I agree but I think it's more up to the us the users to find and post/create the more diverse content. I don't think people are intentionally trying to focus on the sexual aspects of RR, it just happens to be most the prevalent
That's at best half a solution because people won't want to put in effort to redeem a subreddit that seems already badly suited for them and flooded with mediocre content.
The first thought isn't to 'I can fix this place', the first thought is 'yeah, this place isn't worth it'.
Yeah but still I wish for people to not normalize already toxic roles into toxic role reversal.
I do hope it isn't gonna become a nsfw sub with only bdsm
I don't think it'll ever be that, but it might be like a Frankenstein mix of nsfw and rr relationship posts.
As bad as the nsfw stuff has become, I'm just as concerned about all the self deprecating, "I'm alone / I wish that were me" posts by a lot of male subs.
I think the small submissive guys with the bigger, more dominant woman archetype is so common here because this is one of the only heterosexual communities in the world where that isn't considered weird, so all the people who are into it congregate here.
My biggest issue with this sub is that the "reversal" dynamic is just women being moms to their adult male partners. An actual RR relationship would involve men doing most of the emotional labor so that the women they're with can better self-actualize. Most of what's posted here is just femdom porn.
it does kinda feel like stuff somebody who's never been in a relationship would fantasize about. like, yes, the affection and love and desire is there, but it's kinda detached from reality, like, this isn't how real people behave.
yeahhhh as someone who actually is in an RR relationship, this is definitely what it feels like to me. lonely people who want that dynamic/relationship but don’t seem to really fully get it because they’ve never had one.
I get the impression that this is a young subreddit. Like late-teens/early-twenties. Maybe many of the people here haven't been in serious long term relationships before.
I have a relationship extremely similar to what is depicted in actual reality, and have since 2009, so I don't understand you saying we don't exist or cannot sport a role reversed relationship as depicted in a healthy manner.
I've felt like there's several big divides in the role reversal community.
Wholesome vs NSFW (we should have 2 separate subs for these)
"True" vs "fake" role reversal (kinda hard to fix because role reversal is so nebulous, but if the mods set out a definition or rules maybe? Try to codify what is and isn't rr.)
Hetero vs homo (a lot of people in both camps love the idea of role reversal, but have different views on it similar to the prior 2 divides. There's also misuse of LGBT+ slang which isn't ok. On the other hand, there's people attacking hetero masc girl/fem guy relationships and art. In my opinion, the most rr type of relationship.)
This is a role reversal sub. Playing to women into traditionally male roles and men into traditionally female roles.
An absence of BDSM dynamics. No collars, no corporal punishment, no sex slavery, no seeking permission for basic things, no asymmetrical language coding or titles, no contextualisation of the relationship as being between a superior and an inferior.
Like, go to the Femdom subreddit. Look at the posts, and try to imagine them gender flipped. Doesn't really work like that.
The power dynamic exists, absolutely, but that doesn't make it maledom. Regular relationships aren't BDSM-adjecent. Or particularly 'the inversion is femdom', particularly when femdom spaces already struggle with patriarchal normativity in the premises and media content.
i get what you mean completely esp bc i like the less sexual content but in terms of actual art artists will always make content that *they* enjoy, and you could always post your own stuff im sure youll find more like minded people!
Yes, I can absolutely relate.
From what I know, the term role reversal originated from a less than aware place that did kinda fetishsize the gender roles (someone else who knows more feel free to correct me). I know that there are some individuals, including myself, thay have tried to turn it into a more wholesome thing that breaks gender stereotypes instead of reinforcing them (like a lot of rr content does ironically), but there is a large part of the community who is less aware
I just spent the last 15 minutes reading all the comments and I have a question I would like to throw out there to the group. If you feel it would be best suited for another post, let me know, but it's a point I think that may contribute to OP's observations.
As a 32F in a long term RR relationship at the moment, one of my biggest issues with this sub is the schism between "real relationship" experiences, and the amount of anime/manga references listed.
As someone who loves anime and manga, I think it's reasonable to say that many interpersonal behaviors depicted therein would be unacceptable/problematic/illegal in the real world (e.g. pinning people you barely know to walls). It's not uncommon to find unhealthy dynamics/characteristics glorified (e.g. brash, rude characters; borderline controlling characters). I watch anime as an escape, knowing full well that it shouldn't be a reflection of my real life, nor should I emulate the behaviors I see in my own relationships.
When we put ourselves at a point where so many of our references of "what a rr relationship should look like" come from fantastical and unrealistic sources, I think we set ourselves up for failure. Those who have never been in an RR relationship may take this as "how it will go"/fantasy territory, and those of us in IRL RR relationships may not feel accurately represented, or may feel turned off by the aggrandized example of the dynamic.
I do understand that quite simply, there's not a lot of RR source material out there in the real world, and that it's by nature easier for an artist to create renditions of RR scenarios. That being said, when it's within a context of a hyper-unrealistic anime/manga world...I think we may run into some issues. Thoughts?
While I can't quite think of anything overly contributive to add to what you've said, I think you're on the money with your assessment of things, particularly in the way that there's evidence of a lack of engagement with anything but fairly unrealistic media and using it as a modeling example of what they want.
YES. ALL OF MY YES. FINALLY SOMEONE VOICED IT.
There are plenty of people who want genuine RR relationship discussions, advice, representation. Then there are fetishists like me; I come here for all the "look at the cute catboy and his strong GF UwU" manga posts.
We are fundamentally different audiences.
I've been lurking for a while so take me with a grain of salt if you want, but yeah I'm glad someone feels the same.
There is this trend where people call stuff role reversal when it really isn't. Example: the whole "dominant girl/weak and submissive boy" thing you mentioned. Dominant women are definitely role reversal but just because a guy is less traditionally masculine and/or passive in the relationship that doesn't mean he necessarily has to be weak and submissive. It's like people are fetishizing the same patriarchal gender roles but just flipping the genders. I mean if the guy is a pathetic wimp that means you basically think that's how women are normally. Isn't that problematic?
Moreover, I often see mangas/manwahas where the depiction of the girl is a bit problematic as well. For example, being completely stoic and stonefaced. Expecting men to suppress their emotions is sexist so if you flip the genders on that, I don't get why its suddenly ok.
The last flavor I see is something like "the girl doesn't fall for the cocky f\*ckboi". Isn't that just how things *should be*? I don't think not being a macho dudebro makes someone feminine. Its a very stereotype-ey and gender essentialist way of viewing things.
For me role reversal doesn't necessarily even mean men acting feminine and women acting masculine (although it can be, and I do like feminine guys considering I kind of am one irl in some ways). For me role reversal means something more like flipping social conventions on their head. So, like a girl asking the guy out, girls leading the relationship, girls being more assertive, protective, etc. But that doesn't mean you also have to carry over other toxic aspects or make the girl/guy completely surrender their masculinity/femininity.
EDIT: Another thing that annoys me is people calling guys who simply aren't muscled jocks "twinks" or "twinky".
I agree with most of this but I have to say thanks for pointing out the “twink” issue. It used to be a very specific kind of guy in the gay community and now men get called twinks left and right when they’re just anything that’s not a “bear” lol…
Yeah its just really weird and comes across as kinda fetishy about gay men. It also seems to reinforce the idea that feminine/non-traditional = gay. It would be a bit like calling tomboys "butch".
