A discourse on Discord. Talking to a friend of mine who is a sociologist that works in Japan.

11:14 AM] RoseBunny: Part 6 will be written today
[11:14 AM] RoseBunny: it will be "yuuuge"
[11:14 AM] Ryuko: Okie, looking forward to it
[11:14 AM] RoseBunny: yes, I am mocking our idiot in chief.
[11:15 AM] Ryuko: Four and five turned out well, I saw it coming but you handled it very well imho
[11:15 AM] Ryuko: Managed to convey the eroticism without making it "erotic", if you will
[11:16 AM] RoseBunny: it really wasn't, so I didn't try to make it so.
[11:16 AM] RoseBunny: it was a mass of hormonal confusion and disaster.
[11:16 AM] RoseBunny: kinda like my first time.
[11:16 AM] Ryuko: Ah I seee
[11:17 AM] Ryuko: It's hard to write those moments well without making it either sound cheesy or pornographic or both, but you did it well
[11:17 AM] RoseBunny: yay me!
[11:17 AM] Ryuko: Maybe you drew on your own feelings describing it, I can't say
[11:17 AM] RoseBunny: well, theirs wasn't too dissimilar to a matress in the bed of a pick-up truck
[11:18 AM] Ryuko: Only thing that surprised me was the father's reaction. I kind of expected him to lose it, call police and threaten to kill the other boy, etc. He seemed strangely reserved
[11:18 AM] Ryuko: I suppose because how sex and especially the rape aspect in this society is handled reminds me of situation of women before sexual revolution
[11:19 AM] Ryuko: If that makes any sense
[11:21 AM] RoseBunny: yes. And you kinda have to remember that he's been through this. He remembers how it is, the overwhelming need. I've likened it to feline sex. knowing that male cats have barbs on their penises, it's a very painful thing. it's not that they get pleasure from it. It's a biological imperative
[11:22 AM] Ryuko: I guess I'm wondering how masculinity and femininity work in this world, since the only adults we have seen so far seem exaggerated in this respect, which I think was your point: without having any girls around as children, everyone's sense of what "men" and "women" are must be based on whatever images or stereotypes they can find
[11:23 AM] Ryuko: So seeing how boys and girls develop these roles will be interesting
[11:23 AM] Ryuko: It's like you're raising some clever ideas about gender without being ideological, just want to get people thinking
[11:24 AM] RoseBunny: well, I had at one point planned to have one of the first hour kids turn into a confidant. a boy that's so utterly small and feels that he's so not masculine, that he's resigned to the fact he's going to end up the girl. I may yet introduce that person
[11:26 AM] Ryuko: I really liked the protagonist's relationship with his mother
[11:26 AM] Ryuko: She's got this homemaker thing down and he sees her that way and respects it, but learning about her youth he comes to see her as this much stronger person
[11:26 AM] Ryuko: and respects her in another way
[11:27 AM] Ryuko: Kinda feel like she will help him through this in her own way
[11:28 AM] RoseBunny: Mom is awesome. She went from being an alpha male type ( granted not the dumb jock) to being a sensitive caring nurturer, and she didn't lose touch with the athletic side of herself.
[11:28 AM] Dragon Empress Ryuko: nod nod
[11:28 AM] RoseBunny: "look at my Gold medal"
[11:28 AM] Ryuko: I like how it shows that nurturing/motherly roles and being tough aren't mutually exclusive
[11:29 AM] RoseBunny: the implication here is that had she stayed male, she could have been a sports superstar in the NFL or NBA or Baseball, but she passed on the riches and fame for the man she loved.
[11:30 AM] RoseBunny: And she ended up in a situation where she could still have had that, to some degree
[11:31 AM] RoseBunny: Maybe Endorsements, pro-volleyball, modeling, etc. But she just settled down to be "mom"
[11:32 AM] Ryuko: aww hell that raises the question of how sports work in this world, too. It would suck to be a young HS basketball player and you might have to wait a while to get enough fellow girls to make a team
[11:33 AM] Ryuko: Or do they not have gendered divisions in sports at all?
[11:33 AM] RoseBunny: I'll be touching on that with DeShaun
[11:33 AM] RoseBunny: and also with Paul, to a degree.
[11:33 AM] Ryuko: Do you have most of this world-building stuff mapped out, or are you sort of winging it as the plot unfolds?
[11:33 AM] Ryuko: gets off over world-building
[11:33 AM] RoseBunny: 6 of one, half dozen of the other.
