A curious thing about transformation fiction is that there is a rather large predominance of Male to Female stories versus Female to Male. This statistic is particularly curious in light of the fact that transwomen and transmen are approximately equal in ratio according to recent studies (which contradicts previous non-scientific conjecture.)

I have ideas about why this might be, but I'm curious to know what others' thoughts are.

For one, what are your personal preferences and why do you feel that way?

For instance, I find TG material interesting in both directions largely because of the cultural connotations involved. Even if someone is exactly the same inside (or only slightly different due to minor rewiring), the way the world perceives you is going to be vividly different, especially if there's a reality warp/memory component to it, which means that not only will people perceive who you are now differently, but their perception of your past will be even more diverse.
In many cultures, the expectations circling around women and their expected behavior make this particularly poignant in the male -> female direction.

BONUS POINTS: Are you a neurologist or psychologist with particular knowledge of this subject who might be able to give some insight?

3699157
I actually really like F-M transforms.

It could be that guys want more girls. Even in Equestria, where its mare dominate, we still want more girls so we turn the stallions into mares.

Added:
And a lot of authors on this site are guys.

3699171
I know there's going to be at least a few who like the F -> M
What are your feelings about that, personally?

3699171
Whether right or wrong, I think that male to female is seen as a more alien experience and harder on the individual. There's a whole new world of clothing, makeup, dealing with guys hitting on them, seemingly harder social standards to live up to, dealing with boobs, etc. At first glance, it appears to be the much harder transition to make. As opposed to a girl spending some time as a guy, which seems more like, "So, I don't have to spend time on makeup, I can just throw on a random shirt and jeans, and guys won't be hitting on me? Cool." Obviously it does go much deeper than that, but at first glance, mtf seems to have more interesting things to focus on.

3699201
That's why I go into the cultural factors. What are the expectations on men in a society? What sort of rules and strictures do they have to deal with?

After all, a woman who foregoes makeup, skirts, etc in today's America usually gets off pretty light, but if this an earlier time in history or if it's in a conservative area or country...

3699157

Most of the authors are guys who come up with the idea for the story when they think about what it'd be like to be girl. Every single story is spawned by the authors own problems and experiences.

I've never understood TG.

3699220

What are the expectations on men in a society? What sort of rules and strictures do they have to deal with?

The main expectation is to not be emotional. As a guy, you're expected to either be calm, cocky, or angry. That's pretty much it. Male characters can get called emo even when they're trying to deal with some pretty horrible events. Also there's very different rules about physical contact and about what kind of vanity is acceptable (it''s ok to spend a lot of that gold watch and having the snazzy suit, but don't go checking your reflection constantly or picking at little things in your appearance). These are generalizations of course but they would likely be the main change a girl turned guy would have to deal with.

3699342
In modern American society, aye. In others, the expectation can be very different.

3699342 You're forgetting a few things. For example, males are not expected to like cute things and it is in fact stygma to go against that idea. You're going to be thought of as weird at best, if, say, you like ponies. Ring a bell?

Emotional stuff is off limits to many males. It's not something you're supposed to share, especially not with other males. You're expected to be manly. There's at least stoicism and physical strength involved. Not to mention things like chilvary (would be interesting to see a female observe both sides of the coin on this).

We can also talk about clothing since you mentioned it. Sure, you can throw some stuff together and generally be fine. But it's not like you can wear anything, least of all anything that is perceived as girly. Incoming mockery if you do. Heck, to have too much knowledge or interest of fashion in general is sometimes seen a a sign of homosexuality. To be friends with too many girls is seen as another.

