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How come whenever a guy magically or through science is transformed to a girl in the stories (all the ones I've read on BCTS) do they automatically have long hair. Surely at least sometimes there should be a natural progression of the growing of hair.
Comments
Any sufficiently advanced technology...
Well, the easy answer is, 'it's magic.' Since it is an unexplained phenomenon, why wouldn't it be that way? If the means are scientific, then it's not explained, usually.
Actually, both hair and breast growth are phenomena that usually develop over time. So your question really applies to both. The DeCorvin Process illustrates the reality of hair and breast development quite well. ("Guardians at the Gates of Madness" by EE Nalley)
Another reason, and maybe the best, is that's how the author wants it. It is fiction, after all.
My guess is that it's all covered by Clarke's third law.
Janet
Mistress of the Guild of Evil [Strawberry] Blonde Proofreaders
To be or not to be... ask Schrodinger's cat.
Janet
Mistress of the Guild of Evil [Strawberry] Blonde Proofreaders
To be or not to be... ask Schrodinger's cat.
I think it has to do with the way we want to see ourselves.
It's kind of stereotypical (kind of like the getting shorter bit-why? My best friend is the same 6'3" as I am-okay, she has a hard time finding heels, but she is awesome!), but as many of us would really LOVE to be that beautiful Barbie doll type of girl (and yeah, I know, Barbie really isn't perfect-but you know what I mean!) we put that into our characters. I just accept it as magic/super science/whatever and go with it!
Wren
It's because it's magic darling!
And it just won't work any, other way!
I retired in June 2010 from a job that required me to be 'sober' professional and tidy' (LOL) I was also required to wear a naval type uniform with four rings etc, etc.
Even before I left, my hair was deemed - 'somewhat unprofessional and long' - by my associates but being as I was retiring nothing was said.
It grows at the typical rate of about 1 cm per month and it's taking seemingly forever to get it long enough to have an effeminate long haired style.
Stopped cutting it feb 2010.
Retired with hair 'past tops of ears' June 2010.
Hair all straggly and requiring hair clips when en-femme constantly over my eyes Dec 2010.
First light trim and tidying up followed by first application of Alice band Jan 2011.
Alice band now a more or less permanant head dress when en-homme. Hair slides and 'fascinets' when en-femme jan 2011.
Below is the male mode when out en-homme going about the houses doing repairs. It's not a pretty sight especially as in this picture I haven't shaved.
All I can say is that transformations have to be magic or some as yet undiscovered science. I couldn't stand to read a chapter of a BC story then have to wait 3 years for the following chapter.
Long live magical transformations is what I say.
So I say to my hair ... hurry up and GROW!
(Well at least I've got a full head of it! Even if it is a bit scruffy when en homme! (Well; very scruffy!))
Long live magic I say.
Hugs.
Beverly.
Growing old disgracefully.
Speaking of long hair
How often do you see hair that is long enough to reach the top of a lady's derrière?
:)
{{Hugs}}
*raises hand* ^_^
Twice if you count that mine would be, if I stopped cutting it every few months to keep it from getting that long and unwieldy (I keep it below my shoulders though), but I dated someone with ridiculously long hair once. I even helped her with the nightly hour or so brush regimen it required to keep it from becoming a massive, tangled mess too. :-D
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Hawaii Five-0
The original not the pretender show that's on tv now. I have lost count on how many times there was a Hawaiian girl with really long hair.
During my brief visit to Hawaii in 1987, I saw some very long haired young ladies.
Daniel, author of maid, whore, bimbo, and sissy free TG fiction since 2000
What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.- Oscar Levant
Yes, but that was the
Yes, but that was the 80's... flooding in from the 60's and 70's, it was still somewhat fashionable. These days, it is NOT fashionable to have hair down to your rear end. Though, there are the rare minorities that have hair that long. Still, it's rare enough NOT to have it in every other story.
I'd like to note that none of the characters in my stories have hair that long. I keep it within the 2 - 6 inch margin from the shoulders. My own is right at my shoulders, but that's just me. *shrug*
Hair
Mine is (barely), but that's 14 years without being cut and truth be told a little scragly. My youngest daughters does too (She's nearly 5)
Long hair?
Actually, there are some women who look pretty with short hair. Dorothy Hamill is well known for her short hair and did a SHORT AND SASSY commercial
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
Thanks for your comment
Thanks for your comment everyone. As I said to someone earlier, I feel that we don't need to ffocus on hair length but more on the beauty and softness of a woman's hair.
Woman are so lucky that they don't have to deal with male pattern baldness!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes, we do have lovely hair.
Yes, we do have lovely hair. :)
Though, you can blame your hormones on the baldness. Leading cause: dihydrotestosterone.
Thank You
I have to thank you for posting this blog today. While going over a scene in Chapter 16 of ‘Caitlin’ it reminded me that I needed to once more touch on the fact my latest red headed protagonist still has ‘shockingly short hair,’ making her stand out in an era when a proper lady strove to have locks that dipped all the way down to her bum. Since hair grows at a rate of approximately one half inch a month, it’ll be 1922 before poor Caitlin will be able to achieve that goal and by then, fashions will have changed. Oh well, as they say, ‘War is hell, life is a bitch, then you die.’
