Ab Imo Pectore

"In order to change the character’s sex, I first search-and-replaced the male name with a female name, and then reversed all the pronouns. I expected this would create some jarring moments, but I didn’t expect them to show up in the first three paragraphs.

As I read the part of the story where my newly minted female character first appears on stage, I was struck with an almost overwhelming urge to describe her physically. Nowhere in the previous version of the story did I physically describe her male incarnation – no height, no weight, no haircut, no musculature, no eyes, no lips, no nothing — and yet now that her sex had changed, I felt intensely compelled to add markers of physical description. The role of this newly minted female character was to be the same as the earlier male’s role, her function in the story and the scene exactly the same (in the scene where she first shows up, she’s counting money – pretty gender neutral behavior) and yet now I had this intense urge to describe her black bobbed hair. Interesting, no?

Having come face to face with this strange reptilian urge, I’ve decided to fight it. I’m leaving her physically undescribed. If the male didn’t need it, then presumably the female doesn’t either."

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    Very interesting.

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