3699356 To answer the question... well, I cannot say for other fandoms, but I believe the reason for mlp is that the writers are male, thus a story that explores a new perspective more often than not means it's a new perspective for the author too. The writer writes about a male that discovers a new perspective. I believe the reverse would be much harder to pull off. Something alien that you pretend discover your own perspective? It's a bit more of a challenge. (And no, I'm not a specialist, it's just my two cents)

3699342

Men are expected not only to put on a "strong front" and a "stiff upper lip," but to be headstrong, extroverted, and ambitious, and to take on the majority of financial responsibility in a family (if not the entire burden) and to make their lives about 1) their jobs and 2) their children (which they are often expected to have if they're over 25 or 30). There's also a much stronger stigma against male than female homosexuals, and male sexual taboos are often stronger, where they exist (the one perk is that in some circles they are practically expected to sleep around, which is almost always taboo for women). They are also expected to be the dominant party in both a household and a bed, and are considered inferior housekeepers and child-rearers (to the point where a divorce court will usually give most or all custody of children to the mother, even if she is an awful person). They are expected to appear rougher, in general, or perhaps "rugged," while spending more than a shower and a shave and maybe a touch of cologne on appearance and hygiene is frowned upon (although there are some exceptions for celebrities, NYC, and California).

Men are also pretty much expected to be dating around 16-18 and have knocked someone up by 20ish. If they don't they may get negative or outright nasty comments about their sexual orientation for not being with a woman yet (this ties in with the homosexuality issue). Men are also expected to have stereotypically simple needs and no emotional intimacy with anyone. To briefly return to the point about being in a relationship, it is often considered that there is something wrong with a man, or that he has failed in some way if he is in a relationship without getting laid within the first few months. This also applies if he actually acts like he cares about his partner's needs around other people.

Just saying it's actually pretty complex for men (and this is just in the US - it's worse in a lot of places).
And I'm a feminist.

So anyway, yeah, I completely disagree that it's harder to go M to F than F to M. Either way, you're going to be in way over your head with tons of things you've never been expected to deal with before.

3699477

I want to see more F to M fics just because M to F has been done to death and then some.

3699171
The argument that more males means more MtF is not valid. On other places on the internet (Da, FA, Derpibooru enz. enz) there is mostly a 50/50 ratio of male/female, sometimes there are even more females. But also on those sites there is more MtF art than FtM. And even female transformation-artists make more MtF than FtM (and I even heard from a few they like MtF more than FtM).
It seems like somehow MtF is just more popular than FtM.

3699520

Perhaps it's just that "woman problems" are far more novel and mysterious to society? I dunno.

3699473

So anyway, yeah, I completely disagree that it's harder to go M to F than F to M. Either way, you're going to be in way over your head with tons of things you've never been expected to deal with before.

I didn't say it was harder. In fact, I said:

Whether right or wrong, I think that male to female is seen as a more alien experience and harder on the individual.

I know that there are a ton of unwritten rules for both sides of the spectrum to act and going the other way would be really tough too. Simply that society in general sees going male to female as the bigger and more interesting challenge.

Please note: The following is written by a white, middle-class male, and is biased accordingly.

I'd personally say it comes down to being more emotionally charged, and thus easier to pull out an interesting story. This would come down to two factors - being taboo, and vulnerability.

The taboo factor is simply the emasculation issue, which is pretty-much entirely cultural. The prime example of this would simply be cross-dressing - a woman dressed up in a traditionally male outfit is not going to turn too many heads (proviso 1: said traditionally male outfit includes a shirt of some sort) (proviso 2: at least, in places where FiM fanfiction is likely to be written) but a man dressed as a woman is something strange, unusual, and taboo. Much like the nudity issue that is often brought up in HiE fics, that which is taboo often has some sexual overtones even when there is absolutely no sexual intent; this leads to tension and concern, which leads to conflict, which leads to story.

The vulnerability factor is more indepth, and flows across the physical, emotional, and cultural spread. The physical factor is obvious - in general females are smaller and less strong than males (obviously with enormous exceptions in both directions) and it stands to reason that any transformation M=>F is going to involve a loss of physical power. (Unless a racial transformation is also included, in which case we can translate that sense of vulnerability to being unused to the body.) As physical capability is a fairly traditional masculine value, its loss can hit hard.

