On Mon, 28 Oct 1996, Richard Lawson wrote:

WARNING!  Spoiler about my recent story, "Thy Outward Part".  If you
haven't read it, you may want to before responding to this survery.

Caroline Ann Seawright wrote:

Well... hrm ... that's very shoujo to say the least.

What's "shoujo"?

Girl's Manga.  More relationship/romance oriented, though it is noted 
that they havve their fair share of magic/boots to the head, etc.

Some Shoujo stuff:
Sailor Moon
X
Magical Knights Rayearth
Hime-chan no Ribbon
They Were Eleven
Please Save My Earth
Koko Wa Greenwood

I can't name any 'normal' shoujo titles, but most of them are fairly 
'realistic'.  (Well, Koko Wa Greenwood is CLOSE to normal)

One subgrouping often deals with genderbending, love between men, etc.

ATTENTION FFML'ers:  If you suddenly found yourself turned into the
opposite sex, down to the level of your chromosones, and such a change
was IRREVERSIBLE, would you:

A)  Keep your body AND your sexual preference;

B)  Keep your body and CHANGE your sexual preference;

C)  Have surgery to return your body to its former gender;

D)  Other (please state);

Refuse to believe it was irreversible.  If something like that can happen 
once, it can happen again:)

To quote something I can't remember, 'The arrow of time points both 
ways'.  Anything is theoretically reversible, though some changes are a 
LOT harder to reverse (Like causing an exploded bomb to reassemble :))

A lot would depend on whether or not sexual preference is hormonally 
determined, socially determined (taught), or chosen.  My own tendency is 
to think that it is mostly physically determined, with some mental 
component, and thus, I wouldn't have a choice...I certainly don't 
remember deciding to be straight.  

In conclusion...who knows.  I've played it both ways in my own writing 
just to explore the potentialites...(See chapter 10 of Lemon Sherbet when 
I release it :))





John Walter Biles :  MA-History, Ph.D Wannabe at U. Kansas         
ranma@falcon.cc.ukans.edu      bailesu@komodo.hacks.arizona.edu  
http://www.hacks.arizona.edu/~bailesu/falcon.html 
"The Fortunate Isles, or the  Isles of the Blessed abound in fruit and 
birds of every kind...These islands, however, are greatly annoyed by the 
putrefying bodies of monsters, which are constantly thrown up by the sea."
--The Natural History of Pliny, first century AD.