[11:33 AM] Ryuko: heehee
[11:34 AM] RoseBunny: but... speaking of building.. .I think I'm going to go do some sandwich building
[11:34 AM] RoseBunny: should be back within 30ish
[11:35 AM] Ryuko: okay, ttys hon o/
[12:18 PM] Ryuko: One more thing that occurs to me is that your society basically, if I understand correctly, has three sexes
[12:19 PM] Ryuko: My reasoning is that male/female is not determined in stone until a person hits Rut
[12:19 PM] Ryuko: So, we have proto-males, males, and females
[12:20 PM] Ryuko: No matter how old someone gets, if they never have sex with a male or fellow proto-male they will remain proto-male (because at any time they could potentially be screwed and become a female)
[12:20 PM] Ryuko: So there could, however unlikely, be very old proto-males running around
[12:21 PM] Ryuko: While for most of the population, you hit Rut and become either a male (unable to change to female), or female
[12:22 PM] Ryuko: I might have misunderstood, of course
[12:23 PM] Ryuko: continues thinking Now I came up with all of that by thinking through a bunch of scenarios while I was taking a bath
[12:24 PM] Ryuko: two in particular
[12:25 PM] Ryuko: 1) Let's say you and I are both proto-males/boys/whatever in this world, and we like each other. But we both end up Rutting with other guys, who then become girls. You and I then become a couple, and because we've already Rutted we're cemented as males. So we can spend the rest of our lives happily screwing each other and never worry one of us might turn into a woman.
[12:27 PM] Ryuko: 2) Same scenario as above, but you and I somehow manage to control ourselves and resist/overcome the urge to Rut with anyone else. Through the miracle of restraints, drugs, or something else, we manage to spend our whole lives together but never have anal sex with each other or anyone else. So we're a kinda-but-not-really sexless gay couple. Then one of us becomes senile at age 80 and bangs the other. That leaves us with one old man and one old woman all of a sudden.
[12:27 PM] RoseBunny: hm.
[12:27 PM] Ryuko: (unless Rutting works differently at different ages, and something happens if you get through teenage years without Rutting)
[12:27 PM] Ryuko: sorry for the wall of text!
[12:29 PM] RoseBunny: as for the proto-male thing, I mentioned in a reply to a comment. that presumably, there comes a point where you are far enough in your maturation where the rut, and likely the instability of your DNA is no longer a concern, but to get through to such a point, you need to go through the entirity of puberty without giving in
[12:30 PM] Ryuko: Ah, okay, I must have not seen that comment
[12:30 PM] Ryuko: It was interesting to ponder because Rutting is obviously inspired by puberty but is so much more
[12:30 PM] RoseBunny: yes
[12:30 PM] Ryuko: I mean this is the central defining experience of this society
[12:31 PM] Ryuko: So scenario 2 I mentioned above would presumably not come into effect, since once we got past puberty we could happily bang and still be guys
[12:32 PM] Ryuko: So we still "sort of" have three sexes, but the male becomes default if you avoid Rutting
[12:32 PM] RoseBunny: yes. as I commented, if you can get by on oral sex, you are golden in that regard.
[12:32 PM] Ryuko: I suppose this means I'm using Rut in the wrong way since it includes the time in effect and I'm only using it to mean "banging for the first time"
[12:33 PM] Ryuko: but I wanna use Rutting because....reasons xD
[12:33 PM] Ryuko: ...you should seriously have a character use that expression I'd laugh
[12:34 PM] RoseBunny: well, I'm going to elaborate on on it because there is some confusion, it seems. but after the first successful coupling with someone, the "rut" imperative and the catalyst and so forth stop being a concern.
[12:34 PM] Ryuko: I wonder if socially characters would use "Rut" to mean their first time and not just puberty, regardless of when it actually happened
[12:35 PM] Ryuko: I can imagine that being a possibility
[12:37 PM] RoseBunny: well, the "rut" would be a single occurrence. the mating imperative hits, you "do the deed", and your biology changes so the drive vanishes. You stop producing the catalyst and locking enzymes. Then the male would start going through male puberty, and the other would transition
[12:38 PM] Ryuko: Okay so that suggests that Rut is a precondition to puberty, then
[12:38 PM] Ryuko: When does puberty kick in if you avoid Rutting?