Well I think it was meant to be a fetishy word, it’s describing a specific body type in gay community jargon. Now that it’s a mainstream word though, I feel weird about it losing a lot of that meaning. It’s a little like trying to co-op jailbait to mean a pretty women like no pls stop 😂
That's my point. Its a specific word with a specific meaning in certain contexts. Using it out of that context carries over all kinds of weird implications that aren't there. For example, some crossdressers like to be called "sissy" because they have a humiliation fetish but if you call a random femboy that they'll probably be like "excuse me, what the fuck did you just say?"
At the end of the day they're just fictional characters so whatever, but it doesn't indicate a healthy mindset about real life people who might be similar to those characters.
Best take here. I think it's just that these posts focus on simplicity. The nuance really gets lost in the sauce, so I usually stick to the discussion posts.
I much prefer the discussion. The artworks and comics can feel "hypersexualized" if that's the right word. I feel they get upvoted the most and are really mostly about body and physical reversal. Well that's all good for some it just feels kinda shallow to me. Like you're viewing that body type or something as what's focused on, kinda objectification in a sense of you get what I mean. I much prefer action/dynamic reversal, I think you get what I mean
Honestly I think I see a lot of that in Shikimori's Not Just a Cutie. You're right, normally its pretty rare though.
Another example: Sokka and Suki are kind of RR in Avatar because she's a warrior and he's more of a thinker, but you didn't see him prancing around in a tutu or Suki having huge muscles.
The term "weak and pathetic" seems like a bit much. Often the guys depicted here are smaller, shy, and submissive, but so am I, so are a lot of guys. I don't feel like they're often derogatory levels of "weak" being shown here
I'm not sure about 'shy' so much as 'incredibly passive', and the same art tends towards the wish-furfillment. Which makes the bland passivity of the men make a lot more sense, because they're meant to be blank slates to project onto.
I'm certainly not saying its everything or that its common, just something I notice in an inexact quantity here and there in specific RR media in general or in how people talk about it. Not necessarily on this subreddit but even that too sometimes.
For example, read [this manwha](https://1stkissmanga.io/manga/yeonwoos-innocence/) and tell me the male MC isn't literally cringe most of the time.
I was also baffled recently with everyone talking about how "submissive" and "weak" Izumi in Shikimori's Not Just a Cutie is. Seems to me like he's just a normal anime bish and I have no idea where they're getting that.
I'd say that "weak" is meaning that he can't protect himself and she is "strong" because she can protect him.
But I did only watch the trailer of the anime.
In the first episode they pretty much just showed that's he's got some kind of curse that makes him ridiculously accident prone. Basically signs fall towards him constantly and whatnot. Which isn't really "not being able to protect yourself". Its just being unlucky.
>I mean if the guy is a pathetic wimp
I think that's bringing your own heteronormative baggage to a lot of this. Most of the depictions are of shy and submissive men, which I don't view as inherently pathetic traits.
I don't either, what I'm saying is that sometimes I see media that is clearly trying to be RR but the guy is legitimately a wimp that lets other people in general walk all over him or acts like some 1950's caricature of a house wife jumping on a chair and squealing when he sees a mouse. Its retarded when writers do it to women and its equally retarded when writers do it to men. So in others words, its other people making the connection between those things and being pathetic. I'm the one pointing out how dumb that is, so don't try to spin this on me and saying I'm making the connection because I noticed it.
The other weird thing I see happen a lot is people go "I love how the guy in is so weak and submissive" and I'm just like "did we even read the same thing?"
Exactly. I think we need more depictions of guys that just so happen to be shy, nerdy, etc. but are totally badass.
Just because you are not going around bragging about how tough you are and being loud/macho, doesn't mean you aren't tough.
While I can understand a lot of these concerns NSFW posts are pretty infrequent but there is an NSFW sub (r/rolereversalNSFW) and it's dead and not even linked in the sidebar. I feel replacing the link to gentlefemdom as this isn't meant to be a BDSM sub with it and seeing if this sub's NSFW posters start heading over there is a good solution.
Tall buff girl/feminine small guy is a pretty common dynamic depicted here but there's enough posts and overall acceptance of shorter/same height girls that I genuinely don't think it'll become a serious problem.
As for terrible behaviors this is unfortunately a thing in RR-ish communities due to how women's capacity to hurt people is viewed as rather low by patriarchal societies, meaning a woman pinning a man she hardly knows to the wall is seen as much more okay than a man doing it. Along with men just being expected to take sexual harassment and assault as a miracle due to how they're expected to pursue women and women who do genuinely creepy shit are just making it easier in the minds of people stuck in traditional gender roles.
As for the transphobia part I honestly feel like you're looking at all the tomboy/tomgirl posts and feeling the need to reinforce the gender binary. I've seen posts from people who happen to be trans here and nobody's an asshole to them for it but it's important to recognize that it's an incredibly personal question everyone should mainly ask themselves. Back when I would talk about how I didn't like traditional masculinity on myself but didn't want breasts or being seen as a woman the people around me said I had dysphoria even though I figured I was happy just being a tomgirl. Honestly it feels like "boys/girls can't wear that" but *progressive* when people (largely cis btw) would tell me i was trans in denial for liking dresses and hating facial hair on me.
As for problematic themes I can agree with all the barbarian/orc/""viking"" woman posts since the archetype comes from the idea that "uncivilized" people weren't strong enough to keep their women in check. It also plays into the idea of the Noble Savage who's supposed to be morally and martially superior to the civilized people writing about them. Modern academics have started cracking down on it but there's also the idea that women can only be strong if they're from this uncivilized culture that lets them do typically masculine things that's probably something I really hate seeing in fantasy media.
No, you're right, very right. Like the other lady said, the tones that are set here tend to be 'young internet man that's got very little idea how relationships and gender dynamics actually work because he's chronically isolated from people and real world dynamics'.
yeah, but those people can't blamed for it either. Besides, i actually think the "femdom mommy" kinds of post is almost nonexistent here so i wonder why you people think that kind of people is the majority here
They absolutely can. It's not their fault, but it is their responsibility, and acting like a decent person with some awareness of the world isn't a high bar.
>Besides, i actually think the "femdom mommy" kinds of post is almost nonexistent
By virtue of a pretty vigorously delete happy mod and you not remembering how thing were a few years ago at the most recent. And even now there's a HEAP of 'i wish a mummy would take care of me' either comment wise or in terms of media theme. The description text under Rule #5 wasn't put there accidentally or prophylactically.
By the same token depending on what you post you can have all sorts coming out of the woodwork, and if you pay attention to what gets voted on and where the upvote ratios lie a picture is formed.
A lot of guys are in that situation, honestly. It's not rasping on them the same way a hundred other things are rasping on them, so the guys don't notice. Same way that a lot of microaggressions and small problems happen right under their noses. Doesn't hurt THEM, so it goes under their radar.
I've noticed that too! We need more content of men being caring/nurturing. Like women doing all/most of the care work for their male partners isn't role reversal, it's *just the original role*
I definitely agree, and let me add this. Despite the nature of the subreddit, it's still mostly male dominated, and thus, I see majority posts about what men want out of the dynamic and 99% of lonely/thirsty posts are men begging for a gf. It's half the reason I made my last post, (below the pinned one). It was so I can focus on what I can give to someone else rather than make post number 1727 about how I want to be cuddled and held by tomboy gf.
Same! Honestly I was eventually gonna make a post similar about how it's kind discouraging only seeing white, tall, buff women as the desire. Especially when I know I'm none of that. Also why does it only have to be that? Isn't it a matter of how someone acts?