Emotional vulnerability is something that can occur in either direction, although again, females are often considered to be more emotional creatures; disregarding the stereotype however, and assuming that the rush of emotion would go about the same either way, this could be considered more of a force multiplier. Having unusual hormones and uncontrollable swings or urges when you're already feeling vulnerable is only going to make things worse, as it takes away any pillar of stability you can cling to while you try to work things out - if your emotions are going wild, but you're feeling physically stronger, then it's easier to be concerned about just hurting/breaking things by accident (males generally aren't THAT much stronger) than being overwhelmed.

Also, depending on the sort of story you're looking at and exactly which emotions are running wild, you have the sexual side of things to take into account. From a generally male point of view, the idea of having sex as a woman would be seen as distinctly submissive, which then layers a whole new level of vulnerability - and carries promise of certain permanent consequences that a male does not personally fear. While certainly some level of emotional stress could be seen from a F=>M losing control in the same fashion, and a quite interesting story could be extrapolated from that, it's a slightly less sexy story, and not really in line with the general thrust (ha ha) of what is expected from these tales.

And finally, cultural - as 3699201 mentioned, there are quite simply a huge amount of cultural expectations of females that are quite frankly completely arcane to most males. And we know that; to be honest, there may very well be just as much in the other direction, but I don't know that, because I'm not in a position to know what I don't know. If the M=>F is going to be expected to live that way for a long time, and blend in, they have a lot to learn, putting them at the mercy of someone to teach them (and teach them correctly) - or put through a long sequence of awkward moments as they trial and error it. Or both!

TL;DR: From an objective point of view, the combination of vulnerability and taboo puts the transformee way, way out of their comfort zone, which leads to conflict, which leads to story! And story is good.

From a more subjective point of view... I'm a guy, and I find girls more interesting than guys. I know what it's like to be a guy, I don't know what it's like to be a girl, and I'm curious. Hence, I find stories about guys transformed into girls more interesting than girls transformed into guys.

I don't know how the transformation fandom splits along the male/female axis, but I'd be willing to bet that guys make up the majority - of course, then you start getting into which is cause, and which is effect...

3699565

I probably should've put more reply tags in there to indicate I wasn't singling you out. Because I wasn't. My derp.

... the writers are male, thus a story that explores a new perspective more often than not means it's a new perspective for the author too. The writer writes about a male that discovers a new perspective.

Excellent point. I think it's a difficult but valuable writing/mental exercise to write from the perspective of the opposite sex for authors of any persuasion.

3699157
Ninety-nine percent of users on this site are male and as such male to female change is far more interesting and intriguing of a plot device to them than a female to male change due to the whole "unknown and not knowing what it feels like thing".

3699551 This is actually pretty close of a reason as to why I think Mtff is more prevelant. It's more the fact that the female body is probably more complicated as a whole when you compare the two thoug many don't go that far into it. Turning into a male you mostly have to deal with the more exposed sensitive areas and a bit of hormones. Turning into female thoug comes with the hormones, the bodily cycles(period or heat in pony cases), and the fact that sex is harder to do casually as it can result in a bodily parasite for ~9 months which you can get emotionally attatched to for a number of years after that while the male can pretty much bail after a few minutes and never be seen again. Equestria females add other dynamics as well considering the population imbalance used most o the time.

3699157 the abuser is simple the male characters are hotter as girls. And with a higher percentage of the fandom male and strait. Well. You do the math.

I mean be honest guys what would you rather drop in to a world of mostly team or all female aliens?

I'm no expert, but there are quite a few reasons I can think of off the top of my head. Ranging from shallowest to deepest:

1. Beauty and Aesthetics
Most cultures hold the female form to be superior to the male. Look at the paintings, sculpture, and other visual art of any culture; the majority of them are either historical, philosophical/religious, or female. The transition from the male form to female is less, you know, "monstrous" than the reverse would be. I mean, come on. Hair sprouting everywhere? Weird dangly bits dropping out of you? Taken at face value, that's in no way aesthetically pleasing to the majority of the viewers.

2. Trial and Tribulation
The form is seen as superior, but women are still viewed as the 'lesser' of the two sexes in society. Transforming from male to female could be seen by some as being knocked down a peg, rendering it much the same as the usual TF story we go for: a story of overcoming obstacles and becoming a better person for it.

