Altered Gender Ratio Settings.

[TheEldritchGod]

I've been working on FTS again. I'll want a bit of a back log before I restart it. Flip the script is a "reverse gender roles" setting, but while trying to catch up on what the community had been doing with the topic, I've found a bunch of related stories. Specifically the "Altered Gender Ratio" setting.

In the real world, the percentage of male to female births is 50.1% male, 49.9% female, but due to the difference in death rates, that turns to 50/50 by age 1. Overall in the US, the population is 50.5% female. Men just die more.

Stories with an Altered Gender Ratio have upset that ratio for often unexplained reasons. 99% of the stories are: There are far more women than men. like 1:3, 1:39, 1:99, and in once case, 1:9,999. I have only read one story where it's the reverse, The White Plague by Frank Herbert. That story was a horror story, to be clear. It was about an engineered disease that only killed women and the aftermath. That was also written back in 1983.

In the modern setting, the AGR story might have SOME explanation of the backstory. For example, a plague that kills all men and a handful survive. This is a recurring story element that comes up in various settings. However, I'm going to focus on the more common version, where they don't bother to explain why it happens, because the setting is an excuse for the MC to get laid.

Sort of...

It's odd, but there seems to a sub-genre where the setting is set up for the MC to get laid, but he actually tries his level best to NOT HAVE SEX. I'll be honest, This really is the realm of comedy and odd fetishes.

To address this in order, I want to start off with the ratios.

1:3 - Now, this ratio makes the most sense for me. At this point you can explain it by some quirk in the genetic code. Instead of XY chromosomes determining gender, you have some other chromosome get added to the mix. We have 23 pairs. Normally pair 23 determines gender. What if you also needed something to line up in pair 22? So, you need XY and (just to make something up) MF.

So if you have:
XY MF, Male.
XX FF, Female.
XX MF, Female.
XY FF, Female.

And if you are into that whole "Omegaverse" fiction, you could add in that there are "types" of Male and Female, depending on how the two pairs combine. If you also allow XY MM and XX MM, that gives you 6 different combinations to play around with, since YY combinations are non-viable. But I digress, as this is not a discussion about that.

That all said, a 1:3 ratio could, with a little handwavium, be possible in some alternate universe. Alternate "genetic" ratios that are possible would be 1:5, 1:7, 1:11, 1:15, 1:23, 1:31, 1:63. However, beyond that point, it just gets silly.

1:9 - From a genetic stand point, I don't even know how this would happen, but it seems to be a popular ratio, simply because it's nice and round.

1:39 - One out of fourty is in one particular manga I have found and as far as I am concerned, the outer limit of how far you could push this and still have humanity survive. For example, to replace the number of people who die, on average we need 2.1 births per couple. However in a world with 39 women to one man, one man dying before he knocks up enough women to replace him REALLY skews that number per... damn... I don't even know what to call it. Harem? Lets go with harem.

Your average harem of one guy, 39 women needs to have 40 babies. Assuming the same fatality rate of people before children become old enough to have children, so 44 children per harem. The average chance of having a child with a fertile woman who is between puberty and age 30, is 0.8% on any given day, Ignoring tracking ovulation.) That means our one guy has to have sex 5,500 times to get our 44 babies to avoid population crash.

That's one man having sex EVERY DAY for over 15 years STRAIGHT. God forbid he wants to take some time off, or have sex with someone more than is the bare minimum to knock them up. Yes, chances increase when they are young, but if you formed a harem at age 20, with 39 women all age 20 as well, with a bit of bad luck, some of them may never have children. Yes, use of artificial insemination might take some of the burden off the men, but if this society evolved with this ratio, then how did humanity survive BEFORE Artificial Insemination became a possibility, long enough to develop it?

1:99 to 1:INFINITY - When I read stories at this point, it's just insane. How did humanity survive long enough to reach the modern age with this sort of arrangement? if you have 1 guy out of a hundred. That's 40 years of fucking for one dude. Anyone is going to get bored with anything EVENTUALLY. At this point, a society is basically putting all their men in secure locations and never letting them outside for fear they might catch a cold and just constantly harvesting them for sperm.