Nancy Cole
www.nancycole.org
"You may be what you resolve to be."
T.J. Jackson
As a quickie If you accept
As a quickie
If you accept that many transformations involve an acceleration of the body's metabolism, then hair growth would be in sync. As it would take upwards of three years to do cellular replacement enough to change someone's form, there's at least three years of hair growth.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
I've Noticed...
and Wren also mentioned it, > whenever a guy magically or through science is transformed to a girl in the stories <, almost always they end up shorter than an average womyn of their age.
I was mostly about average (boy) height growing up, then had a approx 6" growth spurt and ended up 6' tall at 17 1/2. That is a little over the average male height. So, I've never experienced being short. However, during the 4 months that I was acting het and looking for guy partners, I always wanted, and got guys taller than me. I guess I wanted to be relatively short, but I felt uncomfortable with guys more than 4" taller than me.
I'm also a feminist and believe wymin should be equal in all ways possible. It just seems that being quite small would be more risky; one would be relatively more vulnerable. Just guessing, but I think the shorter one is, the more difficult it is to be taken seriously, manage effectively, get promotions, etc.
Hugs and Bright Blessings,
Renee
Ready for work, 1992.
Hugs and Bright Blessings,
Renee
Inquiring Minds Want To KNow
Renee brings up a great point. Whenever I have read a story where the protagonist suddenly drops X number of pounds/kilos/stones and shrinks half a foot, (15.24cm), I always wonder where all of the body mass goes to. I mean, does it simply drift away like the morning mist, or is there a big yuckie puddle left on the floor. (Eeew!)
Perhaps I am being a wee bit too practical, but inquiring minds want to know.
Nancy Cole
"You may be what you resolve to be."
T.J. Jackson
Well, considering that most
Well, considering that most of the body _weight_ is made up of water, the person would simply have to pee a lot, or sweat like crazy.
What little _isn't_ explainable like that is easily absorbed into other structures - increased bone density, for example.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Sweat!
Ladies do not sweat, I'll have you know!
I think you are right the body is about 90% water, and the rest different minerals.
So the girl you are or the one you love is reallly only a handful of minerals.
Now I'm wondering how that handfull is made into something that can be beautiful, brilliant, ugly, dumb,or any combination of the lot.
Maybe the soul makes it what it is, now tell me where did that soul come from?
I don't know?
LoL
Rita
Age is an issue of mind over matter.
If you don't mind, it doesn't matter!
(Mark Twain)
LoL
Rita
Define a soul,
and I'll give you an explanation of where it came from. As, almost by definition, it can't be defined, it probably won't be explained.
(Unless you REALLY like River World)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Right on!
Maybe we should set up a secret lab to study the minds of the authors on BCTS! >snigger<
No one!
Not flippin' likely.
I said, NO ONE! Absolutely no one gets inside my mind so you can scotch that reasearch for a start!
Anyway. I'd send a trick cyclist loopy with what goes on inside my head!
First he/she'd have a field day then she/he'd have a really bad hair day
Bev
Growing old disgracefully.
As People Explained...
Magic's no problem -- suspension of disbelief and all that.
With technology, it's helpful to have something, since long hair on women seems to be a cultural thing, not a property of the human species or anything. As people here noted, the mechanism isn't necessarily a problem: Clarke's Law and all that, and if the sex changes are accelerated (as they nearly always are), I don't think fast hair growth would strain credulity any further.
It's the "why" that's always struck me as the problem. Sure, it's so that the new woman will fit in better afterward. But if the change is coming from outside -- alien intervention, or experimental testing, or weird radiation, or whatever -- there's often no inherent reason why that would happen. FWIW, since my tastes run toward relatively "hard" science fiction and rational fantasy (yes, that's a real category), I tend to prefer stories that can explain it.
Explanations will vary. I don't believe there's really a set of "automatic" assumptions here, the way there are in stories about, say, ghosts, zombies and galactic empires. In those genres, certain things are taken for granted (e.g., walking though walls, imperfectly functioning brains, and FTL travel, respectively) unless the author tells us differently.
There have, of course, been plenty of answers over the years. Taking some more or less at random, there's the rogue scientist who's trying to duplicate his ideal of feminine beauty, the alien who really does expect his subject to infiltrate something, the ET whose only knowledge of what women look like comes from films and television, the politician who's trying to confuse international/interplanetary politics by duplicating a particular person, the device that feeds off the subject's image of an attractive woman.
What those all (I think) have in common is some idea what the instigator (or willing experimental subject) wants to do with (or as) the "new woman" after the change. It's the ones that happen unintentionally, by beings or devices that have no objective in mind, where IMO the long-hair convention really shouldn't be taken for granted. (There are wigs, after all, that can be worn until their hair grows out.)
Eric
Most of my characters
appear to have spent some time growing their hair, but then most of my stories have a realistic time frame.
Angharad
Angharad
Hair
Three or more of mine have always had long hair. One had a wig. Two grew or are growing it in the story, one was shaggy enough simply to need a bit of styling. The wig came about because I finally allowed one of mine to have male pattern baldness. That was a large part of her angst. As Angharad says, I try myself to stick to a realistic time frame, and the frustration at the rate of change of appearance is part of the story.