3. Sex
Eeyup.

4. Fulfillment
Males are held to a certain standard in many modern societies. They have to be as strong, as cold, and as awesome/badass/swag-feathering-tastic as they can or else they're pushed to the bottom of the totem pole. From their outsider's point of view, women seem to have an easier time of being themselves in that aspect, even though it's not true - women's problems with public image are different but similar. But men see themselves as having to hold back their emotions, their supposed weaknesses, their urges to squee over puppies. Sometimes it's nice to let go, even vicariously. Sometimes it's nice to shrug off the weight of the male public image and try something less stressful for a day.

Now, this is all coming from a male-to-female transmare, so take it as you will.

I'm a fan of TF and TG both, I think its simply a numbers game, much as I want to read F2M as much as M2F...
If we look at places like Transformation Story Archives, TransFur, Shifti, FanFiction, etc... the ratio is pretty much the same. How real females would react to putting up with the macho BS guys do on a daily basis "Suck it up, buttercup! Are ya a sissy?" is a puzzle I want to see explored more by actual female writers. For some reason, there is a strange lack of female writers interested in TF or TG online. Is it because we all start out in the womb with the same equipment and only become males as the Y chromosome expresses itself?
At least here there is a way for guys to write F2M and still be in their comfort zone if the writer chooses to do Xenophile-type herd Equestrias, where there are so few males, they are treated like females were on Earth a century ago...
(Edit; corrected M2F to F2M in last paragraph)

3699612
I'm genuinely curious: where did you find that statistic? I am aware that 86% of bronies are male, according to the recent wide Brony study, but I wasn't able to find an estimate for fimfiction. If you could get a link that would be great.

3699582

The vulnerability factor is more indepth, and flows across the physical, emotional, and cultural spread. The physical factor is obvious - in general females are smaller and less strong than males (obviously with enormous exceptions in both directions) and it stands to reason that any transformation M=>F is going to involve a loss of physical power. (Unless a racial transformation is also included, in which case we can translate that sense of vulnerability to being unused to the body.) As physical capability is a fairly traditional masculine value, its loss can hit hard.

You know, that just makes me think how odd it is that many transformations involve a significant loss of body mass. Why wouldn't, for instance, a man retain almost precisely identical capabilities when changed?
Unless it's a magic change and the change specifies "you will receive proportionally less body mass, yada yada."
It wouldn't really be that odd, if you think about it. Only the very strongest of men are stronger than the strongest of women.

<rehashing baseless arguments already brought up 3 times>

Therefore, I am smart!

I always feel awkward writing F->M because I don't really get male sexuality, dealing w/ girl problems just comes easier than dealing w/ man problems. Like, you both feel afraid of jamming it in b/c it make girl pregnant, but you also want to jam it in b/c horny. How does that even work?

What I've noticed is that what hasn't touched upon yet is how much it could effect ones awarness of their identity. I feel that it's a very intersting area to explore in both directions, to build ontop of the idea that you might not have any idea who you are anymore because you don't look or feel the same. It's another layer to add to the insane mess of trying to understand yourself again. I think that it's also another reason MtF more poupuler. To not only go from who you were to someone else but also add on the perussers of being constantly told how to look or act being much more forcefully due to how much more directed it typicaly is towrds females and it gets very hard to find youself again. But that's just my two bits and I could be totaly worng, who knows?

3699801 Entertainingly enough, this actually relates to a dream I had a week or so ago. I got my hands on a potion that would temporarily change my gender, and gave it a swig, and it worked quite well...

...It wasn't until I went to one of my friends, told them about it, and got thoroughly laughed at that I looked in the mirror and discovered that the change was pretty much between the legs and pretty much nothing else. Still broad shouldered, male chest, heavy build, square jaw, and thoroughly bearded. (I know that it doesn't really make sense for me to have not noticed any of that before then, but hey, dream logic.)

