- Joined
- Jun 3, 2016
Hear me out. What if there was a legitimate 3rd functional gender? What if their genitals along with a penis and vagina were needed to mate? What would these genitals look like?
What if we needed a third pair of functiining genitals to reproduce?
- Thread starter Mariposa Electrique
- Start date
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- Apr 19, 2022
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2022
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2018
Jesus, I have a hard enough time finding just one person to have sex with. Now you're telling me I need to find two willing to put up with me?
- Joined
- May 14, 2019
Otherworldly worms with three sexes discovered in Mono Lake: Eight species of nematode discovered in the lake's harsh conditions
The extreme environment of Mono Lake was thought to only house two species of animals -- until now.
www.sciencedaily.com
I'll read it tomorrow, but apparently this does already exist.
- Joined
- Apr 8, 2020
The whole point of sexual reproduction is that successful organisms pass their (theoretically successful) genes to the offspring instead of aimlessly mutating like bacteria. But when they do, they already lose 50% of their genes in a created egg/sperm, and if there were 3 distinct sexes the gametes would lose 66% of genes, making this variant of natural selection kinda pointless. But, just for fun, what possibilities could there be?
1) Maybe there'd be two distinct kinds of males with advantages in different characteristics, like physical strength and intellect, and conception requires both of them?
2) Bees already have a basically 3-sex system with queens, male drones, and infertile female workers.
3) Jellyfish have an alternating reproductive cycle where one attaches itself to a rock, becomes a polyp and reproduces asexually, and then these created jellyfish breed the regular way. I guess, that's more of a life stage than a separate sex.
4) Some species have trioecy - males, females and hermaphrodites. It's usually seen as transitionary to a regular male-female system and not very evolutionary stable.
5) Maybe there could be 3 sexes in a way that there's female and male who just create gametes and an infertile that bears the fetus? Can't really think of advantages that this system would have.
6) Similar to point 1, but there maybe could exist a YY male along with XY, but that would mean a significantly reduced female population, and that's not evolutionary viable.
1) Maybe there'd be two distinct kinds of males with advantages in different characteristics, like physical strength and intellect, and conception requires both of them?
2) Bees already have a basically 3-sex system with queens, male drones, and infertile female workers.
3) Jellyfish have an alternating reproductive cycle where one attaches itself to a rock, becomes a polyp and reproduces asexually, and then these created jellyfish breed the regular way. I guess, that's more of a life stage than a separate sex.
4) Some species have trioecy - males, females and hermaphrodites. It's usually seen as transitionary to a regular male-female system and not very evolutionary stable.
5) Maybe there could be 3 sexes in a way that there's female and male who just create gametes and an infertile that bears the fetus? Can't really think of advantages that this system would have.
6) Similar to point 1, but there maybe could exist a YY male along with XY, but that would mean a significantly reduced female population, and that's not evolutionary viable.
- Joined
- Dec 7, 2020
- Joined
- Jan 15, 2014
The Iain M. Banks novel The Player of Games has a species with three sexes - the males, the “apexes,” who carry the eggs, conceive and have a reversible sort of vagina/ovipositor and the females, who provide genetic information via the womb and carry the child to term. Generally it’s a pretty good bit of sci-fi - the three sexes thing is only one part of the bizarre civilisation.