Well, I'm not a biologist or historian, so I'm probably wrong, but here 
goes....

At 02:05 AM 10/30/96 -0600, Thomas R Jefferys wrote:

Um, no . . .
Or maybe, but they aren't what is portrayed in the curent western media.
For too long in pre-modern times being plump was considered desirable
for that to be an accurate assumption, for otherwise we have a culture
that is violently fighting its instincts.  (Not that I think society is
correct in this)

Ah, but you see, the thing that the limbic system is looking for in the
case of females is big breasts and big hips; ie, prime childrearing

Never mind the limbic system; the ego has been more important up to about a 
century or two ago ("I/My wife is fatter than you/your wife because I can 
afford more food than you can!  Nyah nyah nyah!" etc.).

Anyway, most female mammals don't grow breasts until they're already 
pregnant.  I don't know why humans do.

equipment. Being plump actually made them bigger in old times. But being
trim now makes those areas APPEAR bigger in relation to the rest of them,
fooling the limbic system.

Again, no.  One of the first places you *lose* fat when you become trimmer 
is your chest.  If you get *really* thin, a la Kate Moss, your reproductive 
system shuts down completely.  No periods or anything.

ie, same standard; different strategies for satisfying it.

So, the sixty-four million dollar question is what exactly is changed in
the limbic system, or animal brain. We know that Ranma's curse doesn't
touch the grey matter. It probably equips Ranma with a factory-issue female
body, equipped with an appropriately configured endocrine system to take
care of basic chores.

Does this depend on what the drowned girl's orientation was?

An endocrine system based off of Ranma's geneset.  <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Which is why I feel that it is most likely that she will continue to be
attracted to girls.

Ranma's geneset codes for both being attracted to males as well as females.
The male-seeking codes aren't used, but are there nonetheless. It takes
only one gene to turn a hetero female into a hetero male, as it triggers an

Isn't sexual orientation determined by the doses of your mom's hormones you 
get in utero, after your gender is set?  Then it would take one gene to turn 
a blank-slate female into a blank-slate male, but hetero happens later.

entire cascade effect. This makes the ratio of hetero males to hetero
females approximately 1:1.

Ranma's emotional conditioning (ie, his likes, dislikes, pet peeves,
sorrows, ect.) are probably untouched, which leaves "her" attracted to
females, because as a male, he has always been attracted to females because
of his male libido.

(fixed typo) Why is there this firm belief that a female libido == a
straight female libido?
There is no proof either way, and there probably never will be, but it
is about as likely, if not more, that instead of it being `attracted to
the opposite sex' it's `attracted to {female|male}' at the deepest
levels.

That's what I meant to say, but it just didn't come out that way. It's just
that the male-seeking libido makes reproductive sense only to females, and

No!  Let's *not* discuss which orientations (i.e. straight, gay, all-
-straight group, 90%-10% straight-gay group, etc.) make reproductive sense
and/or are natural!

See, this is already a flame war going on right now in several Usenet 
groups, and I really don't want to see the FFML get dragged into that mess.

vice versa, thus I dubbed the "female libido" to save keyboard wear. Yes,
fundamentally, the actual relation is 'attracted to {male|female}', but the
male-seeking and female-seeking libidos are pretty much the providence of
women and men respectively.

I would think that onna-Ranma would also have the female libido also, as
that is instinctive as well. It's hard-wired into the brain, and he also
has the appropriate genes to do that (he always did, even before he was
cursed. The difference between a male and female is only one gene).

Chromosome.  off by several orders of magnitude there.

Nope. The only sex-relivent gene that the Y chromasome carries the
testis-generating gene. The rest of it codes for trivial stuff (hairy
knuckes, ect) and genetic junk.

Speaking of X's and Y's, in birds XY is female and XX is male.  Any ideas on 
how this affects Mousse?

Case in point, there are some women who have Y's. The reason is that,
during crossover (when chromasomes exchange genes), the X and Y of the
father crossed over with each other accidentally (it doesn't normally
happen), crossing over at a point that transfered the testis-generator
"cluster" onto the X. It also happens the other way around; normal males
with two X's.

By comparing how often such a crossover happens to the incidence and
completeness of sex-switching, it can be determined that one single gene is
responsible for the entire female->male transformation. There are no
hermaphroditic in-betweens, like what you would get in a cluster

Yes there are.  I was volunteering in a hospital last year and I heard they 
call it a social emergency.  Those kids get reconstructive surgery very 
early; that's why there are so few hermaphroditic adults.  I didn't actually 
meet anyone who had that problem, though - most of the patients were in for 
snowblower accidents.

I think it's caused when the switching mechanism gets messed up (i.e. that 
gender gene says "male-on female-off" but for some reason both the penis and
vagina genes get the "on" message).

responsible for sex-differentiation.

That gene was isolated on the Y chromasome as part of the Human Genome project.

One gene. Count 'em, one.

Wait a minute.  Girls also get a copy of the switch for sex-specific genes, 
so it can't normally be on the Y.  

Otherwise, boys would display only male traits (the female ones are switched 
off) but girls would display both male and female ones (without a Y, there'd 
nothing to switch off the male ones).

So there must be another gene somewhere else that does the switching.

procedure gender;
  begin
    IF ((c[43,1]=X) AND (c[43,2]=X)) THEN (g:=F)
    ELSE
    IF ((c[43,1]=X) AND (c[43,2]=Y)) THEN (g:=M);
  end;

Anyone else here remember Pascal?

Footnote: The X also has little in terms of sex-specific genes. Mostly, it
for color vision, blood factors, ect, and the all important gene, DNA
polymerase, which enabes DNA to reproduce itself.

The genes really relevent for sex are located on other chromasomes. That
means that they are fully backed-up.

Good point.  That's how a grandfather can pass on male-only traits to his 
daughter's son, and vice versa with a grandmother and her son's daughter.

Of course, there is a firm possibility that the `female' responce is
quite similar to the `male' responce, and has the same standards for
just who is desirable.

Except that they're geared to different sexes? :)

Another good point.  A lot of standards can apply to both genders equally.
Remember last spring when Marisa posted her list of what she wanted in a 
boyfriend and Kun-chan answered almost all the questions?

Ranma's in a losing battle, and since it is instinctive, there's not much
she can do about it. I can't help being straight because it is my nature,

Then again, if even Kodachi could join a convent....

any more than a homosexual can help being homosexual.

Of course, this depends on whether the female libido is present.

and on the `female libido' being attracted to men.

male-seeking libido (by definition, attracted to men).

I'm sure it is biology. Such an important thing like getting the interface
for reproduction right can't be left to mere chance or culture.