Anonymous #2 15w

It’s always males and women

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Anonymous #3 15w

Because theyre ✨fae✨

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Anonymous cakey 15w

It always feels so cis/heteronormative too. It’s why I can’t stand most hetero fantasy romance that have fairies. It’s so icky when it literally doesn’t have to be

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Anonymous OP 15w

SOOOOOO CIS-HETERO. Bro it pisses me off😭😭

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Anonymous cakey 15w

It’s grammatical because there isn’t a term for the species genders, therefore the default terms used are “male” and “female”.

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Anonymous #4 15w

I feel like the terms “man” and “woman” are more tied to personhood than species

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Anonymous #5 15w

I agree, using “males and females” makes it dehumanizing/depersonalizing, as if the characters are animals rather than people, and it’s definitely weird

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Anonymous #4 15w

Theyre fictional worlds😭😭 there can be words for genders if the author wishes lol. Wouldnt it make more sense for a culture/species to have their own word for their genders rather than to omit it? It's not like the "male" or "female" characters represented in these books stray from typical cis-hetero genders either. I could understand forgoing "man" or "woman" if the characters dont fit neatly into either category, but if you replaced every "male" with "man", nothing would change

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Anonymous OP 15w

I really don’t want to start this argument because I know it makes a lot of people agree because they don’t understand. Grammar is like this more so because of ethical reasons. Man and women are tied to the human race, medical personnel, law enforcement, etc. all use male and female. It’s not dehumanizing, it’s just how gender is referred to regardless of species. Most authors don’t put that much thought into it, I understand. But many people in certain industries are taught exhaustively (1

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Anonymous OP 15w

About the ethical issue with personifying other species. It’s not grammatically or ethically correct to refer to another species using human gender terms. “Man” as in “human” cannot be used for another species of male hominids either.

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Anonymous cakey 15w

It’s the same reason why you wouldn’t refer to a “vixen” as a “she-wolf” even if it is easier

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Anonymous cakey 15w

Yes it would make more sense if they made up their own term! They absolutely could, but the concern would likely be that it wouldn’t stick in the genre as a whole. They made the choice to use the terms. As a NB person who works in animal lab settings, this isn’t about “cis-hetero genders” it’s about ease of reference and grammatical correctness most likely. Replacing male with man would in fact change a lot. As man directly refers to “hu-man” as the species of the one in question.

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Anonymous #4 15w

But by romanticizing and creating fairy romances, we are humanizing/personifying nonhuman entities. It makes sense to not call a dog a woman or a man, because nobody is out here writing dog romances. But if we’re writing nomhuman romances with creatures we’re both humanizing and romanticizing, then it would make more sense to also use “man/woman/enby/other” with them instead of “male/female/intersex.” Or is fairy romance considered bestiality? If yes, then males/females is fine. If not, it’s off

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Anonymous cakey 15w

It would get quite jumbled and confusing if they referred to him as a fae and kept calling him “man”, people would likely forget what species he is

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Anonymous OP 15w

Would someone reproducing with a different species of hominid be considered beastiality? In an ethical sense, maybe. Hybrids do exist, but they are cross-species and ethically ambiguous in some respects. It is important not to use human labels on nonhumans as human traits, behaviors, and norms come with the labels. One could argue that it is heteronormative to apply human gender labels to animals. Such as the “boy” and “girl” cat debate.

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Anonymous #2 15w

Because for some reason the female character is always a human woman

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Anonymous #4 15w

I get your point, ty. I think the genre as a whole would make a little more sense if traits other than "animalistic male instinct GRRRR" were emphasized. I think i'd be more okay with "male fae" if they didnt coincide with the more traditional man stereotypes. Anyways i rly hope some indie author writes a fae romance with weird fucky genders. But anyways you make a valid argument

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Anonymous #7 15w

Yeah it’s for non-human races in fantasy books

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