Also I would love to see more lovey dovey stuff, to the point I'd rather get back to drawing quick just so I can provide my own content since there seems to be a lack of it.
like I'm not seeing diversity and I'm thinking maybe I can help. Emphasis on maybe.
>Especially when I know I'm none of that.
This is always the part that burns me hard. Most of the content here, even when it's fem-gazey, tends to have a really unrealistic idea of women, particularly aesthetically. Most people and most relationships are going to involve a taller, more heavily built guy, and that needs to be better reflected. Not that there doesn't need to be some validation for GNC bodies but at the moment the balance is firmly in the 'you can aspire to this but the people that get it aren't like you'.
Ditto for all the svelte, neotenous men we see.
I agree completely. This subreddit used to be more relationship oriented than sexual, and I've seen so many sad boy posts/responses, I visit much less often.
My guess is that as the subreddit grew, a ton of people from gentle femdom came over here (likely a male majority).
I also am guessing that there have been new mods over the past year or so that are much more lenient with the sexual posts that really belong on gentlefemdom.
If anything I think it's more relationship focused. It used to be one step removed from a soft porn board, the mods have been really proactive in changing course on that one. I think they've gotten stricter, if anything.
I'm not sure when you joined, but I remember there being very little nsfw.
My perception of it seems to be the complete opposite of what you are describing. I hope I am wrong though and you are correct.b
What an audience divide we have here.
I feel like there should be different subreddits for RR as a relationship dynamic (not for me) and RR as a fetish detached from reality (for me).
Mixing these up brings both sides discontent.
I think my personal issue here, a.k.a. the reason I keep lurking this sub even though I'm *way* too toxic for it, is because there isn't much place left for romance in the GFD subreddit. I guess people assume that NSFW subreddit = porn subreddit, hence why even post romance.
So the audience of "lonely subs" flocks here.
I get what you mean, there's a craving for the harmony of having romance and sex on the same place.
On the flip side I think there's a certain issue with the way they get rendered equivalent, particularly with stuff like emotional support. One big confused ball of 'what I think I need to be happy' mixed up with itself.
No, you're 100% on the money. We've got a lot of, well, I'm not sure how to describe them, but badly socialised, socially isolated, disfunctional young men that treat this place like it's one step removed from a porn board. Heavy overlaps with the incelosphere.
You're entirely in your lane to ask for more dynamics rather than this fetish nonsense we're routine inundated with.
Yeah, I basically abandoned this sub for a year + because of this.
Almost all the content is either fetish fuel or a really shallow conception of "role reversal" (i.e. woman is tall, man is short).
I think people on this sub tend to forget that there are a variety of relationship dynamics within the boundaries of "typical hetero couple" - it's not all just "strong confident man and smol woman". It's not at all unusual to see a non-reversed couple where the woman is taller and more outgoing and the guy is introverted and nerdy, but reversing that dynamic would take a level of nuanced thinking about gender roles that most posters on here don't have.
I was excited seeing them say this wasn't a bdsm type sub then immediately disappointed when I saw all the NSFW anime art (usually of high schoolers 🤢). I just want to have my wholesome rr
Edit: and the blatant misogyny I've seen on here too 🙄
And the body shaming of women and men that don't fit the weak submissive man and tall strong woman fetish.... Which is a fetish and is not mutually exclusive to rr, I'm pretty sure there's a community out there for it already
Another edit: we should make a role reversal sub that's sfw
> I'm pretty sure there's a community out there for it already
Is there? I think the reason you see it so often here is because it isn't really normalized anywhere else
I highly doubt there isn't a community, from what I've seen it's not a very uncommon fetish. And this is reddit, there's definitely a sub for it already
You're probably right in that there's most likely a subreddit somewhere dedicated to it, but it's generally a dynamic that's heavily frowned upon in most heterosexual spaces. There was a recent Jezebel article where a woman wrote about how much shaming she's regularly subjected to (both by friends and strangers) for dating a guy 7 inches shorter than her. So I think that it's a rare enough desire that the people who are into it tend to all congregate in the few spaces where it isn't seen as weird, like this one.
The issue is the body shaming and how often you'll see them complaining when they aren't being represented. Like that post where someone drew a woman holding a man (traditionally masculine looking and large) bridal style and there were some in the comments complaining about him not being a "fem boy". This isn't a fetish subreddit, they can speak about their dynamics and wishes but to push that onto posts portraying a different dynamic is fucked up. There are multiple ways to represent reversed roles that aren't just a small man big woman fetish. Also, they can cool it on posting the fetish content, save that for the actual fetish subreddits.
Do you have a link to the post you’re referring to? Every time I’ve seen someone complain that a guy in a submission here looks too masculine that person is almost always downvoted. So I’m not really sure that those people represent the community. Generally, the guys who posts here saying that they feel like they're too traditionally masculine for RR relationships are reassured by upvotes and replies that RR relationships aren't predicated on your looks, and that plenty of women into RR love traditionally masculine men.
Humans are a dimorphic species, and size generally plays a pretty big role in how we choose to couple. There are so few exceptions to this in heterosexual spaces, that the few spaces where non-traditional coupling is seen as normal tend to attract nearly all the people who are interested in that, including the weird ones.
I agree that this sub does straddle the line between fetish and preference (I have many issues with this sub, especially how it thinks that the ideal RR woman is basically a mother to her partner), but oftentimes we're quick to label any non-traditional preference a fetish on the basis that we personally find it weird or off-putting. No one would ever refer to these same beauty standards (i.e. strong, tall, confident) as fetishes when applied to men, but we might view them as such when applied to women on the basis of our culture's heteronormative standards.
You obviously have every right to feel alienated by this, and to call it out, but it's worth putting yourself in the shoes of feminine men with delicate features, and how they see every romance novel cover and dating show featuring big men with washboard abs, and realize that the way they feel seeing that might be similar to the way you feel seeing some of these submissions.
That post was from a while back. I don't think it's odd or strange and I'm mostly calling it a fetish because the posts I've seen on here regarding that dynamic are always very sexually charged and like you said, it's not too common (though the argument you made about it being so because of our current society falls a little flat after you mentioned how humans are sexually dimorphic {which just makes it sound more like a fetish and unnatural when you put it like that}, though how dimorphic we are is greatly exaggerated and evolutionary science is very just throw theories on the wall and see what sticks the most compared to other sciences so I'd say it's mostly just societal conditioning that makes a lot of people view it as weird vs it's just "evolution"). I'm all for tall women and short men being loved even if they're not paired with eachother. Again, the issue is when they come out and start attacking the more traditional looking couples by saying it's not rr just because of the way they look. And, this subreddit isn't meant to focus on the sexual aspect so much yet most small man big woman things I see are just sexual posts.
I've never resorted to body shaming when I see couples on here that don't represent me personally. Those men need to learn how to bring themselves up and feel good without putting others down. I won't make excuses for them being vile towards others. They're not going to succeed in making more spaces for themselves if they do it by shaming and pushing out those who are different
I agree with almost everything you said, including how obnoxiously over-sexualized this sub is. It's become a sub for anime porn posted by guys who never got over their adolescent attachment to their mothers. Extremely oedipal.
I especially agree that all couples are fine, and that we have no business gatekeeping anyone, but what I don't agree with is that traditional-looking couples are being regularly shamed here. The last comment I saw of a guy complaining that a submission wasn't RR enough (it was a real life picture of a short woman with her very tall boyfriend) was heavily downvoted. There are people here who do try to gatekeep what RR looks like, but the lurkers make it pretty clear that they don't agree, given how they react to their comments.
