Why do Readers(you) enjoy Genderbender?

[Glacial]

I feel like genderbender as a genre gets a bit of a bad rep at times, with it being used in a lot of smut and such. But aside from that I find it to be my favorite genre, even though I'm a purely MtF enjoyer. I know there's plenty other sub genres for GB but I like to stick to my personal taste, which I am very picky after sometime. I find that MtF yuri is not something I care much for if the protagonist is too... lustful. The only times I've enjoyed yuri GB is when it takes a long ass time to develope the characters and story. It must be earned for it to hit right, if I'm saying this right. In a meaner sense, I also find that taking a character and making him a "cute girl" despite it fully clashing with everything he stands for, bonus points if its a nonhuman too. Breaking down a former manly man into a proper princess. I might need help understanding why I enjoy such specific things, haha.

Anyway, I'd to know why others like this genre, even if its for the smut or girls love. Its a fun genre but for many different reasons for different people.

 

[ACertainPassingUser]

I love the exploration of gender change and how it affect the character's view of life and personality as a whole.

Especially when you discover something new about yourself after living a lifetime with a single gender.

And also the excitement to discover all the possibilities we could exploit from being able to change gender repetitively.

 

[Hurricane-kane]

I have a simple reason because it's cute and as we all know cute is justice I mean don't you think it's a little adorable when the transformed person starts feeling embarrassed and awkward shy ECT??? Ik I do hehe so that's why I hope that genderbend can have less Yuri and more romance to many dang Yuri for Yuri genderbend and normal genderbend it's a 1:10 ratio bro ;-;

I feel like genderbender as a genre gets a bit of a bad rep at times, with it being used in a lot of smut and such. But aside from that I find it to be my favorite genre, even though I'm a purely MtF enjoyer. I know there's plenty other sub genres for GB but I like to stick to my personal taste, which I am very picky after sometime. I find that MtF yuri is not something I care much for if the protagonist is too... lustful. The only times I've enjoyed yuri GB is when it takes a long ass time to develope the characters and story. It must be earned for it to hit right, if I'm saying this right. In a meaner sense, I also find that taking a character and making him a "cute girl" despite it fully clashing with everything he stands for, bonus points if its a nonhuman too. Breaking down a former manly man into a proper princess. I might need help understanding why I enjoy such specific things, haha.

Anyway, I'd to know why others like this genre, even if its for the smut or girls love. Its a fun genre but for many different reasons for different people.

Man of culture ....respect

 

[Heartlock]

Now I know I’m a little different from most, personally I love GB only when it’s FtM, I don’t think the idea is explored enough either. But I also write MtF because I like making my protagonist suffer in the most extreme ways(I’m not even talking about physical trauma, though I do use that a lot) now if you’re interested in a GB where the man character is constantly suffering, then I’m your pal.

 

[ElijahRyne]

Anyway, I'd to know why others like this genre, even if its for the smut or girls love. Its a fun genre but for many different reasons for different people.

Because, when done well, it is fun to read.

 

[TheEldritchGod]

I don't, because it's boring.
Now to flip the entire universe and leave the individual alone, that's interesting. The concept of Oh Noes, one person doesn't fit is kinda dull. That's like, every day. That's just Tuesday. However, the individual is right, but everyone else is wrong, that has potential.

 

[Gxa7yh]

It's unique?, like when a man turns to a girl, it turns to a completely new perspective, whether it shows the struggle of accepting a woman's body with the mind of a man, or the lost of our "friend" affecting us as that is often times the first things the MC's realize. It's also unique, although to much smut ruins one unless it's a novel focusing on it

 

[LilRora]

I think there's a lot of compounding reasons here. First is the obvious conflict in identity and everything that comes from it. Tension and drama in reasonable amounts is what keeps people hooked and draws them to stories (other than the slice of life genre, but that's a different cup of tea for much more reasons).

The second is the fact it's far more relatable for many people than stories without that kind of plot, while offering a lot that other relatable stories do not. Roughly speaking, if a woman reads a story with male mc, she'll likely find it difficult to fully relate with him, while another story with a genderbent female mc might even offer almost the same content, but wil be more relatable because of the additional context.

On the flip side, a lot of gender bender stories offer the same things other stories do, but without a lot of assumptions and preconceptions. I think it's especially visible with the differences between romance targeted for male audience and those target for female audience. Gender bender can easily mix both in fun ways that are much more difficult to find otherwise (though futa offers a similar range of content in some aspects).

Third important reason I see, there's a lot of psychological and personal topics and themes that are difficult to touch in a "normal" story, for a definition of that word. Gender bender is a relatively simple way to introduce things like identity crisis, other identity-related topics including body-mind relationship, as well as gender-related stereotypes and preconceptions, both those good and bad, and a lot of other things I haven't thought about. And, since it's more difficult to touch those in other stories, they're far more common there.