The general expectation when you're looking at a magical or pseudo-magical transformation is that you're going to get the full package, and not just the package, so to speak. I am a large, heavy male - 6'3", over 120kg/260lb, with a heavy build in bone, muscle and fat alike; if I was to be magically transformed into a female that was in any fashion based on my own build rather than from scratch, then I would distinctly hope that that transformation would include a reduction in body mass, because it would assumedly involve a shift in other dimensions; there is no reason to expect that if my shoulders were less broad and my hips wider, that my remaining bone structure would not be similarly affected. It would be safe to assume that F!myself would have an overall shorter, less broad bone structure - I'd still be well above average, but female average - and if I kept the same body mass, that would be... aesthetically sub-optimal. (Ha ha, politically correct)

I'll agree on your call that only the strongest of men are stronger than the strongest of women, but I'd also say with pretty firm confidence that if you had a male and a female with otherwise identical genetic build and upbringing, the male is going to be physically larger and stronger; that's just part of human sexual dimorphism. As such, if the transforming agent is using that straight XY=>XX switch, and disregarding such silly things as physics and such, the resulting female is going to be smaller and weaker than they were, which is going to result in some degree of percieved vulnerability, if not actual vulnerability. If you're more concerned with that old 'conservation of mass' thing, the question basically becomes where the line is drawn - is it, as in my dream, just the genetic code and the reproductive organs? Bone structure? Muscle structure? Breasts? Hair? Where does the spell pull mass from, to go where? Can it turn fat into muscle, or change bone, or hair, or other?

The same questions obviously go for a F=>M transformation, although let's not get into futa here in this T-rated board. :) I know several women who are about 5 feet tall and weigh less than 100lb; if they were transformed F=>M, you'd expect a significant increase in body mass and size - although I would certainly agree that much of their slim nature would be due to their own choices and upbringing, so the resulting male equivilent would still be very skinny in comparison to average.

Again with the TL;DR: Your magic spell will do what your magic spell does. What do you want your magic spell to do? ;)

And the answer is, in the majority of cases, that we want the resulting transformee to be healthy and pretty, so the transformation will be a little more ideal than is strictly realistic :)

I'll agree on your call that only the strongest of men are stronger than the strongest of women, but I'd also say with pretty firm confidence that if you had a male and a female with otherwise identical genetic build and upbringing, the male is going to be physically larger and stronger; that's just part of human sexual dimorphism.

The cultural/social factors are even worse, frankly, but yes in that specific hypothetical, with identical amounts of exercise, the woman is going to be slightly smaller and weaker (how much is a biiiig question, but it's somewhere between 10-25% depending on what ethnic background you're talking about.)

Fun fact! Women of equivalent mass and toning have greater temperature tolerance and long-distance endurance than men. So, you know, they got that.

Again with the TL;DR: Your magic spell will do what your magic spell does. What do you want your magic spell to do? ;)

Depends on the needs of the story, really~
For instance, in a RPG, you'd expect the stats to translate across the board.

3699171
Nailed it.

3699520

...there is mostly a 50/50 ratio of male/female...

The show does not do a very good job showing this, if that were the intention. The scenes are heavily bastes towards one sex or the other. Farming and military tend to be stallions while just about everything else tends to be mares.

Crowed scenes are not a 50/50 mix either... It's way more biased towards mares.

So if that were their intentions then they did very poor execution in the show.

3699189
I enjoy a good transformation and few things screams terrible more than losing one's gender identity. Not only if the transformation changed them physically, but altered their likes as well.

Imagine going from a straight girl to a guy and now liking girls and being repulsed by guys... Even if she has a boyfriend at the time it will now feel like she is sleeping with his sister if they try to fool around.

Which is pretty hard for some characters to cope with.

3699720 I'll admit I didn't take this so much into account, and that's my own cultural bias - I am a geek, my social group is also mostly geeks (and those that aren't are almost entirely female) and the pressure for manliness is at an all-time low. A F=>M being forced to be manly around a group of construction workers or <insert stereotypically manly profession here> might be a very different thing to having to hang out with the sorts of people I know.

But on that note, when I think of the M=>F's "forced to fit in long term" trope, it's more traditional to have them hanging out with the frilly girly stereotypes... wheras again, if they ended up in my social group, chances are we wouldn't even notice. So yeah, I suppose it once more comes to changing wildly depending on situation.