[12:38 PM] Ryuko: gonna keep using that term, no regrets
[12:40 PM] RoseBunny: well, it's not that it doesn't, because you are getting big, masculine guys like DeShaun and Jerkface Paul. but it may be that it goes more slowly in the males, and certain secondary factors like body hair might not develop until later.
[12:41 PM] RoseBunny: essentially rut, and get more testosterone
[12:41 PM] Ryuko: Ahhhh it could be that Rutting speeds the process along, but it happens anyway without it
[12:41 PM] Ryuko: That would explain why if you get all the way through puberty without Rutting you're in the clear
[12:41 PM] Ryuko: So puberty is the danger zone
[12:41 PM] RoseBunny: yes, because like I said eventually you would get to the point where you are male, no matter what.
[12:41 PM] RoseBunny: exactly
[12:41 PM] Ryuko: Okay
[12:42 PM] Ryuko: I'm sure the smartest people in your world would have been working all this stuff out and trying to deal with it for decades, so it is interesting to me how it all works
[12:42 PM] Ryuko: Not so much the science, but how the society deals with it
[12:43 PM] RoseBunny: Yes, well there are still outdated notions and ideas that still are deeply rooted. Like Paul's "real man" opinion.
[12:43 PM] RoseBunny: and when I get to part 6, we are introducing another societal issue. Race.
[12:44 PM] Ryuko: Yes I imagine that among youth those who go through the Rut and emerge male will celebrate their manliness and lord it over the pre-Rut (pre-)males, who have not been "confirmed" men because they could still possibly become women
[12:45 PM] Ryuko: Race will make it all the more complex, mmmmmm
[12:45 PM] Ryuko: Throw in social class and you have the social studies trifecta :p
[12:45 PM] Ryuko: gender/race/class
[12:45 PM] Ryuko: does a dance
[12:46 PM] RoseBunny: This is obviously taking place in a mirror 2019, and two of the proposed catalysts to the big change were the 1908 meteor/cometary impact in Siberia, and the 1910 passing of Halley's comet. so we aren't that far removed from the likely death of the last remaining natural-born woman
[12:46 PM] RoseBunny: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event
Tunguska event
The Tunguska event was a large explosion that occurred near the Stony Tunguska River in Yeniseysk Governorate (now Krasnoyarsk Krai), Russia, on the morning of 30 June 1908 (NS). The explosion over the sparsely populated Eastern Siberian Taiga flattened 2,000 square kilometre...

[12:47 PM] RoseBunny: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halley%27s_Comet
Halley%27s_Comet

[12:47 PM] Ryuko: You've just reminded me that this is a society in which people will still have memories of "natural-born women" around even if they haven't met any
[12:48 PM] Ryuko: Newly-minted girls will feel intense pressure to imitate those "real" women while also struggling with the loss of their masculinity
[12:48 PM] Ryuko: I also fear that some of the older generation, remembering natural-born women, may look down on the newly-minted ones as somehow inferior
[12:49 PM] RoseBunny: true, although the sticky wicket there is that Natural-born women were all rendered sterile by the whatever.
[12:49 PM] Ryuko: The first generation of "converts" would likely have been regarded with hostility
[12:49 PM] Ryuko: thinks about hostility among some schools of feminism towards trans people
[12:51 PM] RoseBunny: and given that teens that had gone through the rut were preferring rut-girls, the sterile girls would likely have ended up on the periphery of society.
[12:51 PM] Ryuko: Yes the converts could actually produce offspring, so the "real" women argument becomes very messy and probably less than friendly
[12:51 PM] Ryuko: So we have the first generations of new girls desperately seeking role models and being scorned by natural-born women who themselves are scorned by society
[12:52 PM] Ryuko: I mean damnnn what a mess that would have been
[12:52 PM] RoseBunny: Kinda almost, if not for all the spoilers, wish you could post this on the site, like a blog or such.
[12:52 PM] RoseBunny: hee hee
[12:52 PM] Ryuko: You can totally quote me anywhere if you like, I'd be honored ^^
[12:52 PM] RoseBunny: " a sociologist's point of view"
[12:53 PM] Ryuko: Just edit it accordingly by removing anything not really suitable/spoilerish
[12:53 PM] RoseBunny: I might.
[12:53 PM] Ryuko: fangirls
[12:53 PM] Ryuko: I'm literally giggling right now, I love being cited xD
[12:53 PM] RoseBunny: excited to be cited
[12:53 PM] Ryuko: YESSSSS