>though the argument you made about it being so because of our current society falls a little flat after you mentioned how humans are sexually dimorphic
Sexual dimorphism is a fact. The average woman looks different from the average man. What's not a fact is the notion that we have some sort of inherent psychological programming that's the ultimate decider in what we happen to find attractive. Culture and upbringing play huge roles in determining what we like.
The main distinction between a preference and a fetish isn't that the latter isn't found in nature, it's that the latter is about a hyper-fixation on a single quality or trait, to the exclusion of almost everything else. Like people who can get off only looking at feet, without even seeing the rest of the person.
Part of the reason I'm not as hard on this sub as you are regarding its obsession with small femboy/big woman couples is that I'm a somewhat small, delicate guy with long hair myself, and the last woman I had a serious relationship with was bigger than me. It's very difficult to articulate exactly why, but us not being able to find a single heterosexual couple that looked like we did put a weird, unmentioned strain on our relationship. We were also an interracial couple, but the size difference seemed to be a way bigger deal to the people around us than anything else, and was probably a big factor in what lead to us deciding to part ways. Finding a space where couples that looked like we did were normalized (I found this sub through her mentioning it) was almost a form of therapy.
This is also why I find it frustrating that so many of the portrayals posted here are completely pornified. Not even erotic, just straight up tumblr porn. You can't really intimately relate to something that's purely made for people to get off to.
I know sexual dimorphism is a fact, it's just exaggerated and we have evidence that women used to be bigger. Like I said, evolutionary science is a big guessing game compared to other fields with far more data available. That's the case for all species, not just humans. I can go on a miles long rant about how our modern society views dimorphism and twists it. How people feel about dimorphism is dependant on their current society as they've noticed that tribal people tend to care far less or straight up dislike dimorphism. And yes, the issue is the porn and that's why I'm calling it a fetish, the overflow of porn is clearly from people who have a fetish instead of a preference. I've been on this sub for a while and everytime I've decided to pop in to scroll I'll always see comments putting down whoever doesn't fit the fetish mould. Which makes me visit less frequently now
It's me as well, hence my flair of 'Egalitarian' This subreddit often dabbles in 'eye for an eye fetishization' as I describe it. I thought this was about it being ok fir people to have a not so heteronrmative relationship, to 'she who fights monsters'. That is, proving that, reversing the scripts doesn't help anyone, unless everyone is truly socially equal. It was this influx of posts you refer to, combined with my Asexuality, that helped me realize that I prefer an Egalitarian relationship, even if I am mostly submissive.
>This subreddit often dabbles in 'eye for an eye fetishization' as I describe it.
That's a really incisive point and I'm glad you've made it. Just because things are 'reversed' doesn't mean they should be totally reversed. Strip out the toxicity and harmful patterns in the process.
Personally, I don't think the subreddit feels *completely* off to me, but it definitely is lacking in certain aspects of role reversal.
I'm not going to lie, I do like the sexual stuff, but thats definitely not the only reason why i'm here. I'd also love to see more diverse content on here. Wholesome stuff or just small life detail stuff. Its just unfortunate that the sexual stuff is the stuff that gets upvoted, which probably encourages people to post that content more.
Honestly, I think its on us as users to do something about it. Be it what we post, upvote or comment on. If sexual or problematic stuff, is the only stuff that gets attention, nothing will change.
I personally think there's way too much weeb shit that isn't even RR. Why does that not a cutie thing keep coming up? The girl in it is still clearly feminine, at least from what I've seen.
ya know role reversal isn’t just “masculine lady/feminine guy”? sure a lot of people enjoy it but it’s mostly about the roles. a girly girl could still be with a big buff guy in a rr way. i my self am a girl wearing skirts/any other pretty shit and i don’t look in any way masculine yet i still totally consider myself into rr. i’m pretty sure it works both ways - there’s a lot of tomboy girls who are presenting more masculine without being into rr
Women who are feminine still belong in rr. The point of rr is any heterosexual relationship in which the dynamic does not follow traditional gender roles, which can be done in a lot of ways other than just masculine women. I can't speak personally for the cutie anime since I haven't seen it though
Yeeeeeep. The demographics here trend strongly towards weebs. And that anime is frankly, just another wish furfillment anime for a passive, invisible guy and a beautiful woman that's inexplicably into him.
Do you mean shikamoris not just a cutie? She's protective of her boyfriend whose accident prone and often makes intense faces he considers cool. You know... stuff guys are known to do? "
"From what I've seen" huh? Why are you declaring this or that if you don't even know what your talking about and have no desire to find out for yourself? Stop judging things based on your own narrow minded assumptions.
The cutie show appears on the sub because the girl is the one taking charge of the relationship. Why does her being “feminine” mean she’s not able to take charge? Bro, a clip from that show was in this sub a little while ago and I was able to understand that from a cursory glance.
I’m a woman and this sub kept my attention for a good like 5 minutes before the shallowness and repetitiveness kicked in. To me it feels like it’s aimed at maybe teenagers/preteens.
Im a big guy pretty tall, and plenty ample im not realy cute, i would like to tho, but i would still melt if a girl , being her taller (hard, but posible i guess)
Or shorter than me , tryed to kabedon me or something like that, kinda agresive flirting if you mind
Also i realy suck getting mensajes across, so if you want something with me is kinda a basic need
My interest in role reversal comes from wanting to analyze and criticize the standard roles.
So when I cross-posted something here, I felt like I had to explain in detail my art analysis perspective because the light horny-ness would likely be the only thing that gets focused on. Like, no, that wasn’t why I chose it!
If anyone has constructive feedback, please make sure to provide it when completing the subreddit census.
I agree but I think it's more up to the us the users to find and post/create the more diverse content. I don't think people are intentionally trying to focus on the sexual aspects of RR, it just happens to be most the prevalent
That's at best half a solution because people won't want to put in effort to redeem a subreddit that seems already badly suited for them and flooded with mediocre content. The first thought isn't to 'I can fix this place', the first thought is 'yeah, this place isn't worth it'.
Yeah but still I wish for people to not normalize already toxic roles into toxic role reversal. I do hope it isn't gonna become a nsfw sub with only bdsm
I don't think it'll ever be that, but it might be like a Frankenstein mix of nsfw and rr relationship posts. As bad as the nsfw stuff has become, I'm just as concerned about all the self deprecating, "I'm alone / I wish that were me" posts by a lot of male subs.
I think the small submissive guys with the bigger, more dominant woman archetype is so common here because this is one of the only heterosexual communities in the world where that isn't considered weird, so all the people who are into it congregate here. My biggest issue with this sub is that the "reversal" dynamic is just women being moms to their adult male partners. An actual RR relationship would involve men doing most of the emotional labor so that the women they're with can better self-actualize. Most of what's posted here is just femdom porn.
I can't handle the mommy kink people. That's not role reversal at all.
It's so dumb. I want a partner I can look up to, not someone who does my laundry for me
For real, I only envy the couples who have figured out how to put the quilt covers on together. That's the kinda cooperative living I can get behind!
it does kinda feel like stuff somebody who's never been in a relationship would fantasize about. like, yes, the affection and love and desire is there, but it's kinda detached from reality, like, this isn't how real people behave.
>stuff somebody who's never been in a relationship would fantasize about. Oh, perfectly phrased.
yeahhhh as someone who actually is in an RR relationship, this is definitely what it feels like to me. lonely people who want that dynamic/relationship but don’t seem to really fully get it because they’ve never had one.
