Let's see…I can spend an entire essay mangling Cliffjumper quotes…or I can spend the time and space yammering on about sex, gender, and Transformers. Which would be more interesting…? Hmmmmm…

Oh, heck, like there'd be any question which would be more interesting, at least to me… So, yes, this is your alert, kiddies. I'm going to talk about gender in here and how it applies (or doesn't apply) to Transformers. And I'm going to talk about sex in here and how it applies (or doesn't apply) to Transformers. Those may (or may not) be touchy subjects for you, and if they are…Well, I'd ask why the heck you clicked on the link that led you here. But whatever… Some of my opinions may (or may not) be offensive or blasphemous or something similarly heinous to you. If so, feel free to flame me…and I'll feel free to ignore you. Or maybe I'll even try my darndest to change your mind. I can sometimes be a glutton for punishment that way.

Anyway, there you go. Your warning. You're heading into possibly dangerous and offensive territory, and I can't guarantee that you'll come out of this essay happy. Then again, maybe you'll be deliriously happy. Or maybe you'll just come out of it thinking something like, "She's totally whacked." (Which is true, but that's beside the point.) Anyway, I just don't know what you'll think of this. And neither do you, unless you read it and see what I have to say. So, with that in mind…Off we go! MWAHAHAHAHAHAH!

*ahem*

One of the things that I've always liked about Transformers is that…they aren't human. It's true! It seems like a simple thing and an obvious thing, but it's totally, totally true. It's rare to find a sci-fi alien species that isn't just "humanity in disguise." I mean, I've long been a Star Trek fan, for instance, and one of the things that's always frustrated me about the show(s) is that, in general, no matter where you go in the show, you find people who are really just like humans. And I'm not just talking physically here. Obviously, the shows were limited by the fact that human actors had to be used to portray aliens. There wasn't much the creators of the shows could have done about that. Oh sure, occasionally there were some "out there" creatures, like the original series' Horta, a silicon-based (as opposed to a carbon-based) lifeform that resembled a large, mobile sausage pizza and that was so un-human that the only way to communicate with it was via Spock's ever-helpful mindmeld. But that sort of thing was not the norm…and even this freaky creature's motivation in life was simply to protect as-yet-unborn children, even down to killing multiple humans in order to do so. Just about any human mother could relate to that, I should think.

So, overall, with Star Trek — and the same holds true for most other modes of sci-fi, too, so far as I've seen — the norm was alien species…that weren't really alien at all. Not physically, not emotionally, not psychologically, not moralistically, etc. Everywhere you went…Well, you might as well be on Earth and up to your eyeballs in Homo sapiens sapiens.

How very…mundane.

"Mundane," as you probably know, is boring. And I am, at heart, a writer. "Mundane" and its associated boredom is, as far as I'm concerned, the death knell for one's creativity, in writing or in any other form of creative expression. That's especially true when it comes to me, personally. I yearn for "different" in order to keep my interest stoked and to keep my creative juices flowing. I yearn for something that I can think about and come up with explanations for that doesn't serve to turn an alien species into "humans in disguise." I yearn for something that I can play with, something that I can make very different from humans in at least some ways — though at the same time not so different that I (and everyone else) can't relate to them. That's a fine line to walk, a delicate balance to maintain. Or it can be, at any rate. It certainly can be when you're talking about organic aliens, even ones as odd as the aforementioned Horta…

…But it seems to me that it's not quite so difficult when you're talking about giant transforming robots from outer space. Really, it isn't. Or at least, it doesn't have to be. You can make Transformers different in just about any and every way, because they don't have any limitations due to, for one thing, an organic nature/physiology. But one thing I've noticed in my web travels and my TF fanfic-reading is that many authors seem to have fallen into the "trap" of making TFs as "human" as they possibly can. I'm not sure why… I mean, that's their prerogative if they choose to go that way, of course. There's nothing "wrong" with it…but to me that comes dangerously close to being "mundane." Mundane, if you'll recall, is what I, personally, want to avoid if at all possible.

