Discuss: Traps rarely actually look like the opposite sex — rather they are basically taller lolis.

Sphinxter said:
Traps in general are valued for their cute neotenous androgyny, not their "femininity" or "masculinity" which they generally lack both of, discuss.

Aidoru-Ojisan said:
Well yeah majority of trap characters only have their androgyny and the fact they crossdress be the reason why some people will view them as cute but when it comes down to personality and beyond that a majority of them are just in the middle. Not too feminine or manly (unless we're talking about Mariya due to plot reasons or my fave trap Saki who is surprisingly one of the non-h trap I have seen wearing a padded bra and he acts really feminine that usually makes some of his fellow male idols conflicted) but as for the other traps only their appearance and voice is the thing that contrasts heavily from the fact that they are male. Interesting thread post OP I never really thought about how most traps in Anime don't really act feminine (or reverse traps acting manly)

AshitaNoJonas said:
Can people please stop saying "trap"? that's an offensive slur after all.

Sphinxter said:
And do you have a better term for it?

This absurd crusade that some come up with to claim the word "trap" is "offensive" might actually succeed if they come with the suggestion of a term to replace it.

Sphinxter said:
And do you have a better term for it?

This absurd crusade that some come up with to claim the word "trap" is "offensive" might actually succeed if they come with the suggestion of a term to replace it.

AshitaNoJonas said:

Crossdresser or trans people, I guess

Lunilah said:
I disagree that they lack femininity, the disconnect from the fictional trap to the real life trap nearly every time is that the fictional one, in anime, is layered to specifically tailor towards desirable feminine characteristics as opposed to human neoteny.

The only way i can see it being human neoteny is if you already have the preference for a loli/shota and interpret traps that way. Now we both could be right because these are personalities and looks that have been designed with a specific intent and purpose, it could just be all encompassing for mass appeal, which now that i think about it is great marketing for characters.

As for MTF trans, self identifying as female characters, simply cross-dressing etc. etc. they are uniquely distinct from androgynous males most of the time, despite also sharing female voice actors, as they're completely interchangeable and indistinguishable from female characters especially in this medium from their design, voice acting, and personality, the only thing you have to forego is knowing they have a penis. I think Felix (Re:Zero) and Astolfo (Fate/Apoc) are perfect examples of this.

As far as what's perceived as cute, i think it's pretty easy for the anime industry to sell nearly anything effectively as cute to general audiences. Like i mentioned earlier, just because they have flat chests doesn't mean it's indicative of only one thing, they are male after all and are still indistinguishable from female characters who have flat chests, which i personally prefer. I think logically your argument follows that even flat chested females across the board are basically taller lolis as well, which can be interpreted that way but certainly not the only option or is based in reality.

AshitaNoJonas said:
Can people please stop saying "trap"? that's an offensive slur after all.

backdoornight said:
Neoteny is a characteristic predominantly associated with and most valued in females. Therefore, traps are feminine. Post #1 = 13 full lines of bullshit, as usual.

(also: "male traps are rarely feminine ... they're basically taller lolis" - UHHHH AREN'T LOLIS SUPPOSED TO BE FEMALE CHARACTERS?)

AshitaNoJonas said:

Crossdresser or trans people, I guess

Sphinxter said:
Well there are probably some that are legitimately masculine or feminine but I don't feel these appeal to the same audience nor are these the most popular ones that immediately come to mind.

Sphinxter said:
Well that is just what I disagree with. All the popular iconic traps distinctly lack secondary sex charactaristics or at least have them highly reduced.

Where are you seeing the broad shoulders, large breasts, wide hips, square jawlines and all those things on them? They almost always lack them and that is there appeal.

Well how many popular well known traps can you list that have prominent secondary characteristics:

Google one a random listing like say this one then only the aforementioned Mariya Sidou uses padding but with most of them from the picture of their face alone it's not even visible whether they are meant to be male-to-female or female-to-male traps. Most of them simply look very androgynous and youthful.

Well most "female-presenting traps" are not indistinguisahble from the average female character; they all almost all share the lack of sex characteristics they speak of: their appeal is their lack of feminine curves — as in they're basically taller lolis.

