# Gender differences in pokémon.



## OliverOtterOil (Jun 15, 2022)

So, I've recently been doing my own personal smash or pass for pokemon, and it consistently had me thinking, what would a more feminine/masculine version of _____ be? Versions like: a female version of machamp, a male version of primarina, a female version of incineroar, a male version of hatterene, etc. Like, I'm not the only one who thinks these were missed opportunities, right? (And before you say it, yes, I know machamp was in gen 1, which didn't have gender differences, however, gardevoir didn't originally have a male counterpart when it was introduced in gen 3, but got it, gallade, in gen 4, so it wasn't and isn't impossible for Game Freak to make a feminine version of machamp)


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## ben909 (Jun 16, 2022)

"the hidden parts are different, nothing else"

hard to say, possibly use the animals they made off of , or just leave them very alike


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## Faustus (Jun 22, 2022)

Yeah, loads of people 'Rule #63' Pokemon.








						Rule 63 - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				




One thing to remember is that Pokemon are basically animals - I mean, how would you feel about keeping sentient beings in tiny little balls for extended periods of time, only letting them out to force them to fight each other? There was a tabletop RPG once that drew attention to this with the rather bizarre title 'Cute and Fuzzy Cockfighting Seizure Monsters'.

Laying the moral implications to one side, there's this thing called 'Sexual Dimorphism'. That basically means when the male and female of a species are obviously and dramatically different, aside from their reproductive equipment. For a surprising number of creatures it can be very difficult to tell the gender without a close examination of their private parts. Like spiders, for example. The female is usually larger than the male - significantly so - but if you don't know what to look for and don't have a matched pair of similar ages to compare, how do you tell for sure? Contrast this with peacocks, for example, where the male is obvious by his bright colours and MA-HOO-SIVE tail, whereas the female is quite dowdy-looking.

So really, it's not that weird that most Pokemon don't have obvious male / female differences. That's all just part of anthropomorphising something. We want the beast to have human-like characteristics so we can empathise with it, so we expect the females to have (for example) long eyelashes, pointed chins, slim waists and - in more adult applications - breasts. This also plays into humanity's unrealistic standards of beauty, but let's not go there.

The point is, most animal species don't have huge differences between the male and the female, so why should Pokemon?

Also... sticking to only one obvious gender means you don't have to draw two of everything with only minor variations, which could get pretty monotonous for the player and take up too much of the artist's time for no major benefit.


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## QueenSekhmet (Jun 22, 2022)

Faustus said:


> Yeah, loads of people 'Rule #63' Pokemon.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


pokemon have animal characteristics but they are not animals: they are monsters. it's also explained in legends: arceus that the pokeball doesn't actually DO anything but hold the pokemon since all pokemon can instinctively shrink to fit inside a ball (and it's shown MANY times in the anime that pokemon can bust out of their ball any time they want so they're not even trapped in there after being caught). granted,you have to kick a pokemon's ass to catch them most of the time and that's a little questionable BUT we also seen in legends: arceus that pokemon can be dangerous as hell and not hesitate to attack you on sight so battling almost became needed for survival. either way,point is that pokemon are not just innocent animals being abused: they are super powered monsters and some are WAY smarter than humans so if pokemon didn't WANT to be with humans,then they wouldn't be.


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## Faustus (Jun 22, 2022)

QueenSekhmet said:


> pokemon have animal characteristics but they are not animals: they are monsters. it's also explained in legends: arceus that the pokeball doesn't actually DO anything but hold the pokemon since all pokemon can instinctively shrink to fit inside a ball (and it's shown MANY times in the anime that pokemon can bust out of their ball any time they want so they're not even trapped in there after being caught). granted,you have to kick a pokemon's ass to catch them most of the time and that's a little questionable BUT we also seen in legends: arceus that pokemon can be dangerous as hell and not hesitate to attack you on sight so battling almost became needed for survival. either way,point is that pokemon are not just innocent animals being abused: they are super powered monsters and some are WAY smarter than humans so if pokemon didn't WANT to be with humans,then they wouldn't be.


Wandering a bit off topic here. I've not seen a lot of the anime, just played most of the games, so thanks for the detail. I guess they had to include that explanation as often as possible to avoid the predictable public backlash. But I still think the parody tabletop game is funny, in a dark kind of way 

I stand by the rest of the post though. No reason why 'monsters' shouldn't follow the same basic rules as 'normal' animals, unless there is some very, very specific definition of what 'monster' means.


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## QueenSekhmet (Jun 22, 2022)

Faustus said:


> Wandering a bit off topic here. I've not seen a lot of the anime, just played most of the games, so thanks for the detail. I guess they had to include that explanation as often as possible to avoid the predictable public backlash. But I still think the parody tabletop game is funny, in a dark kind of way
> 
> I stand by the rest of the post though. No reason why 'monsters' shouldn't follow the same basic rules as 'normal' animals, unless there is some very, very specific definition of what 'monster' means.


oh,the anime had WAY worse backlashes to worry about: like that one ep that gave a bunch a japanese kids seizures that never left japan or that one where jynx (when they still had the black faces) were servants to santa. the breaking out is more of a comedic thing (namely "i choose you,starm-PYSDUCK,I DIDN'T WANT YOU!"). but it still happened and it happened a lot so it still counts.


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## ben909 (Jun 22, 2022)

... i like the much more minor gender differences in most pokemon though


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