And one area in which I've particularly noticed a fanfic-author tendency to "humanize" TFs is the area of interpersonal relationships and reproductive biology. It seems to be particularly a problem with my fellow female writers, I've noticed. They'll create a (often self-insert) female character, wedge her into the TF storyline, pair her up with (usually) their favorite (male) character…and the soap opera proceeds from there, complete with crying and pining and whining to (other mystically-appearing) female TF friends and/or sisters, each of whom is also paired up with another established male characters, and all of that other stereotypical "girl stuff." Yep, human interpersonal relationships — stereotypically soapy ones, even — wedged right into the TF universe. And then… Oh, and then there is the entire "subgenre" of fanfic authors who do smutty stuff with TFs. It exists, indeed! And yes, I've read pretty much all of it, and I have no shame about having done so. Why? Because. quite frankly, I'm always searching for fellow authors who see things more or less as I do…although until very recently, I hadn't found any…but I'm getting ahead of myself. Anyway, for those authors who "branch out" into explicitly smutty stuff, all sorts of "humanization" generally occurs. Suddenly, there are female TFs with mushy, bouncy breasts. There are male TFs with penises. There are orgasms and ejaculations and all of that stuff. And don't even talk to me about the stuff that some authors force upon male/male TF pairs, poor lads. ;)

Anyway, it can sometimes be quite amusing, at least to me, to see all of the twists and turns authors make in the so-called "smutfics," and it seems to me as if it's all done in order to make TF sex just like human sex — and with the same result, even! Swollen-bellied, grumpy, morning-sick, hormonal, pregnant female TFs who give birth just like humans do abound in fanfic. In fact, pregnant male TFs exist in TF fanfic. Which is different, in a way, yes…but the overall concept is still very much the same.

My question is…Well, why? There are very specific reasons why humans have interpersonal relationships in the way that we do. There are very specific reasons why sex, for humans, occurs in the way that it does. They are all grounded in our species' genetics, biology, psychology, etc. And that biological "foundation" is, of course, layered with various cultural norms and taboos that came about for, again, very specific reasons. And all of that stuff, the biological and the cultural, is specific to Earth, at least, if not specific just to humans. And the TFs, of course, are not from Earth. So why is there this tendency to make them so human-like, especially in the area of interpersonal relationships and sex? Again, I'm not saying that it's wrong to do it — Not at all! There is no such thing as "wrong" in fanfic — and I don't mean to criticize the authors that do follow that path. That's not my intention here. I just see things quite differently, is all, and my intention here is to make known how I see things, personally...in the hope of perhaps finding more people who agree with me, if any exist. ;)

Because to me, to do all of this "mental gymnastics" in order to try to force TFs into a human-like "mold" in this area rather cancels out the most enticing things about TFs in the first place: That they aren't human, and that, therefore, a fanfic author is free to invent all sorts of weirdness for them in the area of reproductive biology, among other things. I have my theories as to why fanfic authors "humanize" especially this aspect of TFs, of course…but my purpose here is not to explore what other authors do and why they do it, but to explore what I do and why I do it.

So let's start at the beginning, shall we? First, a brief-ish overview of why things are the way they are for humans and other Earth critters. Then we'll tie it in with my theory of TF origins. (Which is found here, and you should probably read it, if you haven't already done so at some point, prior to going any further with this one.) And then we'll draw some scary conclusions. Fasten your seatbelts.

For much of the history of life on Earth, the planet was dominated by (relatively) simple, single-celled organisms. Earth at the time was a planet of mostly bacteria. (Well, it still is, actually…but that's beside the point.) These bacteria reproduced by a very simple means: They duplicated their genetic material and then split their bodies into two separate, new ones, dividing the duplicated genetic material evenly between them. In fact, this is the way that most reproduction occurs — at least on a cellular level — for all life on Earth. Every cell in your body, for instance — except nerve cells and reproductive gametes (eggs and sperm) — continually undergoes this process of division. You are literally not the same person, physically, that you were, say, six weeks ago. Almost all of your physical body is different now. Anyway, this process of division is called mitosis and it's a form of asexual reproduction. Meaning, reproduction that doesn't require an exchange of genetic material between two individuals of the same species.