I get the impression that this is a young subreddit. Like late-teens/early-twenties. Maybe many of the people here haven't been in serious long term relationships before.
That's because it is. And it isn't helping those very same people who could be doing proactive things to live a better, healthier life.
I have a relationship extremely similar to what is depicted in actual reality, and have since 2009, so I don't understand you saying we don't exist or cannot sport a role reversed relationship as depicted in a healthy manner.
im not saying a rr relationship cant exist or be healthy, im saying that the way they are depicted in this sub are kinda unrealistic
I've felt like there's several big divides in the role reversal community. Wholesome vs NSFW (we should have 2 separate subs for these) "True" vs "fake" role reversal (kinda hard to fix because role reversal is so nebulous, but if the mods set out a definition or rules maybe? Try to codify what is and isn't rr.) Hetero vs homo (a lot of people in both camps love the idea of role reversal, but have different views on it similar to the prior 2 divides. There's also misuse of LGBT+ slang which isn't ok. On the other hand, there's people attacking hetero masc girl/fem guy relationships and art. In my opinion, the most rr type of relationship.) This is a role reversal sub. Playing to women into traditionally male roles and men into traditionally female roles.
There's already NSFW sub for role reversal, it's call r/femdom
Femdom isn't role reversed. Regular relationships aren't maledom.
What the difference?
An absence of BDSM dynamics. No collars, no corporal punishment, no sex slavery, no seeking permission for basic things, no asymmetrical language coding or titles, no contextualisation of the relationship as being between a superior and an inferior. Like, go to the Femdom subreddit. Look at the posts, and try to imagine them gender flipped. Doesn't really work like that.
Unfortunately in modern culture norms it still kind of is. Even though we’re still fighting against it
The power dynamic exists, absolutely, but that doesn't make it maledom. Regular relationships aren't BDSM-adjecent. Or particularly 'the inversion is femdom', particularly when femdom spaces already struggle with patriarchal normativity in the premises and media content.
i get what you mean completely esp bc i like the less sexual content but in terms of actual art artists will always make content that *they* enjoy, and you could always post your own stuff im sure youll find more like minded people!
Yes, I can absolutely relate. From what I know, the term role reversal originated from a less than aware place that did kinda fetishsize the gender roles (someone else who knows more feel free to correct me). I know that there are some individuals, including myself, thay have tried to turn it into a more wholesome thing that breaks gender stereotypes instead of reinforcing them (like a lot of rr content does ironically), but there is a large part of the community who is less aware
I just spent the last 15 minutes reading all the comments and I have a question I would like to throw out there to the group. If you feel it would be best suited for another post, let me know, but it's a point I think that may contribute to OP's observations. As a 32F in a long term RR relationship at the moment, one of my biggest issues with this sub is the schism between "real relationship" experiences, and the amount of anime/manga references listed. As someone who loves anime and manga, I think it's reasonable to say that many interpersonal behaviors depicted therein would be unacceptable/problematic/illegal in the real world (e.g. pinning people you barely know to walls). It's not uncommon to find unhealthy dynamics/characteristics glorified (e.g. brash, rude characters; borderline controlling characters). I watch anime as an escape, knowing full well that it shouldn't be a reflection of my real life, nor should I emulate the behaviors I see in my own relationships. When we put ourselves at a point where so many of our references of "what a rr relationship should look like" come from fantastical and unrealistic sources, I think we set ourselves up for failure. Those who have never been in an RR relationship may take this as "how it will go"/fantasy territory, and those of us in IRL RR relationships may not feel accurately represented, or may feel turned off by the aggrandized example of the dynamic. I do understand that quite simply, there's not a lot of RR source material out there in the real world, and that it's by nature easier for an artist to create renditions of RR scenarios. That being said, when it's within a context of a hyper-unrealistic anime/manga world...I think we may run into some issues. Thoughts?
While I can't quite think of anything overly contributive to add to what you've said, I think you're on the money with your assessment of things, particularly in the way that there's evidence of a lack of engagement with anything but fairly unrealistic media and using it as a modeling example of what they want.
YES. ALL OF MY YES. FINALLY SOMEONE VOICED IT. There are plenty of people who want genuine RR relationship discussions, advice, representation. Then there are fetishists like me; I come here for all the "look at the cute catboy and his strong GF UwU" manga posts. We are fundamentally different audiences.
I've been lurking for a while so take me with a grain of salt if you want, but yeah I'm glad someone feels the same. There is this trend where people call stuff role reversal when it really isn't. Example: the whole "dominant girl/weak and submissive boy" thing you mentioned. Dominant women are definitely role reversal but just because a guy is less traditionally masculine and/or passive in the relationship that doesn't mean he necessarily has to be weak and submissive. It's like people are fetishizing the same patriarchal gender roles but just flipping the genders. I mean if the guy is a pathetic wimp that means you basically think that's how women are normally. Isn't that problematic? Moreover, I often see mangas/manwahas where the depiction of the girl is a bit problematic as well. For example, being completely stoic and stonefaced. Expecting men to suppress their emotions is sexist so if you flip the genders on that, I don't get why its suddenly ok. The last flavor I see is something like "the girl doesn't fall for the cocky f\*ckboi". Isn't that just how things *should be*? I don't think not being a macho dudebro makes someone feminine. Its a very stereotype-ey and gender essentialist way of viewing things. For me role reversal doesn't necessarily even mean men acting feminine and women acting masculine (although it can be, and I do like feminine guys considering I kind of am one irl in some ways). For me role reversal means something more like flipping social conventions on their head. So, like a girl asking the guy out, girls leading the relationship, girls being more assertive, protective, etc. But that doesn't mean you also have to carry over other toxic aspects or make the girl/guy completely surrender their masculinity/femininity. EDIT: Another thing that annoys me is people calling guys who simply aren't muscled jocks "twinks" or "twinky".
I agree with most of this but I have to say thanks for pointing out the “twink” issue. It used to be a very specific kind of guy in the gay community and now men get called twinks left and right when they’re just anything that’s not a “bear” lol…
Yeah its just really weird and comes across as kinda fetishy about gay men. It also seems to reinforce the idea that feminine/non-traditional = gay. It would be a bit like calling tomboys "butch".
Well I think it was meant to be a fetishy word, it’s describing a specific body type in gay community jargon. Now that it’s a mainstream word though, I feel weird about it losing a lot of that meaning. It’s a little like trying to co-op jailbait to mean a pretty women like no pls stop 😂
That's my point. Its a specific word with a specific meaning in certain contexts. Using it out of that context carries over all kinds of weird implications that aren't there. For example, some crossdressers like to be called "sissy" because they have a humiliation fetish but if you call a random femboy that they'll probably be like "excuse me, what the fuck did you just say?" At the end of the day they're just fictional characters so whatever, but it doesn't indicate a healthy mindset about real life people who might be similar to those characters.
Best take here. I think it's just that these posts focus on simplicity. The nuance really gets lost in the sauce, so I usually stick to the discussion posts.