The more smut-related side of gender bender is also intimately connected with all three of those reasons.

 

[Succubiome]

To me, genderbending at it's core is about exploring what it's like to have a different perspective/place in society based on gender roles or different body, without having to deal with the fallout, whilst living in a society/time where it's relatively risky/demonized to do so.

Just looking at MtF, people can be like "what if I experienced what it would be like to be a girl societally", some are like "what if I experienced what a girl body was like physically", some are like "what if I could be in a relationship with women as a girl", some are like "what if I could be in a relationship with men as a girl", some are like "what would it be like if it was societally okay for me to be fucked by big cocks", some are like "what would be it be like to experience misogyny", and so on, or for any combination of reasons.

I find messing around with emotions and bodies and cultural expectations and new experiences interesting in itself, so it's a trope I tend to like a lot in various forms, though femininity is more interesting than masculinity to me, which tends to draw me more towards MtF than FtM.

But it can be a number of things, even outside of that-- for example. if one is heavily aligned with a specific gender, genderbending can split the difference between familiarity and detachment, and sometimes people want more or less detachment in their fiction.

In practice, it's a pretty broad term, and that makes looking for the specific thing you're looking for harder, and that makes it easier for people break it into "good" and "bad" genderbending based on their own personal preferences-- it's easier to be like "yaoi isn't for me" if you don't like boy/boy stuff and just avoid the tag, whereas genderbending is broad enough both conceptually and mechanically to be easier to wander into things you don't like. (Not to say people don't hate on yaoi too, but it's easier to avoid if it's not your jam).

 

[melchi]

I get why it has a bad rep. It seems like the majority of GB tags are also paired with Yuri tags. So, a lot of of the bad rep comes from people who want to focus their novel around girl's love but have a character that doesn't really act like a girl. The other way around is a lot rarer for some reason. Not sure. I generally avoid anything that has the combo <GL> <GB> <Smut> because that combo screams yuri sexy time and that is not interesting to me.

I do like GB though I just like to avoid the ones that are based on romance or sex. I don't mind that, but making that the main thing isn't so interesting. Any other thing is better. Like there is this one novel where a guy gets put in a world where men play the society roll of women and men play the society roll as men. Some guy who replied in this thread might have wrote it...

 

[Vnator]

Now I know I’m a little different from most, personally I love GB only when it’s FtM, I don’t think the idea is explored enough either. But I also write MtF because I like making my protagonist suffer in the most extreme ways(I’m not even talking about physical trauma, though I do use that a lot) now if you’re interested in a GB where the man character is constantly suffering, then I’m your pal.

Making them suffer by forcing them to pee sitting down? You're a monster!

 

[Glacial]

I have a simple reason because it's cute and as we all know cute is justice I mean don't you think it's a little adorable when the transformed person starts feeling embarrassed and awkward shy ECT??? Ik I do hehe so that's why I hope that genderbend can have less Yuri and more romance to many dang Yuri for Yuri genderbend and normal genderbend it's a 1:10 ratio bro ;-;

Man of culture ....respect

Cute is justice indeed. I find that it's a lot more fun when the GB protagonist is not in a position of power, even being a bit bullied, especially hurting they're pride.

 

[CarburetorThompson]

As a GB reader there is generally two types of online gb novels. 1) smut 2) trans wish fulfillment

Both of those have a place and can be good but occasionally you get a gb story that is neither of those, and that's where a lot of the really good stuff is.

 

[2wordsperminute]

I don't, because it's boring.
Now to flip the entire universe and leave the individual alone, that's interesting. The concept of Oh Noes, one person doesn't fit is kinda dull. That's like, every day. That's just Tuesday. However, the individual is right, but everyone else is wrong, that has potential.

But is that not also one person not fitting?

 

[TheEldritchGod]

But is that not also one person not fitting?

No. It is the rest of the universe not fitting. Big difference. One is hubris, the other isn't.

 

[AryaX]

For me... Its wish fulfillment... mostly... but sometimes its just funny...

 

[RubyDusk]

i like gender bender because basically all the good trans stories are under it.

 

[quagma]

because i wish it would happen to me. no hard transition work, just get a magic spell that works near instantly or hundreds of times faster than modern day medicine, and you don't even need to do any surgeries or painful recoveries! or just get a new body, or however the bending works. by the time the novel ends, both you and the character have probably realized a few things about themselves.

 

[beast_regards]

My grandmother used to tell be stories about the old days, a time of peace, when the Internet kept the balance between the normies, otaku and furries, but it all ended when the genderbenders attacked ...

 

[MasFaqih]

because i wish it would happen to me. no hard transition work, just get a magic spell that works near instantly or hundreds of times faster than modern day medicine, and you don't even need to do any surgeries or painful recoveries! or just get a new body, or however the bending works. by the time the novel ends, both you and the character have probably realized a few things about themselves.

Maybe you will like my work?.