Stolen Text!? Straight, gay, bipedaling quickly Ranma!?

[Crescent Pulsar]

For Ranma, I think it's a combination of being a straight man as a result of how he developed over the course of his life and being in and from a culture that has certain expectations when one lives by a code of ethics and conduct. From my own observations, he's clearly uncomfortable with the idea of being with a man, whether he's a guy or a girl. He also shows attraction to girls whether he's a girl or a guy. And while he's normally unaffected by his curse despite his empty grumblings (empty because he deals with it to the extent that he waits for cures to come to him instead of the other way around), partly evidenced by the many whys and hows of when he acts and/or dresses like a girl, he usually reserves his strong protests for when people put into question or insult something about him that he doesn't want others to judge him negatively about. I don't think it would be impossible for Ranma to ever like a guy romantically or sexually, but I believe that the circumstances would have to be really, really different from what we're familiar with for that to happen.

As for the physical and mental influences of the curses, by and large I think people look into it far too deeply than necessary. Takahashi ignores a lot of common sense things regarding physics for the sake of comedy, and that's why she didn't bog the story down with technical and realistic reasons for why cursed individuals handle themselves the way that they do. However, I'd like to point out that it's an assumption to think that Ryoga, Shampoo and Mousse were convenienced by Jusenkyo, considering that there's no telling how much time they had to get accustomed to their cursed forms before they made their (re)appearances, which isn't helped by the fact that time doesn't exactly flow realistically in the series.

And while I'm no expert on panda bear anatomy, I don't think it's a stretch to think that at least Ranma wouldn't have any real trouble adjusting to his cursed form. It's not like balancing on legs are new, and he's still human, so it's not like it can be compared to where a baby human would have to start, both in terms of experience and physical development. It's also not like he suffered a serious injury or brain trauma, where he'd need therapy to relearn how to do things from scratch.

But what I'd really like to address is the sense of balance. Between the two sexes, the vital parts (like the brain, eyes and vestibular system) that it relies upon don't change significantly, while the other parts (such as the skeleton and muscles) are relatively easy to adjust to once you put your mind to the task. After all, the main issue is that you're still balancing on two legs, not four, or a snake body. It's not alien. Going back to the car analogy, the biggest issue would be getting used to the size, shape and weight distribution of the car relative to what you're used to driving, as you are still perfectly able to drive on the roads. For instance, my sister recently had to use our mother's car instead of her own, and my mother's car is nearly twice the size of my sister's. Aside from that, there were a lot of small differences, such as where certain things were located and how the car performed (including going from front-wheel drive to rear). But she was able to go about her business just fine, except that a few days in she misjudged a turn and scraped the side of a curb. Ranma made the same mistake with Mousse after getting herself around just fine. I think it can also relate to my experience with a bike, because despite having not ridden one in a decade (thus going from a young teen to a full-grown adult), as well as riding a different kind (in terms of size, and having speed options and the brakes on the handles), I was still able to ride it without any compromising problems.

More to the point, though, is that Ranma and the others aren't exactly normal people, and can't be held to the expectations of our standards as such. They perform many feats that we couldn't possibly do with casual effort, which -- to me -- suggests that we're barking up the wrong tree trying to rationalize the hows and whys in terms of handling their cursed forms. That's not to say that Jusenkyo may not have some of the effects suggested, but I'd be prudent when it comes to assuming what any particular spring does; and they would be assumptions because we're never told straight-up how things work. For instance, "young girl" literally means just that, a female that is of a young age. Assuming that there's anything beyond the physical about it is sending Occam's Razor off on a train, because young girls can differ in their sexuality, gender identity, personality, the kind of gestures they use, the interests they have, and they don't even need to be from a different culture to achieve such differences. Personally, I just can't believe that the spring would favor a single combination of those, or choose a combination at random. And seeing as Ranma still seems to be Ranma in either form, he didn't become his own idea of how a young girl would be in that regard, either.

That said, I think it's fine to speculate and exercise one's creativity in a story, in regard to these matters, but I'd personally exercise some caution. I would even suggest to not take any of my own assertions seriously, since my guesses and reasonings shouldn't be any better than anyone else's. I was just tired, hungry, bored and I was struck by a whim. ;/

[TerraEpon]

Err... Ranma's hard to quantify... I won't make any deductions, but give some inductions.
a transwoman is someone who is physically male, has a female ego/identity/agency, who is attracted to men.

There are many people who would be VERY livid with being described as being attracted to men because they are transexual, when they attracted to women.

[Crescent Pulsar]

Ranma has shown to like girls whenever a male or female. That's it. "But Ranma reacted like a girl! So she must have a girl sexuality!"

No, she just did it because it was funny and made you feel weird since it's Ranma doing it.

I can't say that I completely agree with the reasoning, but I'd like to add that we're looking at several possible logical fallacies (or just a general one) whenever anyone tries to assert that someone's actions/behavior -- in this case, that are commonly associated with one sex -- also determines their sexual preference. And this without taking into consideration the fact that the occasions where Ranma is acting/behaving like a girl is far eclipsed by the amount of occasions where his behavior is commonly attributed to boys. You could propose that he's keeping it a secret but can't help expressing his true feelings/beliefs/personality sometimes, and while that's okay in a fictional story it doesn't make for a logical argument.