Somewhere along the line, though, amongst those very same bacteria, sex developed. Bacteria developed over time a way to exchange genetic material between two different individuals before the process of mitosis commenced. This was a very important development. In fact, without it, life never would have progressed beyond bacteria — or at least if it had, it would have been very different than life as we know it today. The exchange of genetic material between individuals — which is the very definition of sexual reproduction; it really has nothing to do with copulation, which is entirely different — allowed for variation between individuals in a species because reproduction was then no longer a simple "Xeroxing" process. Sexual reproduction instead creates new individuals that differ from each parent in genetic makeup, depending upon which genes the "parents" exchange. Possession of such variations is the means by which species are able to adapt to changing environments. Those with favorable variations survive to reproduce when, for instance, the Earth decides to take a dive into a glacial age…or when humans decide to spew all sorts of noxious, atmosphere-altering chemicals into the air. So, in the end, sex and the genetic variation that it creates within a species is very, very important to the survival of life on Earth. Life on Earth would not be the same without it — if it would exist at all, that is.

But now let's advance a little further along in time. Eventually, long after the development of sex, some species developed gender, which means more or less that some individuals within a population became adapted to, say, produce eggs or carry a developing individual of the species within their own bodies. In addition, the reproductive material became divided between the genders so that one of each (usually, that is; there is a weird process called parthenogenesis in which only an unfertlized egg is needed) was needed to create a new member of the species. Not all species followed this path, however. Most worms, for instance, are hermaphrodites, having both male and female sex organs on board, so to speak. (Some humans and other "higher" animals are born that way, too.) Flowering plants also are generally hermaphroditic, in the sense that the flower has both male and female parts. But anyway, gender is fairly common on Earth now. There is some debate as to why that is so, since it's inherently "harder" than, say, self-fertilizing hermaphroditism…but that's neither here nor there for my purposes here.

For my purposes, it's enough to say that many species on Earth — including humans, of course — rely upon two sexually dimorphic (Meaning that males and females are physically different from each other) genders in order to propagate the species. Quite frankly, we're stuck with it, And while we now have cloning technology that can potentially overcome that limitation — If we can clone sheep and cats, we can certainly clone humans; we are no more "complex," genetically speaking at least, than any other mammal — human culture is of course still based on the much older and more deeply ingrained method of reproduction. We are, as I said, stuck with the whole "reproduction via dimorphic gender" package. Without it, our species would not, at this point in time, survive.

The question that follows in my mind, of course, is whether or not Transformers could logically have the same "dependency," whether or not they'd be stuck with something like that package, too. So let's deal with that next...

If you go strictly by either the cartoon or the comic…it would certainly appear that such is not the case. According to the comic and the cartoon, Transformers reproduce strictly by asexual means — Everything from "budding" to spiritual infusion by a quasi-godlike computer to the very God-like Primus bringing forth TFs from Cybertron itself, like the Hebrew Yahweh forming Adam from the dust of the Earth, has been suggested in the canon material as a means of Transformer reproduction/creation. None of these methods require anything like sex. None of them require anything like gender, either...

…Yet, the Transformers at least appear to have gender, in both the comic and the cartoon. Why would this be if the TFs don't reproduce sexually, if they have, indeed, no need to reproduce sexually? One theory I've seen put forth is that the Quintessons — the creators of the Transformers, in the cartoon continuity — wanted to have female-looking robots to sell to their customers for whatever reason. I…don't buy that, myself, no. It makes no sense to me. And in fact, thinking about this very issue — the question of why female TFs exist at all — is what eventually led me to my own theory of TF origins.

I already wrote a big essay about that, though, so I won't rehash it. Suffice it to say for the purposes here that I think TFs have an organic origin, that they started out as a sexually dimorphic humanoid species and that, due to many different circumstances, they ended up transferring their organic minds into robotic bodies, sort of like what was done to Spike in the cartoon episode "Autobot Spike." If you want to know all the gory details, go read the origin essay if you haven't already done so. In the end, though, I believe that TFs have gender simply because that is what they were used to, from way back when. They were used to that "sexually-dimorphic gender package"…and all of the implications thereof, and for whatever reason they wanted that to carry over into their new existence.

However, even once I accepted that, there were still some fairly serious questions in my mind concerning whether or not the TFs' genders were necessary for reproduction or whether they were simply outward affectations designed to give the TFs, in their new existence in robotic bodies, some sense of "balance," something that was familiar and therefore comforting. After all, with robotic bodies come some decidedly advantageous conveniences. Like the ability to simply build new individuals in a factory, for instance, rather than having to go through the laborious — for the female — and time-consuming process of pregnancy and labor/delivery, plus a long phase of child-rearing. Why do that when you can simply build new bodies, especially when you have a convenient supercomputer lying around that can infuse that "empty" body with a personality made "to order?" (A la the Aerialbots and Stunticons in "The Key to Vector Sigma") Why have sexual reproduction — and therefore meaningful genders — at all?