3699907 How is that particularly different from "want it in me because horny, but afraid to have it in me because dont want to be pregnant"? I mean, apart from the obvious differences to who the consequences apply to - the same general thought processes occur.

3699911 This is an awesome comment. I remember reading an article years ago, about a woman who decided to try living as a man for a while and blog about it - dressed up, went to a new town, with the new identity, got a job, made friends, and basically tried to 100% live as this new identity. Found it really interesting, learnt quite a bit, blogged quite a bit.

In the end she actually cut the experiment short by a couple of weeks because she ended up having a bit of an identity/existential crisis.

That's a transformation that was entirely voluntary and reversable. Being transformed, even in a small way, would probably screw with our heads in ways that we can't even imagine. I can name a couple of fics here that explore that depth - First Pony View would be the first one that comes to mind, with Solitary Pinion a close second, with a little more focus on having to relearn how to use a whole new body; Diaries of a Madman (nope, no link there O_O) dabbles a little in it also.

The problem is that while the concept is really fascinating, it's really hard to write and even harder to write interestingly. It's easy to get into the headspace of "Hey, I'm female/male/a pony now, let's freak out about this for a bit and look at the immediate consequences for myself/the world around me/my sex life" and a little harder to get into that of "Hey, this body I'm in IS NOT MINE and that is FREAKING ME OUT because my brain is telling me that this is not how things are supposed to be and my body is doing confusing things and GET ME OUT OF THIS." The crisis that occurs is one that doesn't translate to words fantastically.

But even more problematic is that it doesn't make an interesting story.

It's an issue which can only reasonably have a long-term solution, as the individual comes to terms with their new form, or goes insane. But it's effectively ONE issue, and it's going to be handled in a slow, measured pace, without any drama or sudden epiphanies. Someone dealing with the day-to-day issues of being out of their comfort zone? That's interesting, and can evolve and continue for some time. Someone curled up in the corner having a panic attack and trying to claw off the offending pieces of their anatomy? Interesting... once or twice. Weeks or month of similar action, not so much. I quite enjoy First Pony View, but I really need to be in the right mood for it, because it does go on, and on, and on...

Anyway, that was a bit of a ramble... moving on... :)

3700059 The cultural factors are a huge part of this, I'll agree wholeheartedly with that. (Always fun when you listen to the girls at the gym who are trying to lose weight while carefully trying to NOT tone their limbs, because they don't want visible muscle definition)

Re: temp tolerance/endurance - I did not know that! The more you know. Although I have to say, if the first thought through your head when you end up in a female body is "wow, I don't mind the heat so much!"... I think you may have some interesting priorities. XD

Ehhh, depends on the RPG I think. I still remember back in the SNES days, when I was playing FF6, my primary caster was Sabin, the hulking fighter - simply because it had never occurred to me that the different characters had different stats, and that magic might be a little more effective if I used one of the, y'know, magic-focused girls to throw it around instead. Instead, I was just disappointed at how useless magic was compared to punching things, and ignored it. XD It wasn't until many years later that I realised how stupid this was.

But in your pen-and-paper RPG, yeah, your gender means nothing XD (Unless you are playing FATAL. In which case, stop playing FATAL, why would you do that, oh god.)

3700160

So if that were their intentions then they did very poor execution in the show.

Unless stallions don't often go to town. Heck, we've seen stallions hanging around in groups for no apparent reason, like near Rarity's.
Wait. Near Rarity's... that's a reason by itself.

3700160

The explanation I was given, by a fan who had no connections to the writers or the creative team yet somehow considered themselves an authority on the subject, was that girls can't hang out with boys, so since the main characters are girls we only see any of the other characters being girls, and if the main characters were stallions we'd be seeing nothing but sausage everywhere. Of course this would make me angry, because reinforcing the behavior of gender segregation means less opportunity for me to get laid. But I don't think it's true. Nevertheless, there are semi-reasonable possible explanations floating out there.

