Courtship roles, reversed

[breakinglight11]

Someday I want to write something that pointedly subverts all the male-female courtship tropes. I want to reverse all the things we tend to expect for people's behavior during the building of a romantic relationship, having the man inhabit the woman's traditional role and vice versa. And I want to do it in a way in which they both come off as otherwise totally normative examples of their gender. I'm not talking about writing a butch woman and a feminine man. I'm talking about two people who are in every way cisgendered and even "normal" for their gender, but do not conform to the traditionally assigned roles that people expect to be filled for two straight people in a romantic relationship, because these things come from society, not anything in our nature.

Once I had an idea for something in which the protagonist was a sort of knight-errant figure who devotedly served and fought to save the kindgom of the beautiful, virtuous royal they loved from afar, in sort of the kind of relationship that Link and Zelda have in the Legend of Zelda video games. Only in this version, the knight would be the woman, and the object of the courtly love would be a wise and beautiful prince. I love that idea. I'd like to explore the notion that our traditional courtship roles are one of the most artificially constructed aspect of our gender norms. There's so much that we've settled on as the model for how these things works. Who is the pursuer and who is the pursued. What qualities make which partner "attractive." The things we're expected to want out relationships. Et cetera. I want to mess with all of those tropes, show that they're external to our expression of our gender and it doesn't change who we are based on what expected behaviors we express.

Comments

[katiescarlett29.livejournal.com]

I LOVE IT. Can I be in it? :p

[lightgamer.livejournal.com]

This sounds most excellent!

[darkoni]

Sounds awesome.

[witticaster.livejournal.com]

I enjoy the idea and would love to read it, but a lot of your explanation seems contradictory to me. A "normal" man or woman is one who conforms to societal gender roles.

"I'd like to explore the notion that our traditional courtship roles are one of the most artificially constructed aspect of our gender norms."

Latching on to that, it seems your plan is to stick as closely to the other artificial definitions of "feminine" and "masculine" as possible while still overturning the courtship rituals? Thus proving that even within society's system of gender those definitions are arbitrary?

[breakinglight11.livejournal.com]

Kind of the point I want to make is that people are allowed to pick and choose what sort of behaviors feel right to them, and that can be incorporated into whatever view you have of your gender identity. That can be who you naturally are but not have to conform to every idea society has about that in order to be so (like, for example, being a ciswoman who feels feminine but acts as the pursuer in the romantic relationship). I think that point would be most effectively made by having the traditionally opposite behavior exhibited by otherwise normative examples of the gender. If, say, a butch woman did it, it would be too easy to say, "Well, butch women act like men, so she's still acting as a normative example of her gender identity." I would want to explore that one can incorporate things that are not traditional for your gender identity without compromising the truth of it.

[morethings5.livejournal.com]

Re: the reversed-roles knight-errant story, have you ever read The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch? It is a silly funny children's book (by an amazing author), but basically is exactly that story with an amazing ending.