Personally, I'd only go so far as to take his feminine excursions to mean that he's comfortable enough with the general implications that others might perceive when it's done in the presence of others, particularly if he thinks or expects it to benefit him in some way. This is partly due to having never observed him questioning his actions, or what they might mean, which would probably be the evidence that someone would need to justify that at least Ranma himself sees a connection to his behavior and his sexual preference and/or identity.

[Spokavriel]

By not "having proper equipment" I feel safe assuming that you are also a member of the Back door is for evacuating wastes only club.

[Crescent Pulsar]

Hey, how come I haven't seen you at club meetings? Or am I to ASSume we've simply missed each other?

But what was said in your previous post brings to mind another point that I think should be made. And that is: some people do things without realizing what it is they're doing, or what it means to them and/or others. I can draw from my own personal experience with this.

Around the time I first hit the double digits in age, I spent a lot of time imagining transformations into animals, never settling on any one and most of the time not even imagining myself as the one being transformed. I never questioned it; it was simply something I knew that I liked to spend some of my time doing. Looking back on it now, I still can't tell how it started or why I had as much interest in it as I did.

Fast forward a bit. I was nearly twelve when one of the magazines that usually littered the floor (it was a... messy house, to say the very least) suddenly caught my interest. It was one of those magazines that focused on women's department store attire (I don't remember the specifics), but it was an advertisement for an estrogen supplement that actually caught my attention when I looked through it. I didn't know what estrogen was then or many years later, but somehow that inspired me to crossdress; which was a word that wasn't even in my vocabulary at the time. All I knew was that boys wore certain clothes and girls wore other kinds, so I knew enough about what that could mean to do it secretly but not what I was doing. As embarrassing as it is to admit, I actually didn't realize that what I was doing made me transgender until I was twenty years old, which might be hard for some to imagine but I was pretty ignorant up until the time I had regular access to the Internet, which was how I figured out I was transgender in the first place.

Rather than going into how things changed from there, allow me to get back to my point. I figure that if it's possible for even one person to be in the dark about something that may even seem completely obvious to someone else, it's reasonable to think that they may not be the only one out seven-billion people. That, and it's not uncommon for a good number of characters in Ranma 1/2 to be clueless or ignorant about various things. "Blind spots," some people would call them. So, this is my offering to the side of the argument where Ranma's actions/behavior as a girl could or should bear a deeper meaning: Ranma doesn't necessarily have to know and hide it, or be in self-denial, because the simple answer might just be that he isn't aware and/or views things in a way that wouldn't connect the same dots as the people who would recognize his behavior for what it means. Which -- of course -- is assuming that we know where Ranma draws the line on what a guy should do, whether that guy has a girl's body at the time or not. (For instance, most would probably agree that canon Ranma wouldn't want to be pregnant.)

[frice2000]

You guys are posting deep personal issues in a thread that started with a quote that one person wants more Yuri fetish material? I at no point expected this thread to turn in this direction. Nothings wrong with that but the placement in what was a unrelated thread just feels odd to me.

[Crescent Pulsar]

You guys are posting deep personal issues in a thread that started with a quote that one person wants more Yuri fetish material? I at no point expected this thread to turn in this direction. Nothings wrong with that but the placement in what was a unrelated thread just feels odd to me.

You didn't expect it because you're not paying attention. To start with, whether yuri's considered or assumed to be fetish material or not, whether by the person who wants said yuri or not, you're missing the fact that the discussion wasn't about something so shallow to begin with. If that were the case, all this thread would have been about is bemoaning the fact that there isn't enough yuri in regards to Ranma, rather than focusing on asking questions about it, and then having to go deeper because of the answers (and even some of the questions). Because lesbianism touches upon several serious, thought-provoking and deep subjects, and that's where the discussion naturally went. And when you do so at a site where such subjects become relevant to a number of the people who frequent it, one shouldn't be surprised when some of the contributions come from a personal source.

[Crescent Pulsar]

Something just occurred to me regarding the Jusenkyo part of the discussion. The one physical-mental effect most might be able to agree upon is how certain cursed individuals still function and think like themselves despite the differences in the size and function of the brains. I'm not exactly an expert on brains, but I find it hard to conceive how someone with a human brain can function normally if it's changed into one for a piglet, cat or duck.

Which gives me a thought. If these are supposed to be curses, it makes sense that there would be magic to ensure that the original person is preserved so that they have to deal with their curse both during (to experience) and after they change back (thus being able to remember the experience). If that were the case, giving helpful skills/instincts might be less likely. At the very least they would be reserved for curses that specifically add those qualities, like spring of drowned young girl whose only accomplishment in life was learning to walk and chew gum at the same time.

[Ellen Kuhfeld]

You guys are posting deep personal issues in a thread that started with a quote that one person wants more Yuri fetish material? I at no point expected this thread to turn in this direction. Nothings wrong with that but the placement in what was a unrelated thread just feels odd to me.

It is a surprise to you? In a forum devoted to a guy who turns into a girl, with the possibility of becoming a magical girl? If we held a poll of the membership -- a complete and honest poll -- we'd see a lot of hands in the air.

[LawOhki]

After perusing this thread I have come to one conclusion.