All the stallions are in Celestia's harem

3700210 Nothing new to add, just saying thanks for the compliment.

3700295 You are all sorts of welcome, sir or sir substitute.

3700273 Are you suggesting that fans with no connection to the show or its creators are not a valid source of wisdom and truth?!

Regardless, as with many things, it's likely at least partially true - little girl's show => mostly girls to show. Combine that with the fact that with a primarily female cast, the animators are going to simply be more experienced at drawing the females in various situations, and thus prefer to use them in random situations, and you end up with a self-perpetuating bias. Not saying it is true, but it sounds pretty likely to me.

And, as with so many other things that happen because it's a kid's show/cartoon/marketing ploy, it then falls to the fanbase to find ways to make things make sense. And to be fair, that's half the fun of both writing and reading fanfiction, isn't it? Harems for all!

3700160 I... think the original commenter here was actually referring to the artists/writers at dA being 50/50 M/F, rather than the ponies on the show...

I was wondering, just how would equestrian society affect such a change anyway? I mean sense most cases we are talking about would most likely leave the subject in Equestria because we are on FiMFiction, how would the diffrent social norms weigh on how they would cope. Plus does this affect how come MtF currently dominates FtM seeing how they can put the character in another world all together and there for lessen or intensify the experince all together?

3700332

It's not a kid's show, incidentally. It's a pony show. A Hasbro spokesperson once said that bronies don't "necessarily" fit the target demographic, but did not specify that they are not the target demographic. One nameless executive was quoted off the record in 2011 that it's for "daughters and their mothers". Discovery press stated that the Hub in general is intended to provide family friendly fun for children and their parents. You might assume that means it's for children, but nobody in the show has outright stated that their target demographic is children. They always qualify it with "and their parents." And despite what you might assume, an all-ages demographic does not mean "for kids."

I love pointing that out.

I'm not a mental health professional, just upfront. Honestly, if the poll results show this, it would surprise the pants off of me. Part of my vote (I can't remember exactly every box I checked) was to change *race*, or to become monstrous. Because if you're going to change, I figure you may as well go *all* the way. Plus, that gives real validity to the outsider perspective, and I enjoy that.

I would honestly expect the gender changing thing to be 50/50, but then again, I suppose the target audience does have something to do with that.

3700477 Your semantics are adorable and may well be accurate, but still just semantics. Yes, it has aspects of it that are tooled towards entertaining the parents and other older fans as well, but that does not change the fact that the show is targeted quite firmly at the 'little girl' demographic.

You can call family fun all you like, and you'd probably be correct for much of it, but I can pretty much guarantee you that those responsible for the show would sit up and pay attention a lot faster if they found out that the 'little girl' demographic was not watching their show, than if 'the mothers' or 'the bronies' were not watching their show.

Just because nobody in charge has made an official statement that "this show is for little girls" does not change the fact that "this show is for little girls". The ads for the show and the merchandise show an awful lot of young girls playing with the ponies. The toys in question are pretty firmly designed with that group in mind.

Regardless of the fact that they include entertainment for the whole family, and the bronies besides, many of the marketing, design, character, and story decisions are made with the show's primary demographic in mind, and that demographic is little girls. The brony fandom undoubtedly influences them as well, but the little girls (and what we can sell to them) will always take precedence.

3700547

Sorry, this is way off topic. Shutting up now.

Most stories are about characters from the show, and most characters are female. Unless there's a whole bunch of stories somewhere about Big Mac becoming female, I'd think there are more F->M stories on fimfiction.

3700597 Awr, rambling debates are fun, but you have a point :P Back to transformation!

3700606 There totally are! ...Well, more of Shining Armour to be honest...

I think the fact that there aren't that many fics of seeing the main characters transformed into males (as opposed to just being R63'd from the word go) is kind of a telling point, here...

A possible corollary to the fact that there are so few F -> M fics compared to M -> F is, if you look at pics instead of fics it appears to be the opposite. Because of 3700630 everyone who draws genderbending almost always draws the main 6, and almost always draws them as male, or at least futa. (Is there a picture where a "Dusk Shine" is shocked at being turned into a mare?)