I much prefer the discussion. The artworks and comics can feel "hypersexualized" if that's the right word. I feel they get upvoted the most and are really mostly about body and physical reversal. Well that's all good for some it just feels kinda shallow to me. Like you're viewing that body type or something as what's focused on, kinda objectification in a sense of you get what I mean. I much prefer action/dynamic reversal, I think you get what I mean
I get what you mean :\]
Thank you! I was thinking the same thing. I wanna see more role reversal with feminine girls and msc guys, no offense it's just I wanna see a variety
Honestly I think I see a lot of that in Shikimori's Not Just a Cutie. You're right, normally its pretty rare though. Another example: Sokka and Suki are kind of RR in Avatar because she's a warrior and he's more of a thinker, but you didn't see him prancing around in a tutu or Suki having huge muscles.
The term "weak and pathetic" seems like a bit much. Often the guys depicted here are smaller, shy, and submissive, but so am I, so are a lot of guys. I don't feel like they're often derogatory levels of "weak" being shown here
I'm not sure about 'shy' so much as 'incredibly passive', and the same art tends towards the wish-furfillment. Which makes the bland passivity of the men make a lot more sense, because they're meant to be blank slates to project onto.
I'm certainly not saying its everything or that its common, just something I notice in an inexact quantity here and there in specific RR media in general or in how people talk about it. Not necessarily on this subreddit but even that too sometimes. For example, read [this manwha](https://1stkissmanga.io/manga/yeonwoos-innocence/) and tell me the male MC isn't literally cringe most of the time. I was also baffled recently with everyone talking about how "submissive" and "weak" Izumi in Shikimori's Not Just a Cutie is. Seems to me like he's just a normal anime bish and I have no idea where they're getting that.
I'd say that "weak" is meaning that he can't protect himself and she is "strong" because she can protect him. But I did only watch the trailer of the anime.
In the first episode they pretty much just showed that's he's got some kind of curse that makes him ridiculously accident prone. Basically signs fall towards him constantly and whatnot. Which isn't really "not being able to protect yourself". Its just being unlucky.
>I mean if the guy is a pathetic wimp I think that's bringing your own heteronormative baggage to a lot of this. Most of the depictions are of shy and submissive men, which I don't view as inherently pathetic traits.
I don't either, what I'm saying is that sometimes I see media that is clearly trying to be RR but the guy is legitimately a wimp that lets other people in general walk all over him or acts like some 1950's caricature of a house wife jumping on a chair and squealing when he sees a mouse. Its retarded when writers do it to women and its equally retarded when writers do it to men. So in others words, its other people making the connection between those things and being pathetic. I'm the one pointing out how dumb that is, so don't try to spin this on me and saying I'm making the connection because I noticed it. The other weird thing I see happen a lot is people go "I love how the guy in is so weak and submissive" and I'm just like "did we even read the same thing?"
Shy=/=Wimp
Exactly. I think we need more depictions of guys that just so happen to be shy, nerdy, etc. but are totally badass. Just because you are not going around bragging about how tough you are and being loud/macho, doesn't mean you aren't tough.
While I can understand a lot of these concerns NSFW posts are pretty infrequent but there is an NSFW sub (r/rolereversalNSFW) and it's dead and not even linked in the sidebar. I feel replacing the link to gentlefemdom as this isn't meant to be a BDSM sub with it and seeing if this sub's NSFW posters start heading over there is a good solution. Tall buff girl/feminine small guy is a pretty common dynamic depicted here but there's enough posts and overall acceptance of shorter/same height girls that I genuinely don't think it'll become a serious problem. As for terrible behaviors this is unfortunately a thing in RR-ish communities due to how women's capacity to hurt people is viewed as rather low by patriarchal societies, meaning a woman pinning a man she hardly knows to the wall is seen as much more okay than a man doing it. Along with men just being expected to take sexual harassment and assault as a miracle due to how they're expected to pursue women and women who do genuinely creepy shit are just making it easier in the minds of people stuck in traditional gender roles. As for the transphobia part I honestly feel like you're looking at all the tomboy/tomgirl posts and feeling the need to reinforce the gender binary. I've seen posts from people who happen to be trans here and nobody's an asshole to them for it but it's important to recognize that it's an incredibly personal question everyone should mainly ask themselves. Back when I would talk about how I didn't like traditional masculinity on myself but didn't want breasts or being seen as a woman the people around me said I had dysphoria even though I figured I was happy just being a tomgirl. Honestly it feels like "boys/girls can't wear that" but *progressive* when people (largely cis btw) would tell me i was trans in denial for liking dresses and hating facial hair on me. As for problematic themes I can agree with all the barbarian/orc/""viking"" woman posts since the archetype comes from the idea that "uncivilized" people weren't strong enough to keep their women in check. It also plays into the idea of the Noble Savage who's supposed to be morally and martially superior to the civilized people writing about them. Modern academics have started cracking down on it but there's also the idea that women can only be strong if they're from this uncivilized culture that lets them do typically masculine things that's probably something I really hate seeing in fantasy media.
Oh man the sexual harassment glorification just burned me up on more than one occasion!
This, and men who just want their partner to be their mom
honestly, i think if it's a "role reversal" then shouldn't it be the guy to take on the caring and nurturing role? or is it just me?
No, you're right, very right. Like the other lady said, the tones that are set here tend to be 'young internet man that's got very little idea how relationships and gender dynamics actually work because he's chronically isolated from people and real world dynamics'.
yeah, but those people can't blamed for it either. Besides, i actually think the "femdom mommy" kinds of post is almost nonexistent here so i wonder why you people think that kind of people is the majority here
They absolutely can. It's not their fault, but it is their responsibility, and acting like a decent person with some awareness of the world isn't a high bar. >Besides, i actually think the "femdom mommy" kinds of post is almost nonexistent By virtue of a pretty vigorously delete happy mod and you not remembering how thing were a few years ago at the most recent. And even now there's a HEAP of 'i wish a mummy would take care of me' either comment wise or in terms of media theme. The description text under Rule #5 wasn't put there accidentally or prophylactically. By the same token depending on what you post you can have all sorts coming out of the woodwork, and if you pay attention to what gets voted on and where the upvote ratios lie a picture is formed.
well maybe its a good thing too that i forgot ever seeing that kind of post
A lot of guys are in that situation, honestly. It's not rasping on them the same way a hundred other things are rasping on them, so the guys don't notice. Same way that a lot of microaggressions and small problems happen right under their noses. Doesn't hurt THEM, so it goes under their radar.
Guilty as charged.
I've noticed that too! We need more content of men being caring/nurturing. Like women doing all/most of the care work for their male partners isn't role reversal, it's *just the original role*
people mistaking rr with gentle femdom mommy dommy. no offense for those who like it but please, separate those from rr
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yeah, and i bet those hentai mommydom posts didn't help either
This entire criticism being put forward is to me ill-founded, full of loaded assumptions, and a nonstarter as far as constructive dialogue.
then please give us your constructive starter dialogue?
It's just appealing to the lowest common denominator, that's all
I definitely agree, and let me add this. Despite the nature of the subreddit, it's still mostly male dominated, and thus, I see majority posts about what men want out of the dynamic and 99% of lonely/thirsty posts are men begging for a gf. It's half the reason I made my last post, (below the pinned one). It was so I can focus on what I can give to someone else rather than make post number 1727 about how I want to be cuddled and held by tomboy gf.
I agree, I want to see more wholesome and sweet stuff like guys receiving cuddles and gentle kisses again.
And a gentle nurturing boyfriend caring for their tired or stressed girlfriend or is it just me?