With that out of the way, lets talk about some of the things annoying me:

1. In this particular genre, one of the things that bothers me is "All the men are assholes", but the MC, being from the "real world" shows women kindness and respect, which, of course, results in every woman falling in love with him over the slightest complement. I'm trying to wrap my head around that one. Why would every man be a jerk? ESPECIALLY in a high ratio world. Like, when you get into the 1:11 and above ratios, you are reaching a point where men are a STRATEGIC RESOURCE. You cannot simply risk anything happening to men, so most societies would basically lock them up. However, you would also want them happy, since it could result in sexual disfunction. So yes, they might be spoiled, but in the real world, even spoiled women who are sexual desirable know that a kind word often gets what they want more often than throwing a temper tantrum. I don't get it why EVERY man would turn into an asshole.

2. Why would the women want to get married and have a monogamous relationship? In a world of 1:3, you MIGHT get away with it, but in world of 1:39, what woman would ever think she could get a man to herself, unless she was a queen or CEO of GodCo, or something. It seems like a strange thing to add to world where harems would be the norm.

3. Another common trope is, all men hate sex. I... don't get it. Like, I get the answer is: so that the MC can get laid all the easier, but from a story, in-universe perspective, why would men come to hate having sex? I mean, the men who love sex will have WAY more children, and the men who hate sex will die out. What sort of selective pressure would EVER bring about a world where men hate sex and find it repulsive... well... ever?


Anyways, Gotta get back to work. This was just something that... I dunno. I try to figure things out so they make sense and I get this just an excuse for sexy times, that's no excuse to not have a setting with internal constancy.

 

[JayMark]

That's one man having sex EVERY DAY for over 15 years STRAIGHT.

Every guy reading this.

 

[melchi]

1: infinity wouldn't that have some genetic diversity issues?

A whole generation would be half-siblings.... how many of the 2nd generation would have the haspburg jaw?

 

[Clo]

Funny annecdote, but in Final Fantasy XI and XIV canon, the catgirls have an altered ration like this. I thing is 1:5 or so, maybe 1:8?

I think the designers wrote that in knowing there would be way more catgirls than catboys running around.

But also because of the lion-like societies they form, with one main breeding male / leader.

Since my novel is very FF XIV-inspired, I also kept this detail in the Felinae society.

It's just a background / backstory element in my story's case, rather than one of the key points.

I think a lot of writers don't actually really take the time to truly imagine how the world they create would work, which is why you see things like those 1:99 ratio.

 

[TheEldritchGod]

1: infinity wouldn't that have some genetic diversity issues?

A whole generation would be half-siblings.... how many of the 2nd generation would have the haspburg jaw?

Well, yeah. Kinda my point.

There is a point where you would have to monitor people's genetic history back like... 4 generations at least in order to make sure you weren't boinking a 2nd cousin or something. I get that I'm overthinking it, but That's what I do.

Funny annecdote, but in Final Fantasy XI and XIV canon, the catgirls have an altered ration like this. I thing is 1:5 or so, maybe 1:8?

Ironically, I was thinking about a HFY type story where it turns out most of the rest of the galaxy has a 1:5 ratio and the main "peacekeepers" were amazonia catgirls. Earth gets discovered, conquered and with it's 1:1 ratio, the galaxy spanning empire that rules the galaxy decides that Earth's required "tax" after being brought into the empire would be paid in males. since they were all so "cute" by the rest of the galaxy's standards, what with their lack of fur. (ie, lack of fur being a trait of young males.) So I can actually see why FF went with a 1:5 ratio with the catgirls.

ironically, it was going to be a bit of a comedy, but I was in a dark place at the time and the story sort of went off the rails and got really dark. I figured it'd be best just to shelve it.

 

[StoneInky]

I've been working on FTS again. I'll want a bit of a back log before I restart it. Flip the script is a "reverse gender roles" setting, but while trying to catch up on what the community had been doing with the topic, I've found a bunch of related stories. Specifically the "Altered Gender Ratio" setting.

In the real world, the percentage of male to female births is 50.1% male, 49.9% female, but due to the difference in death rates, that turns to 50/50 by age 1. Overall in the US, the population is 50.5% female. Men just die more.

Stories with an Altered Gender Ratio have upset that ratio for often unexplained reasons. 99% of the stories are: There are far more women than men. like 1:3, 1:39, 1:99, and in once case, 1:9,999. I have only read one story where it's the reverse, The White Plague by Frank Herbert. That story was a horror story, to be clear. It was about an engineered disease that only killed women and the aftermath. That was also written back in 1983.

In the modern setting, the AGR story might have SOME explanation of the backstory. For example, a plague that kills all men and a handful survive. This is a recurring story element that comes up in various settings. However, I'm going to focus on the more common version, where they don't bother to explain why it happens, because the setting is an excuse for the MC to get laid.