Well my point is that take one one of those flat-chested female characters it might as well be a female-to-male trap; all one need to to make it a female-to-male trap is putting on male clothing.

My point is that outside of the hypothetical genitals you never get to see but know by inference exist male-to-female and female-to-male traps essentially tend to look identical as far as the actual build of their body and face goes.

male-to-female trap:



female-to-male trap:



Both have similar faces and body types and both could just have easily been the reverse case.

Lunilah said:
Just to note, Nagisa isn't a trap, that picture is just from him being undercover. I get your point though and i think it adds to mine.

But like i already said for their appeal, you don't have to tunnel vision on it only being perceived as being a taller loli, that's just silly, and i'm acknowledging that point to be clear, just that it's not even close to the only one.

Androgyny and youthfulness is something that is across the board for anime, especially if they're implied that they maintain their own beauty standards with self-care and grooming that women generally do, we're not dealing with hyper-realism here this is anime.

They are indistinguishable from the average female character with a flat chest, when Felix or Astolfo come into the scene you have absolutely no idea whether it's a flat chested woman or a crossdressing man until it's explicitly stated as their behavior, desires, personality, and design make them completely indistinguishable. The idea that because they lack feminine curves, despite being male, is ONLY indicative of them being designed for the purpose of being a taller loli is ridiculous and small minded.

Sphinxter said:
True, Nagisa was never meant to trick the viewer but definitely appeals to the same audience and the character's androgynous design from the start was clearly made to allow the character to do that.

I guess my point is more that the "Liking Nagisa is not gay because attracted to his femininity" doesn't hold because there is no femininity; if one like Nagisa one's attracted to his androgynity and neoteny.

Well I'm not saying "perceived" but that that is the body plan of a almost all traps. Like lolis they have nonexistent secondary sex charactaritics and youthful, cute faces; they're just slightly taller.

I disagree; most characters definitely have secondary development and clearly have things like jawlines and breasts which are absent from traps and lolis.

I never said it was the purpose; I said that's just how the design ended up. The prototypical "trap" be he male or female has the same body plan as the loli except taller and sometimes eyes that are a bit smaller and cheeks that aren't as round perhaps.

Daemon said:
Almost every single trap I've seen looks like he could be a girl and I would not have known that he was a boy if the anime had not told me, so I'm not sure what you're talking about. Maybe we just watch different anime.

GlennMagusHarvey said:
Sexual dimorphism in anime is already extremely weird even before you consider these sorts of characters. For example you get guys drawn with weirdly sharp eyes, while girls are drawn with big eyes.

Daemon said:


I mean, take Astolfo, one of the most famous traps. He looks exactly like a girl and MANY people assume he's a girl until other people tell them he isn't. I thought he was a girl at first too.

Daemon said:
@Sphinxter so no breasts makes you androgynous now? Lmao.

Also his hips and thighs seem very comparable with art of other female anime characters. No idea what you're talking about.

The very fact that countless people confuse him for a girl when they first seem him proves my point. Your opinion that he looks "androgynous" is an extremely unpopular and rare one and I don't know why you're using it as fact...

YossaRedMage said:
I think you're correct in the anlysis but I strongly disagree with your use of 'feminine'. It sounds like you're just saying that flat chest = not feminine, unless I'm mistaken?

Personally, I find big breasts to be kind of masculine. I know that sounds backwards, but hear me out. 'Feminine', to me, means petite, cute, bashful, girly, shy, and - this is the big one - modest. Massive tits are kind of obnoxious. They scream "look at me grrr tits!". There's nothing delicate, modest or gentle about massive tits. They're loud and in your face.

holysauron said:
What I don't agree with is that in anime they lack secondary characteristics. To me someone like Astolpho is clearly designed with a feminine body. It's not that because he doesn't have any breasts that he looks androgynous.

Also keep in mind that lolis and shotas do have slightly different facial features, although I admit that one artists loli is another one's shota.

Besides even if they look neotenous I can still see clear differences between a loli and a "trap" in the same way I can see the difference between a loli and an older female character.

Sphinxter said:
Then you point out what exactly about the character's body shows female sex charactaristics.

So it is with those of many males.

They're going by clothing; if the exact same character face and body wise were put into masculine-looking clothing they would've assumed him to be a male. They're not going by how the actual body of the character looks but the clothing.