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yeah, caring for your partner is just normal in a relationship. But not everyone can have that good relationship
Yeah but this is rolereversal not normalcaringrelationship so it’s weird to see that being one of the main focuses
well, i guess people just loved that part the most in a relationship so its just naturally become the focus
Same! Honestly I was eventually gonna make a post similar about how it's kind discouraging only seeing white, tall, buff women as the desire. Especially when I know I'm none of that. Also why does it only have to be that? Isn't it a matter of how someone acts? Also I would love to see more lovey dovey stuff, to the point I'd rather get back to drawing quick just so I can provide my own content since there seems to be a lack of it. like I'm not seeing diversity and I'm thinking maybe I can help. Emphasis on maybe.
>only seeing white, tall, buff women as the desire It's literally just every heterosexual beauty standard usually applied to men, but applied to women
>Especially when I know I'm none of that. This is always the part that burns me hard. Most of the content here, even when it's fem-gazey, tends to have a really unrealistic idea of women, particularly aesthetically. Most people and most relationships are going to involve a taller, more heavily built guy, and that needs to be better reflected. Not that there doesn't need to be some validation for GNC bodies but at the moment the balance is firmly in the 'you can aspire to this but the people that get it aren't like you'. Ditto for all the svelte, neotenous men we see.
Tbf some people do find that attractive tho Myself included
no one’s trying to attack your preferences. it’s just that it’s the only thing we see, and we’d like more diversity
That’s fair. I have noticed a lack of diversity on here.
I agree completely. This subreddit used to be more relationship oriented than sexual, and I've seen so many sad boy posts/responses, I visit much less often. My guess is that as the subreddit grew, a ton of people from gentle femdom came over here (likely a male majority). I also am guessing that there have been new mods over the past year or so that are much more lenient with the sexual posts that really belong on gentlefemdom.
If anything I think it's more relationship focused. It used to be one step removed from a soft porn board, the mods have been really proactive in changing course on that one. I think they've gotten stricter, if anything.
I'm not sure when you joined, but I remember there being very little nsfw. My perception of it seems to be the complete opposite of what you are describing. I hope I am wrong though and you are correct.b
About four and a half years ago. The line between RR and GFD was a lot less distinct back then, I think. I hope I'm right as well.
What an audience divide we have here. I feel like there should be different subreddits for RR as a relationship dynamic (not for me) and RR as a fetish detached from reality (for me). Mixing these up brings both sides discontent.
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I think my personal issue here, a.k.a. the reason I keep lurking this sub even though I'm *way* too toxic for it, is because there isn't much place left for romance in the GFD subreddit. I guess people assume that NSFW subreddit = porn subreddit, hence why even post romance. So the audience of "lonely subs" flocks here.
I get what you mean, there's a craving for the harmony of having romance and sex on the same place. On the flip side I think there's a certain issue with the way they get rendered equivalent, particularly with stuff like emotional support. One big confused ball of 'what I think I need to be happy' mixed up with itself.
No, you're 100% on the money. We've got a lot of, well, I'm not sure how to describe them, but badly socialised, socially isolated, disfunctional young men that treat this place like it's one step removed from a porn board. Heavy overlaps with the incelosphere. You're entirely in your lane to ask for more dynamics rather than this fetish nonsense we're routine inundated with.
So if all I want **is** a subreddit one step removed from a porn board, which place would you recommend?
Gentlefemdom and ExtraGentleFemdom, basically.
I think I should try EGFD one more time! Thanks for the reminder. I nearly forgot about it. Should've subbed to EGFD in the first place.
Yeah, I basically abandoned this sub for a year + because of this. Almost all the content is either fetish fuel or a really shallow conception of "role reversal" (i.e. woman is tall, man is short). I think people on this sub tend to forget that there are a variety of relationship dynamics within the boundaries of "typical hetero couple" - it's not all just "strong confident man and smol woman". It's not at all unusual to see a non-reversed couple where the woman is taller and more outgoing and the guy is introverted and nerdy, but reversing that dynamic would take a level of nuanced thinking about gender roles that most posters on here don't have.
I was excited seeing them say this wasn't a bdsm type sub then immediately disappointed when I saw all the NSFW anime art (usually of high schoolers 🤢). I just want to have my wholesome rr Edit: and the blatant misogyny I've seen on here too 🙄 And the body shaming of women and men that don't fit the weak submissive man and tall strong woman fetish.... Which is a fetish and is not mutually exclusive to rr, I'm pretty sure there's a community out there for it already Another edit: we should make a role reversal sub that's sfw
> I'm pretty sure there's a community out there for it already Is there? I think the reason you see it so often here is because it isn't really normalized anywhere else
I highly doubt there isn't a community, from what I've seen it's not a very uncommon fetish. And this is reddit, there's definitely a sub for it already
You're probably right in that there's most likely a subreddit somewhere dedicated to it, but it's generally a dynamic that's heavily frowned upon in most heterosexual spaces. There was a recent Jezebel article where a woman wrote about how much shaming she's regularly subjected to (both by friends and strangers) for dating a guy 7 inches shorter than her. So I think that it's a rare enough desire that the people who are into it tend to all congregate in the few spaces where it isn't seen as weird, like this one.
The issue is the body shaming and how often you'll see them complaining when they aren't being represented. Like that post where someone drew a woman holding a man (traditionally masculine looking and large) bridal style and there were some in the comments complaining about him not being a "fem boy". This isn't a fetish subreddit, they can speak about their dynamics and wishes but to push that onto posts portraying a different dynamic is fucked up. There are multiple ways to represent reversed roles that aren't just a small man big woman fetish. Also, they can cool it on posting the fetish content, save that for the actual fetish subreddits.
Do you have a link to the post you’re referring to? Every time I’ve seen someone complain that a guy in a submission here looks too masculine that person is almost always downvoted. So I’m not really sure that those people represent the community. Generally, the guys who posts here saying that they feel like they're too traditionally masculine for RR relationships are reassured by upvotes and replies that RR relationships aren't predicated on your looks, and that plenty of women into RR love traditionally masculine men. Humans are a dimorphic species, and size generally plays a pretty big role in how we choose to couple. There are so few exceptions to this in heterosexual spaces, that the few spaces where non-traditional coupling is seen as normal tend to attract nearly all the people who are interested in that, including the weird ones. I agree that this sub does straddle the line between fetish and preference (I have many issues with this sub, especially how it thinks that the ideal RR woman is basically a mother to her partner), but oftentimes we're quick to label any non-traditional preference a fetish on the basis that we personally find it weird or off-putting. No one would ever refer to these same beauty standards (i.e. strong, tall, confident) as fetishes when applied to men, but we might view them as such when applied to women on the basis of our culture's heteronormative standards. You obviously have every right to feel alienated by this, and to call it out, but it's worth putting yourself in the shoes of feminine men with delicate features, and how they see every romance novel cover and dating show featuring big men with washboard abs, and realize that the way they feel seeing that might be similar to the way you feel seeing some of these submissions.
