Just as the popular majority of romance fiction features dominant man and submissive woman, there is a minority category of romance fiction that is not being told enough. And that is Role Reversal romance. Even less than LGBT fiction in Media. I genuinely think LGBT folks have more media representation than gender Role reversal does. Role reversal is just rarely ever represented.

Role Reversal just like the name implies, is the reversal of the roles typically assigned to each gender in romantic relationships. A role reversal romance fiction will then definitely look like something like a dominant woman and a very submissive male counterpart. I would have said it can also be a masculine woman with a feminine man as partner, but a lot of feminine women are dominant too. And I’ve seen (though VERY FEW) masculine men be completely submissive too. So dominance is not an exclusively masculine trait.

Truly, there is not enough representation for role reversal romance stories in fiction, media and even in film. And this article was written just to call attention to that. It baffles me that the “normies” or rather traditional heteronormative people assume that everyone will fall into the dominant male, submissive woman roles in society. But that surely cannot always be the case. It would be ridiculous to assume that all 4 billion men on earth are somehow the perfect macho, alpha dominant male, while the other 4 billion women are small, submissive and breedable. That makes no sense because people regardless of their gender are not a monolith.

This brings me to my theory of diversity. This theory is purely drawn out of my own observations through life. For every majority class, population, sect, thought, tribe, race, or whatever, there will always be diversity in that subgroup. And these diversities give rise to majority population (those who are fortunate enough to coincidentally align with what’s common and accepted) and a minority (a group that unfortunately as a result of the compulsory law of diversity have to advocate for their acceptance by the majority). Many times, the majority assume that the minorities don’t exist. Generally, the majority have that bias. And then, the minority experience a lot of self questioning, and even mental crisis in an attempt to fit into the majority or figure out why they’re the outliers. This theory of diversity explains why for every sexuality, there is diversity even within it. This happens even within heterosexuality which the normies/traditional people tend to assume is all, dominant male, submissive female. We need to remember that , there is no one size fits all for humans. As with every demographic, there are elements within that demographic that definitely make up the majority while others make up minority.

Generally, people that make up minorities might have to advocate and fight for their own rights to be taken seriously in an environment where a majority ideology or culture is the norm. This has been the case for many human civilizations and also the case for many societies in the present world. Minorities generally have to announce their existence. The people that make up the majority in a particular society might have a tendency to assume that 100% of the population in that society are all the same like them. But over generations, over centuries and also in this present era, it can be seen that there is no society or culture with 100% uniformity and ideology, identity, religion, ideas and even culture. For many countries in this present world, one would assume that there should be 100% uniformity within a country, but even within countries, there is usually vast amount of diversity for every behavior or culture that is the majority.

In a particular community, country or race, there will be minorities that don’t exactly conform to this majority. There’s a certain level of assurance that in every society, there will be various forms of diversity in a sect or group. This could be in the way the living and non-living things in that society express themselves or live their lives. This is totally proven over and over again in our present era.

Everywhere we look there is Diversity. This shows that certain elements in a particular situation will have certainly tendencies that might coincidentally and fortunately for those elements, fit into the norm (majority). And then on the other side, there will be other elements within that same society that express ideologies and behaviors that are different from the majority way of life.

Almost every group you can think of in the world, almost every category of something you can think of in the world will have Diversity. This brings to mind a popular saying that goes “change is the only constant thing in life”, and another saying that goes “variety is the spice of Life”. What these two sayings have been in common is that, change, variety and diversity will always happen no matter the demographic you look at.

I wrote all these about majority and minority to emphasize the need for acceptance of the fact that minority groups will always exist. And it shouldn’t surprise normies when these minorities advocate for their own presence to be acknowledged. Of course they would ask for acknowledgement, visibility and acceptance in society. Of course they would. it’s only normal. It’s human to want these things. We all want acceptance.

Gender role reversal relationships definitely need more visibility and acceptance in Media and society. A few movies have captured my attention in the past with their role reversal themes. Examples of movies or series I have seen in Media that had role reversal themes include:

• It’s Okay to not be Okay (Korean Drama) — personality wise role reversal. Appearance wise, not role reversal.

•The Glory (Korean Drama) — only personality wise of gender role reversal

•Legend of Fei (Chinese Drama) — only personality wise

• Princess Agents (Chinese Drama) — only personality wise

Only four so far. And I’ve watched so many dramas and movies. I was always searching consciously or unconsciously for that gender role reversal theme that tickles my brain just right and makes my lady parts react, but most movies and dramas unfortunately do not stray past heteronormativity.

Anyway, I have heard people suggest some anime that have gender role reversal themes but honestly I don’t enjoy watching cartoons or animes so I’ll have to pass on that one.

But, please share in the comments if you have watched any gender role reversal (truly role reversal) anime, movie or dramas that you would want other RR enthusiasts to check out!