The answer, in my mind — when I finally stumbled upon it — was fairly simple. Most of the reproductive methods put forth by the canon material rely upon technology or upon something outside of and separate from the TFs themselves in order to succeed. The canon methods rely upon, for instance, the know-how to build new bodies and the availability of facilities and materials with which to accomplish that construction. They rely upon, for instance, the existence of a supercomputer or a "creation matrix" or, if you prefer, the godlike Primus to infuse a soulless "shell" with a fully-sentient cybernetic personality. As far as I'm concerned, that sort of dependency — particularly on something like Vector Sigma, which apparently is a one-of-a-kind thing — is a very dangerous thing. Knowledge can be lost. Factories can be destroyed and never rebuilt due to, for instance, a lack of resources with which to do so. Supercomputers can malfunction or be destroyed…or Silverbolt can come along and merrily destroy the only key that activates the darn thing. And gods tend to be flighty and, being sentient, they can get snippy and decide not to do their god thing anymore or — worse — they can decide to wipe out a significant percentage of the population and destroy a good percentage of the planet and then decide not to do their god thing anymore. In short, any one of a number of things can interrupt a method of reproduction that relies upon something external to the species itself. Which is why, in the end, I came to believe that while other asexual methods of reproduction certainly exist and are feasible and are used sometimes — Vector Sigma comes in really handy in an emergency situation, for instance — TFs also no doubt have a means by which to reproduce sexually. It simply makes sense to me. In the end, I asked myself, "Why chain the TFs to only one method, as humans are so chained?"

Why, indeed?

But then, having accepted that, I found myself running into a Catch-22 sort of situation. Way back in the beginning of this thing, I said that I didn't much care for "humanizing" TFs in every particular aspect of their existence, and that is definitely true. I don't care for that much at all…yet there I was, concluding that TFs reproduced sexually. Which of course is quite "human-like" — or at least, it can be. Now, in some ways, as I said, a method of sexual reproduction for the TFs made sense. If nothing else, according to my origin theory, it's what they were "used" to. But on the other hand…Well, I personally and selfishly wanted something different from humans. So then it was time for me, like the smutfic authors, to do some "mental gymnastics."

I started to think about why there was such an abundance of male TFs and a comparative extreme paucity of females, at least so far as we ever see on the 'toon. (There are, after all, only six named female TFs on the cartoon — Elita-1, Chromia, Firestar, Moonracer, Arcee, and Beta. We do see a couple more here and there in the backgrounds of some episodes, yes…but not many.) That lack of females, indeed, became the key to the way that I see things. Most fanfic authors who believe that TFs reproduce sexually (and therefore in a manner analogous to the human method) will tend to get around the lack of females by simply creating a bunch of female characters and then merrily pairing them off with established male characters...and then they send them off to…uh, do their thing.

I, on the other hand, feel that there's absolutely no reason whatsoever to do that. Why? Because I firmly believe that the TFs' genders, "now," are completely meaningless. I believe that, "now," there are no real, meaningful differences — in terms of reproduction, at least — between "male" and "female" TFs. I do believe that perhaps in the distant past — shortly after their "transformation" from organic to cybernetic, for instance — that perhaps the genders had more meaning, that perhaps, even, one member of each gender was necessary for reproduction, if they were using a sexual route. And if so then at that time, I think that there was probably a more or less even split between male and female in the population, much as there is with male and female humans on Earth now.

But I think that as time went on and their culture fundamentally changed because of the changes that had been wrought in their bodies and their planet, they would have realized how…limited they were being. I think they probably realized eventually that, with their new manner of existence, gender wasn't really necessary anymore… which eventually resulted, for whatever reason, in the decline of one of the genders, and in this case it happened that the "female" gender withered, to the point that, "now," the females are virtually gone. They're simply not needed anymore, or at least they don't need to be females in the same sense that human females need to be female for reproductive purposes.