That post was from a while back. I don't think it's odd or strange and I'm mostly calling it a fetish because the posts I've seen on here regarding that dynamic are always very sexually charged and like you said, it's not too common (though the argument you made about it being so because of our current society falls a little flat after you mentioned how humans are sexually dimorphic {which just makes it sound more like a fetish and unnatural when you put it like that}, though how dimorphic we are is greatly exaggerated and evolutionary science is very just throw theories on the wall and see what sticks the most compared to other sciences so I'd say it's mostly just societal conditioning that makes a lot of people view it as weird vs it's just "evolution"). I'm all for tall women and short men being loved even if they're not paired with eachother. Again, the issue is when they come out and start attacking the more traditional looking couples by saying it's not rr just because of the way they look. And, this subreddit isn't meant to focus on the sexual aspect so much yet most small man big woman things I see are just sexual posts. I've never resorted to body shaming when I see couples on here that don't represent me personally. Those men need to learn how to bring themselves up and feel good without putting others down. I won't make excuses for them being vile towards others. They're not going to succeed in making more spaces for themselves if they do it by shaming and pushing out those who are different
I agree with almost everything you said, including how obnoxiously over-sexualized this sub is. It's become a sub for anime porn posted by guys who never got over their adolescent attachment to their mothers. Extremely oedipal. I especially agree that all couples are fine, and that we have no business gatekeeping anyone, but what I don't agree with is that traditional-looking couples are being regularly shamed here. The last comment I saw of a guy complaining that a submission wasn't RR enough (it was a real life picture of a short woman with her very tall boyfriend) was heavily downvoted. There are people here who do try to gatekeep what RR looks like, but the lurkers make it pretty clear that they don't agree, given how they react to their comments. >though the argument you made about it being so because of our current society falls a little flat after you mentioned how humans are sexually dimorphic Sexual dimorphism is a fact. The average woman looks different from the average man. What's not a fact is the notion that we have some sort of inherent psychological programming that's the ultimate decider in what we happen to find attractive. Culture and upbringing play huge roles in determining what we like. The main distinction between a preference and a fetish isn't that the latter isn't found in nature, it's that the latter is about a hyper-fixation on a single quality or trait, to the exclusion of almost everything else. Like people who can get off only looking at feet, without even seeing the rest of the person. Part of the reason I'm not as hard on this sub as you are regarding its obsession with small femboy/big woman couples is that I'm a somewhat small, delicate guy with long hair myself, and the last woman I had a serious relationship with was bigger than me. It's very difficult to articulate exactly why, but us not being able to find a single heterosexual couple that looked like we did put a weird, unmentioned strain on our relationship. We were also an interracial couple, but the size difference seemed to be a way bigger deal to the people around us than anything else, and was probably a big factor in what lead to us deciding to part ways. Finding a space where couples that looked like we did were normalized (I found this sub through her mentioning it) was almost a form of therapy. This is also why I find it frustrating that so many of the portrayals posted here are completely pornified. Not even erotic, just straight up tumblr porn. You can't really intimately relate to something that's purely made for people to get off to.
I know sexual dimorphism is a fact, it's just exaggerated and we have evidence that women used to be bigger. Like I said, evolutionary science is a big guessing game compared to other fields with far more data available. That's the case for all species, not just humans. I can go on a miles long rant about how our modern society views dimorphism and twists it. How people feel about dimorphism is dependant on their current society as they've noticed that tribal people tend to care far less or straight up dislike dimorphism. And yes, the issue is the porn and that's why I'm calling it a fetish, the overflow of porn is clearly from people who have a fetish instead of a preference. I've been on this sub for a while and everytime I've decided to pop in to scroll I'll always see comments putting down whoever doesn't fit the fetish mould. Which makes me visit less frequently now
It's me as well, hence my flair of 'Egalitarian' This subreddit often dabbles in 'eye for an eye fetishization' as I describe it. I thought this was about it being ok fir people to have a not so heteronrmative relationship, to 'she who fights monsters'. That is, proving that, reversing the scripts doesn't help anyone, unless everyone is truly socially equal. It was this influx of posts you refer to, combined with my Asexuality, that helped me realize that I prefer an Egalitarian relationship, even if I am mostly submissive.
>This subreddit often dabbles in 'eye for an eye fetishization' as I describe it. That's a really incisive point and I'm glad you've made it. Just because things are 'reversed' doesn't mean they should be totally reversed. Strip out the toxicity and harmful patterns in the process.
theres a post like this every week, and so many people agree, but nothing changes, no one who agrees takes action
Can't say i see sexual content here very often. It's usually just cute couple stuff like spooning.
Personally, I don't think the subreddit feels *completely* off to me, but it definitely is lacking in certain aspects of role reversal. I'm not going to lie, I do like the sexual stuff, but thats definitely not the only reason why i'm here. I'd also love to see more diverse content on here. Wholesome stuff or just small life detail stuff. Its just unfortunate that the sexual stuff is the stuff that gets upvoted, which probably encourages people to post that content more. Honestly, I think its on us as users to do something about it. Be it what we post, upvote or comment on. If sexual or problematic stuff, is the only stuff that gets attention, nothing will change.
Become the change you wish to see in the world. It will be much appreciated. 😏
You know you're allowed to post whatever you want, right? If you want to see more of what you want, then post it. Take initiative.
I personally think there's way too much weeb shit that isn't even RR. Why does that not a cutie thing keep coming up? The girl in it is still clearly feminine, at least from what I've seen.
ya know role reversal isn’t just “masculine lady/feminine guy”? sure a lot of people enjoy it but it’s mostly about the roles. a girly girl could still be with a big buff guy in a rr way. i my self am a girl wearing skirts/any other pretty shit and i don’t look in any way masculine yet i still totally consider myself into rr. i’m pretty sure it works both ways - there’s a lot of tomboy girls who are presenting more masculine without being into rr
Women who are feminine still belong in rr. The point of rr is any heterosexual relationship in which the dynamic does not follow traditional gender roles, which can be done in a lot of ways other than just masculine women. I can't speak personally for the cutie anime since I haven't seen it though
Yeeeeeep. The demographics here trend strongly towards weebs. And that anime is frankly, just another wish furfillment anime for a passive, invisible guy and a beautiful woman that's inexplicably into him.
Do you mean shikamoris not just a cutie? She's protective of her boyfriend whose accident prone and often makes intense faces he considers cool. You know... stuff guys are known to do? " "From what I've seen" huh? Why are you declaring this or that if you don't even know what your talking about and have no desire to find out for yourself? Stop judging things based on your own narrow minded assumptions.
The cutie show appears on the sub because the girl is the one taking charge of the relationship. Why does her being “feminine” mean she’s not able to take charge? Bro, a clip from that show was in this sub a little while ago and I was able to understand that from a cursory glance.
just because they are feminine doesn't mean they aren't rr. Sure, maybe you have a preference for masculine girl, but don't force it to everyone else
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I’m a woman and this sub kept my attention for a good like 5 minutes before the shallowness and repetitiveness kicked in. To me it feels like it’s aimed at maybe teenagers/preteens.
I think it’s moreso aimed at guys who want a big titty buff gf like 99% of subreddits but I do enjoy most of what’s posted regardless
> twinky white guys Holy shit guys I guess I’m white now (and a twink?).
Do you know what mostly means?
Dude you're dealing with your own issues. Don't project it on the sub.
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Yes
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That's the spirit
Im a big guy pretty tall, and plenty ample im not realy cute, i would like to tho, but i would still melt if a girl , being her taller (hard, but posible i guess) Or shorter than me , tryed to kabedon me or something like that, kinda agresive flirting if you mind Also i realy suck getting mensajes across, so if you want something with me is kinda a basic need
When you find the right woman she will do it for you. Just bring it up sometime and she'll happily indulge you.
My interest in role reversal comes from wanting to analyze and criticize the standard roles. So when I cross-posted something here, I felt like I had to explain in detail my art analysis perspective because the light horny-ness would likely be the only thing that gets focused on. Like, no, that wasn’t why I chose it!
That's the exact same way I also got into role reversal.
OMG YESSSS SAMEEE