Daemon said:


Long hair, long eyelashes

slim frame

etc. Some male characters have those too, but they are not as pronounced. Doesn't mean those qualities are "androgynous."

The fuck are you on about? No, it's not the "clothing." If I put Jotaro Kujo in a girl's clothes, nobody would mistake him for a girl. It's because Astolfo looks like a girl regardless. If he was in male clothes then maybe some people would assume he is a very feminine male, but then you could say that about most anime characters, and they would still consider him more feminine than masculine.

Rinshan-san said:
I'm not gonna read the whole thing, but Discord trannies need to stop appropriating anime like its a trend.

Sphinxter said:
It's indeed not a masculine body but this is also the body they give female-to-male traps. The standard of "feminine" and "masculine" is often relative to gender. Astolfo's body is called "feminine" now with the knowledge that he is male. But the exact same body and face design could just as well be used for a female-to-male trap dressed up in masculine clothing and hairstyles and then they'd say that this exact same body is not very feminine which would allow the character to convincingly pass as male. These are two characters that actually have convincing deliberate masculine and feminine proportions:



It's going to be hard to sell either of these characters as the other sex no matter what clothing they are put into.

Do they though? Because people more often than not seem to think that præpubescent males and females have different facial features as well simply due to hairstyles providing that effect when they really don't.

I don't disagree there; lolis take the neoteny to a further extreme; they're shorter; their heads are larger in proportion to their body; their eyes are larger; their cheeks are rounder.

But I'd still say that the big overlap in the fanbase between those that like lolis and those that like traps is due to in principle both designs sharing a lot of charactaristics even if lolis tend to take it to a further extreme.

holysauron said:

I don't think I agree with your first point. To me when an anime girl is trying to look like a guy I can still tell she's in fact a girl before her gender is revealed. Case in point: Seishirou Tsugumi. I even don't get how people could call her androgynous or neotenous because she clearly looks like

Sphinxter said:
Feminist nonsense completely ignorant of basic biology.

YossaRedMage said:


Because of course testerone doesn't have a direct impact on aggressiveness and shapes typical personality traits of men and women. People can vary massively but to ignore the obivous trend based on factual science is next level ignorant.

I would suggest you are the one that is trying to redefine feminine for your purposes. It's ok if you like aggressive, tall, wide-shouldered aged women but don't pretend it's normal.

Miss me with that neotony nonsense. Throughout history men have preferred young, pure, fertile girls. It's the default state for men. Society has demonized the male sex drive so much nowadays that men grow up brainwashed to think they have to like older, uglier, more masculine women. Typical modern progressive bullshit trying to redefine and reframe obvious things.

Massive tits are obnoxious and unladylike.

... "shy" and "girly" are purely temporary social things that differ from culture to culture and have no basis in biology of course.

YossaRedMage said:
@Sphinxter

You said:



Maybe you have a different idea of the word 'girly' and how it's being used here but using it next to the word shy in this context is clearly referring to the set of typically feminine traits. Low aggression, modesty, a certain softness of character. Very much based in biology.

Also it's kind of funny arguing about femininity with someone who has such a homo-erotic signature.

Sphinxter said:
Ehhh... first off both of these things are — by whatever small margin — masculine charactaristics which goes to show how much you base this on cultural inventions rather than actual biological developments.
Males grow their hair slightly longer and at a slightly faster pace than females across the board; this includes scalp hair, eyelashes, body hair, and nails. Females having "long, thick eyelashes" is purely the product of makeup and has no biological basis; males on average have the longer and thicker eyelashes.

That would be a neotenous trait.

What you listed was half masculine and half neotenous; I'm not sure how these would ever qualify as "feminine". Are you sure you know what the effects of female puberty on the human body are because getting a slimmer frame and longer eyelashes are certainly not amongst them.

Dude, you just called long eyelashes and long hair "feminine traits" which surely establishes that you're not talking about biology but makeup, hairstyles and dressing.

I'm talking about actual biological developments due to sex hormones, not things achieved by makeup clothes, and scissors.

Daemon said:


This is about people's perception of characteristics, because we are talking about whether people see a character as a girl or a boy. It doesn't matter if it's "cultural" or "biological" because long hair and long eyelashes are seen as feminine traits by society and are more closely associated with girls.