Mind you, I do not believe, personally, that TFs are androgynous, meaning that they have no gender at all. Some people believe that, yes, and I do see and understand their reasoning, indeed. But I don't proceed on that theory at all. No, I believe that the Transformers are gendered but that they are "now" almost all male. Hence, they use male pronouns rather than neuter ones…and they do have and use female ones, too, because the females aren't all gone…yet. But in any case, as far as I'm concerned, the overall situation is sort of like how a hive of bees, for instance, is almost all female. As with a beehive, a bunch of individuals of different gender simply isn't necessary on Cybertron, so why bother maintaining the split? My general, pseudoscientific term for it is that Transformers have one "vestigial gender" and that it happens to be the female one. There was once a reproductive reason, perhaps, why females existed…before the Transformers moved on to something that made more sense for a robotic species. So the females that are left and that are sometimes still "born" are simply the remnant of a slowly dying breed, the same way that a human appendix is the remnant of what used to be a large and very necessary-for-survival caecum. No longer. Humans can get along perfectly well without an appendix, if they have to. I simply feel that Transformers can get along perfectly well without a single female. In fact, I feel that, eventually, they will get along perfectly well without females.

Of course, you probably have some inkling as to the main ramification of this thinking of mine… ;) Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out, does it? But I'll summarize for you, just in case. Nightwind believes that:

A) Although other avenues are open to them and are sometimes used, the Transformers normally reproduce sexually, meaning that more than one individual and an exchange of infomation between those individuals is required for reproductive success.

B) The Transformers are almost all male.

So where does that pair of premises lead you? Yep, I firmly believe that male/male pairings for the purposes of reproduction are the norm amongst Transformers, simply because the majority of the population is currently male. However, I also believe that a male/male pairing is not at all different from a male/female or a female/female pairing and that any and all of the above is considered, amongst Transformers, to be perfectly acceptable and completely normal. After all, for them — in my mind, at least — the process of sex and its reproductive outcome is exactly the same in all three cases…but we'll get to that in a minute. To me, there would be no need for any sort of taboo like the human taboo against homosexuality — which arose, I believe, solely because homosexuality in humans doesn't result in reproduction and is therefore potentially harmful to the species' survival. People will "coat" that biological basis for the taboo with, for instance, religious rhetoric and "morality," but I don't think that's the real "heart" of the taboo, no. But whatever the case is with humans, it simply is not the case, in my mind, with Transformers, and I think they would see that particular taboo as, at the very least, completely baffling. ("The Human Condition," a fanfic by Wayward, illustrated this particular issue beautifully — particularly Part 4 of the fic— and although our thinking as to why the taboo would be baffling is slightly different, I, for one, was deliriously happy to see that bit in Wayward's fic. :D ) And beyond even that, bear in mind, from the earlier discussion of sex and gender amongst Earth lifeforms, that sex — and its benefits to the species that practiced it — developed well before dimorphic gender. So there is precedence, of a sort, for my theory even right here on good ol' Earth.

Soooooo... Are you grossed out yet? Are you squirming and twitching yet? I can certainly see how you might be. The human cultural bias against "same sex relationships" is very strong in most people, after all. But, bear in mind again that we're not talking about humans here, no matter how much fanfic authors will try to humanize them. We're talking about an alien species. This is, as I said, one of the main reasons why I like TFs so much, because they're not human. So, if you're not yet inclined to run screaming for the hills and/or to spew a wall of flames at me yet, let's move on, shall we?

Once I accepted the fact that Transformers reproduced sexually and once I figured out why females are so scarce...I still wasn't done yet. Because inevitably the question of...uh, mechanics will pop up. As in, how TFs "have sex" and what the result of that is. So, this could be either the really good part of the essay or the really squirm-inducing part, depending upon your point of view. ;) Unfortunately, it'll be the really short part, too, because my thinking is pretty straight-forward on the issue...and somewhat incomplete, as well.