Sort of...

It's odd, but there seems to a sub-genre where the setting is set up for the MC to get laid, but he actually tries his level best to NOT HAVE SEX. I'll be honest, This really is the realm of comedy and odd fetishes.

To address this in order, I want to start off with the ratios.

1:3 - Now, this ratio makes the most sense for me. At this point you can explain it by some quirk in the genetic code. Instead of XY chromosomes determining gender, you have some other chromosome get added to the mix. We have 23 pairs. Normally pair 23 determines gender. What if you also needed something to line up in pair 22? So, you need XY and (just to make something up) MF.

So if you have:
XY MF, Male.
XX FF, Female.
XX MF, Female.
XY FF, Female.

And if you are into that whole "Omegaverse" fiction, you could add in that there are "types" of Male and Female, depending on how the two pairs combine. If you also allow XY MM and XX MM, that gives you 6 different combinations to play around with, since YY combinations are non-viable. But I digress, as this is not a discussion about that.

That all said, a 1:3 ratio could, with a little handwavium, be possible in some alternate universe. Alternate "genetic" ratios that are possible would be 1:5, 1:7, 1:11, 1:15, 1:23, 1:31, 1:63. However, beyond that point, it just gets silly.

1:9 - From a genetic stand point, I don't even know how this would happen, but it seems to be a popular ratio, simply because it's nice and round.

1:39 - One out of fourty is in one particular manga I have found and as far as I am concerned, the outer limit of how far you could push this and still have humanity survive. For example, to replace the number of people who die, on average we need 2.1 births per couple. However in a world with 39 women to one man, one man dying before he knocks up enough women to replace him REALLY skews that number per... damn... I don't even know what to call it. Harem? Lets go with harem.

Your average harem of one guy, 39 women needs to have 40 babies. Assuming the same fatality rate of people before children become old enough to have children, so 44 children per harem. The average chance of having a child with a fertile woman who is between puberty and age 30, is 0.8% on any given day, Ignoring tracking ovulation.) That means our one guy has to have sex 5,500 times to get our 44 babies to avoid population crash.

That's one man having sex EVERY DAY for over 15 years STRAIGHT. God forbid he wants to take some time off, or have sex with someone more than is the bare minimum to knock them up. Yes, chances increase when they are young, but if you formed a harem at age 20, with 39 women all age 20 as well, with a bit of bad luck, some of them may never have children. Yes, use of artificial insemination might take some of the burden off the men, but if this society evolved with this ratio, then how did humanity survive BEFORE Artificial Insemination became a possibility, long enough to develop it?

1:99 to 1:INFINITY - When I read stories at this point, it's just insane. How did humanity survive long enough to reach the modern age with this sort of arrangement? if you have 1 guy out of a hundred. That's 40 years of fucking for one dude. Anyone is going to get bored with anything EVENTUALLY. At this point, a society is basically putting all their men in secure locations and never letting them outside for fear they might catch a cold and just constantly harvesting them for sperm.


With that out of the way, lets talk about some of the things annoying me:

1. In this particular genre, one of the things that bothers me is "All the men are assholes", but the MC, being from the "real world" shows women kindness and respect, which, of course, results in every woman falling in love with him over the slightest complement. I'm trying to wrap my head around that one. Why would every man be a jerk? ESPECIALLY in a high ratio world. Like, when you get into the 1:11 and above ratios, you are reaching a point where men are a STRATEGIC RESOURCE. You cannot simply risk anything happening to men, so most societies would basically lock them up. However, you would also want them happy, since it could result in sexual disfunction. So yes, they might be spoiled, but in the real world, even spoiled women who are sexual desirable know that a kind word often gets what they want more often than throwing a temper tantrum. I don't get it why EVERY man would turn into an asshole.

2. Why would the women want to get married and have a monogamous relationship? In a world of 1:3, you MIGHT get away with it, but in world of 1:39, what woman would ever think she could get a man to herself, unless she was a queen or CEO of GodCo, or something. It seems like a strange thing to add to world where harems would be the norm.

3. Another common trope is, all men hate sex. I... don't get it. Like, I get the answer is: so that the MC can get laid all the easier, but from a story, in-universe perspective, why would men come to hate having sex? I mean, the men who love sex will have WAY more children, and the men who hate sex will die out. What sort of selective pressure would EVER bring about a world where men hate sex and find it repulsive... well... ever?