No it isn't. Since you're so obsessed with biology for some reason, you should know that men generally are more muscular and have broader frames than females.

Never seen someone be so ignorant of obvious female characteristics. Ask anybody on the street if long hair and long eyelashes apply more to males or females, lmao.

Your problem is that you have strange, unpopular views on what are male and female characteristics, and you're applying them to everyone as if it's some sort of fact.

Your argument is that people who like traps are attracted to androgynous characteristics. I proved you wrong by showing that traps have more feminine characteristics (ex. long hair, eyelashes) and that is why people think they are girls at first. It doesn't matter one bit whether they are biological or cultural, because the overall perception is that the trap is a girl or at least more girly than masculine.

Nevertheless he could be a "trap" in either direction and it mostly just depends on the clothing he wears and that's a common thing for most traps.

Lunilah said:
Femininity is strictly only talked about in a physically observable biological sense ignoring all societal, cultural, and behavioral norms associated with the female sex like they aren't relevant or don't exist (like cosmetology, fashion, voice, personality traits), which when referenced to prove femininity in traps, is promptly dismissed. Why? Because it suits OPs argument.

If women, especially asian, physically represent in real life or in anime any similarities of that which traps take from (flat chest, no hips, no ass), is also promptly dismissed as if it's not something familiar and common at all in women.

Somehow design choices that are 99% female only that are given to traps is also dismissed like hair style, clothing, eye design, slender figure, hairless, as the self-admitted fluidity of male traps being so indistinguishable somehow doesn't defeat his own argument as they are both feminine.

When you assert that traps aren't feminine and what people really are attracted to are taller lolis ignoring every societal, cultural, and behavioral norms of both women and anime design that people are actually attracted to and point out, you're arguing a point nobody is making, a strawman. It's a discussion with a wall, it will go nowhere.

If you take time to read all his posts, you'll notice that broad shoulders being a masculine trait somehow doesn't mean the absence of broad shoulders is feminine

or infer that a flat chest is only attractive to people because it's like a child's chest, and that traps must have tits or big hips to be considered feminine in complete disregard of them being an attractive MTF.

Sphinxter said:
As I said my post has been clear from the start that I was talking about biological traits only; if you feel that is wrong you should just say so rather than start talking about social things without being clear that you're shifting the frame of reference because it's irrelevant to my original post of traps almost always being neotenous.

Sphinxter said:
It is dismissed because it has nothing to do with my point.

Sphinxter said:
I beg to differ; the entire debate of "sexual orientations" is that it's supposedly biological and not a learned cultural thing which I have also frequently argued again. If you're saying it's "not gay" because the trap features a dress and not because he actually has biological feminine characteristics you just proved my point that sexual orientations are nothing more than a temporary cultural fad with no basis in biology.

Lunilah said:
Your OP is specifically talking about the meme argument of if traps are gay or not, and their point of what they're attracted to.

Which is it, your argument, or theirs?

Sphinxter said:
You're just moving the goal posts here in talking about whether or not sexual orientation is biological or cultural when i never even brought that up and is irrelevant to the point.

Sphinxter said:
My post references that but the title of my post does not mention it nor does the rest; it mostly talks about that traps are in general neither masculine nor feminine but actually neotenous.


Like I said with my point. If their argument is that it's "not gay" because it "wears skirts" then as I said you should stop defining sexual orientation as attraction to genders; at that point you might as well admit it's not females nor feminine characteristics you're attracted to but just dresses.

That is inhærent to the common definition of "sexual orientation"; it's cultural then it doesn't exist. "sexual orientations" are supposedly biological and fixed at birth rather than merely culturally trained things.

Lunilah said:
Am i supposed to ignore the content of the post and only read the headline?

You've made up your own version of their argument and stick to that. "It's not gay because it wears skirts", you really don't understand how much of a joke point that is, it's not serious, that's why it's a meme argument. You're also putting words in my and their mouth with that statement about how I should stop defining sexual orientation when you're the only person to have done so or even brought it up. The basis of sexual orientation is completely irrelevant to femininity.

You argue strawmen and move goal posts to suit your argument, that's my deduction of your thread and arguments.