Now, earlier, I mentioned that, for people who indulge in writing smutty TF stuff, the general tendency is to make things very human. The tendency applies if the author is writing a male/female pair and it tends to apply when the author is writing a male/male or a female/female pair, a phenomenon generally known as "slashing" or "yaoi/yuri." But, as I said, I tend to try to avoid humanizing as much as I can while still keeping things...interesting...for a human readership. So the question of "mechanics" became something of a challenge to me...a challenge that I largely resolved during the course of a Buddhist meditation retreat, believe it or not. :) I felt obligated to come up with a somewhat different sort of "sex act" than that in which humans indulge, whether the pair in question is hetero- or homosexual, yet still erotic enough that human readers would relate to it in that way. Additionally, I wanted something that didn't rely on any sort of gender differences because I wanted a method that would work for a male/female pair just as well as it would work for a male/male or female/female pair. I wanted it all to be uniform but at the same time I also wanted it to be different than what humans do.

The question plagued me for a while...although as usual Star Trek gave me something of the answer I was looking for. Inspiring, that show can be, just as often as it can be utterly infuriating and frustrating. ;)

Now, one of the things that I've always liked about Transformers, aside from their non-humanness, is their "duality," for lack of a better term. To me, a Transformer is not just a sentient robot but is rather a sentient (and organically-based) mind that happens to be fused with a robotic body. In my mind, the one part — the mind — can exist at least for a short time independently of the other part, although the body would be a meaningless thing without the mind. In my head, Transformers could, if they wanted to, change bodies as easily as humans change clothes...although apparently they prefer not to do so for whatever reason.And because of that duality, I tend to believe that, for TFs, bodies are disposable and somewhat unimportant in the grand scheme of things, though certainly useful. To me, what would be more important to a TF would be his or her mind. (Or "spark" or "laser core" or whatever you want to call it. Generally, I use the term "spark"... although I'm not entirely happy about doing so. I do prefer that term to "laser core," however.)

And so my ultimate answer to The Sex Question™ is that, when TFs reproduce, they reproduce minds, not mere bodies. Bodies they can simply build, yes. And yes, a supercomputer can create a mind if need be...but as I said I'm uncomfortable with that being the TFs' sole means of reproduction. It's not because of any need to "humanize" them, though; it's simply because I think, as I said, that relying on something outside of the TFs themselves for reproductive purposes is potentially dangerous for the species' long-term survival and that there would have to be some sort of assurance that the species would go on even if those exterior "agents" up and disappeared. So I think in general, in non-emergency situations, that TFs create new minds via something very much like sex. (In the sense of sex meaning "exchanging genes," not in the sense of copulation.) As I said, Star Trek faintly inspired this; I've always thought of the Vulcan mind meld — a merging and mutual exploration of two separate minds — as a very erotic thing, way more erotic than the messy bumping and grinding of human copulation.

So, in the end, here's what I came up with: I envision two (or more; why limit oneself? :) ) TFs in any combination of gender simply fusing their sparks/minds/whatever...although it's not as dry, in my mind, as that sounds. Remember that I consider mind-merging a very erotic thing...and I think it would have certain physical effects, too. I think such merging also creates a permanent bond between the two (or three or whatever) individuals, a bond that cannot be broken. (The TFs, in my mind, have no word for "divorce," no. Their "marriages" really are "Till death do us part." And for that reason, "casual sex" doesn't exist on Cybertron. At least, not on my Cybertron. ;) ) And then, if they wish to, I envision a bonded pair (Or trio or quartet or whatever) having the ability — should they choose to use it — to exchange various mental traits and characteristics inherent in their respective sparks while they are engaged in an active fusion, resulting in the formation of a new spark. How it would proceed from there in terms of "gestation" is still very much open to question in my mind. At the moment, I tend to lean toward a "budding" method — the method of choice of the hydra here on Earth — in which the new spark, once created via a merge, "grows" off one of the parents' sparks and is in due time (Probably a short amount of time) removed (Or it emerges all by itself — Ouchies!) and is then placed into a (fully "adult"-sized) body. That might change as I think about it more, however, especially if I actually decide to use it in a fic in some manner.

In any event, when all is said done, what I have devised for my own personal usage with TFs is a society and a species that is, indeed, gendered but one in which gender is also more or less meaningless, at least in terms of reproduction. I've created a species that reproduces sexually but in a manner that does not rely on gender or, indeed, on anything physical at all. So, essentially, I've turned the TFs into glorified, mind-melding, bond-forming robotic bacteria that mate for life. Yay me. :)

You may now commence screaming at the top of your lungs...or flaming...or both. ;)