Anyways, Gotta get back to work. This was just something that... I dunno. I try to figure things out so they make sense and I get this just an excuse for sexy times, that's no excuse to not have a setting with internal constancy.

As you've said, novels with weirdly skewed gender ratios are just porn with plot. So naturally they don't make sense, and nobody cares.

The authors know it's a trashy setting too. In fact, the reverse gender role trope in itself is actually often considered a trashy setting, and is avoided by readers because it almost always leans into sexist territory, or again, porn with plot. I've only seen a few instances where the authors did em decently without making me angry.


Now for my answers, cuz I'm a devil's advocate:

1. Deep rooted gender divide and discrimination. Men may both disdain and fear women, which results in them acting more defensively and aggressively. Not every man would be like that, but it would be common enough that it becomes the norm, and it would be difficult to find someone who thinks differently. The women who 'fall in love' with a nice man, aren't actually falling in love. Maybe they just find the man accessible and easy. Someone to bed, not wed, to use to get rid of their virgin status.

2. Perhaps women of high status have historically used power and force to get away with having a man all to themselves, so being monogamous is associated with high status for women. Sharing a man is undesirable, and a shared man is thought of as low quality. Kinda like how some modern men may want a harem, seeing it as a status symbol.

3. If you get forced to do something, you'll naturally hate it. Since the sex ratio is skewed, maybe the men are forced to shaboink? Or there's a lot of crimes or slut-shaming going on, but towards men, to the point that it even overcomes genetics. If you had the choice to have lots of children but be treated like trash and die in poverty when your fertility lowers, and the choice to live happily and freely without children, many people would choose the latter.

 

[Clo]

Oh, also, keeping in mind society with skewed birth rate like this may not have developped the same reproductive system humans have.

Hidden ovulation at semi random state is understood to be an evolutionary advantage to encourage males to stay with their partner, and then raise the child together.

In a society where men are breeding males, it could instead be induced ovulation, if the women shop men around whenever they decide they want a child.

If you keep the very human reproduction cycles, it means the breeding male would be invited to stay with one woman for 4~5 months or so, freeing him whenever they were confident they were pregnant.

Chances are, such males would be pampered, and the various woman would have to court/attract them with the promise of a good life: great food, lavish furniture, etc.

 

[StoneInky]

This reminds me of Zerg fiction; a setting in a world where males are extremely rare.

Anyway, I'll add that I found something interesting too; many animal species with birth rates that are highly skewed towards females can give birth asexually and sexually. That's why the rates are skewed- all asexually produced individuals are female. The other instance in which the birth rate is skewed towards females, is when there's only one queen who actually reproduces, and the rest of the 'females' are workers. Wasps and ants and bees and the like.

I have yet to find instances of sexual determination by four different chronosomes. So if you want to add logic to the gender whatever, this might work better than what you have. If you want an excuse for shaboinking, don't feel shy and don't bother to logic it up. Your readers won't care, and it'll feel like forced pseudoscience.

 

[TheEldritchGod]

Oh, also, keeping in mind society with skewed birth rate like this may not have developped the same reproductive system humans have.

Hidden ovulation at semi random state is understood to be an evolutionary advantage to encourage males to stay with their partner, and then raise the child together.

In a society where men are breeding males, it could instead be induced ovulation, if the women shop men around whenever they decide they want a child.

If you keep the very human reproduction cycles, it means the breeding male would be invited to stay with one woman for 4~5 months or so, freeing him whenever they were confident they were pregnant.

Chances are, such males would be pampered, and the various woman would have to court/attract them with the promise of a good life: great food, lavish furniture, etc.

Now this is useful.

 

[SternenklarenRitter]

I have yet to find instances of sexual determination by four different chronosomes.

The white throated sparrow has two sets of sexes. They can be either male or female, and they can be either song or nest. Song sexed sparrows are smaller, fidgety, spend a lot of time foraging, contribute most to feeding the chicks, and often wander around singing to attract mates. Nest sexed sparrows are larger, stocky, lazy, contribute most to incubating eggs and defending chicks, are territorial, and spend a lot of time chasing off reproductive competition from sparrows sharing their male/female type. It is estimated that pairs of two song or two nest sparrows will have reproductive success reduced to between 10~30% of dihetero pairs. The second sex gene is on a separate chromosome, which had a large section flipped upside down.