[ailovestogrow]

NimrodClover:

I love getting into the details here, mostly because I have a 573 page novel that starts a futanari protagonist. I have my own reasons for introducing her into the story and making her a hermaphrodite, but I’ll get to that.

First, I want to address your definitions.

(I want to make clear, I am engaging in a discussion and believe your analysis to be both enlightening and valid. I am only adding more to your discussion)

Futanari can either be written in Japanese as 二形 or 二成. There are some more obscure ways to write it, but these are the most common kanji I’ve seen. 二 Is simple, it is the ancient Chinese symbol for 2. 形 means shape or form while 成 means become or grow. So in the most common spellings of futanari in Japanese the root means either a dual form or to become duality.

In modern vernacular, futanari in Japan has been transformed into a term used mostly in the erotic community meaning a girl who is sexually fully functional in both male and female sexual organs.

This coincides with the actual meaning of hermaphrodite from Webster: an animal or plant having both male and female reproductive tissue or organs. This agrees with your assessment, but does not explicitly say that gender is indistinct, rather that they just possess both sexual organs. The fact that it works out that way in humans is just biological reality.

From my own stories, I do not seek to create a third gender as I see that futanari/hermaphroditism is more mythological in meaning than anything else. Many ancient cultures, especially among the African tribes, had fertility gods/goddesses that possessed sexual organs from both sexes. Likewise, in my fanciful tellings of modern mythology, my main character is expressly a combination of the sexes and acts as a mediator between them. This fits nicely with the root of the word hermaphrodite, which comes from the Greek myth of Salmacis and Hermaphroditos, a man and a woman who tragically wished to never be separated and the gods allowed them to merge as one. The classical definition of hermaphrodite reflects that: “ person partaking of the attributes of both sexes.” It is this definition that I think reflects better how I have structured my own character.

So my use of futanari just comes from my infatuation with Japanese culture and it is their normalization of the term for the erotica community that I tend to use it exclusively, rather then another form of definition. Forgive me if that has caused any confusion.

I am fascinated with trying to see the scientific side of the spectrum from something that erotica places firmly into the fantasy side, and in fact in the early chapters of my WIP sequel to my novel, go into the details of her prostate and how my futa MC has lost part of her intestines to make room for the extra organs.