3699157 I just find it funnier when a guy wakes up and he's like "wait... something's missing....." and he looks down "AAAAAAGAHAGAHGAGHSGHWEJFOERWNFV", BUT it is funny for both M-F and F-M

3701322
Is he freaking out because of something missing, or something added? I guess it's both.

3699157

Actually if you think about it a majority of the Equestrian world is female [485 to 266 F to M ratio]. So while on Earth [Globally not regionally] is about 1 to 1 ratio [or was it 1.1 f to 1 m?] a 1.85 f to 1 m Equestria ratio would mean that most of the Females would never get a male.

And with leaders, and ponies in power being mostly female. M to F makes sense. Although personally I like Futa fics, or Species transformations more than gender ones.

3702204
I think the assumption that there's a skewed gender ratio in Equestria is just that, an assumption that some people have made based on crowd shots. There could be a large number of purely socio-cultural reasons for why stallions don't come out in force for crowd scenes which are far more plausible than "they have a biased gender ratio."

3702231

Actually I did an indepth look at every scene. Did the math for every male and female shown [even those not given names] and counted them up. Took me 1 hr and 45 mins. http://www.fimfiction.net/blog/201457/canon-gender-split But I did it.

And even if there were socio-economical reasons for them not being in the background, or making a show in crowd scenes, or them rarely showing up in any amount of force foreground or background. It's usually the case that those who are more social, or go out into the community more often have the chance to socialize, thus the chance to find a mate, thus a chance to carry on the species. So in the end it'd still end the same as if they weren't alive to begin with.

Since canonically they don't have phones, or the internet. They lack the way for instant mass communication that lets people who lack social lives or a the ability to go out in public to have some semblance of a social life. Since if for what ever reason [and my count was counting those shown foreground and background] they are social shut ins that barely ever leave their parents house. Other than a short amount. Then they'd die before passing on their seed.

And yes, I admit that what I used was a controlled sample. Since all the ponies we see, are a small sampling of the society. But it's also the most busy times for those societies. Heck even Apploosa had a higher female ratio. And they were out in the boon docks where we could see all of them, or a majority. So I'm using that hard data [what we can actually see] to come to the higher than male conclusion.

3702305
You misunderstand the nature of my objection.
I'm not objecting to the idea that there are more females visible in crowd shots - that's pretty well accepted.

I'm saying that your assumptions that A) there is a skewed gender ratio and B) mares can't find mates are frankly rather unlikely. The latter is just stupid, especially if we assume even a 2:1 ratio. I can assure you that people found opportunity to screw even before the telephone, and if your society has a gender ratio then, frankly, promiscuity is going to be a thing.

For instance, consider a few alternative possibilities:
A) Stallions tend to work jobs that occupy them during those times of day. Mares don't feel the need to be confined to home and wander.
B) Culturally, stallions tend to be homebodies while mares tend to be the opposite (IE, the opposite expectation of human men and women.) You don't see as many stallions about because they tend to be staying home.
C) The extreme opposite - instead, stallions like to wander very far from home and aren't often seen just hanging around town.
D) Stallions are expected not to have interest in politics or daily tasks.

Any one of those alternatives blows the need for a skewed gender ratio and are simpler than an extreme biological event like a genetic gender imbalance - which, by the by, is selected against for mammalian species - so you're basically proposing an additional magical condition which forces a gender ratio, thus complicating your assumption even more.

I'd really like to know where you got this idea that you needed phones/the internet to have a social life in any town or city. Have you never heard of clubs? Meetings in cafes? Bars? I assume you realize that there are alternative means to have a social life, yes?
Someone's hang-time on the street is likely to be minimal if they go to and from a social space, and you can't count someone who's indoors from an exterior crowdshot.
People figured out ways to have social lives, you know. Try studying up on 19th century Paris or London, or the forums of Rome.

Frankly, unless someone comes out and SAYS that birth ratios are skewed, there's no real good reason to assume that it is.

I so rarely see an equal ratio of female characters in cartoons, movies, and television, that must mean there are fewer females in the various universes in question than there are males, to a significant degree.

In stark contrast to real life, where females are statistically more common.