, they'll still have some sort of opening down there, as well as hands and a mouth.

The real problem, though, is - assuming mermaids are fish - why to they have breasts in the first place (or hair, and other human characteristics).

Based on some of the legends, as well as numerous real-life examples of animals that have evolved to attract other species, the most likely explanation is far more of a problem for anyone thinking of a romantic enounter with a mermaid.

Should there be a NSFW picture on the top of the page? Just makes labeling all external links NSFW redundant if we have it on our own website.

"(what's a flashing mermaid got to with coffee anyway?)" ...What's a fictional seaman got to do with it?

Does this apply to non-mermaids who are some other obviously non-compatable species from the waist down, or is there a separate trope for that? In particular I'm thinking there are at least a few examples of half-snakes, though that's somewhat less rarely brought up, probably because any such hybrids seem to be nearly always villains and hence the possibility of their deviant fuckery is never brought up.

Are fish genitalia really that baffling? I understood that most vertebrates in that general area of the animal kingdom have a universal opening.. Everything that needs to come out, comes out.. if males push up against a female, they can make a deposit.. otherwise they can do the cloud thing like most fish.. but.. surely that's close enough.. It's a hole.. a hole's a hole. Fish have holes, right? That and.. if the fishtail is horizontal, clearly the mammal genes have influenced the fish bits, just like vice versa tends to happen putting some fins on the human elbows or whatever..