Shifty Shifters & Sexy Shifters/What Appeals?

When we are children we imagine we are Peter pan, Fairies and princesses. I wanted to be Atreyu from The NeverEnding Story - who wouldn’t have wanted a pet dragon that could talk and rather enjoyed getting a good scratch behind the ear?

Why is it that we love to imagine such things, what really appeals?

It is evidenced that man has imagined that he has the power to transform since the dawn of time. Many tribes depicted half man, half best creatures in art on the walls of cave paintings. In ancient Rome Romulus and Remus are told to have been suckled by a wolf. Gods were given creature like attributes from Medusa to Poseidon. There are Satyrs of the underworld, centaurs and angels. From the Egyptians, Aboriginal dreamtime stories to the Indians, Irish and the Eskimos. All civilizations around the world have depicted tales of men being cursed as animals or possessing the magic to turn their spirits into beasts.

There is something mesmerizing about imagining oneself as a powerful creature about giving up control to the instinct and habits of the being we become, to forget consciousness, remorse and compassion. To surrender to the lizard part of our brain so long ago deeply buried. Animals have a confidence we find admirable.

As adults we can take the fantasy further - What if the human with the ability transform begins to remember what they do, begins to realize the creature dwelling within and to regret the unconscious actions of the beast. What happens if the afflicted attempt to control it? In struggling to maintain two lives, every day a torturous battle rages on within. – A metaphor for life?

What if they have the ability to pass on their affliction with a bite? What if the moon conspires against them? What if hunters came for them? What if they had done things they regret? And what if they fall in love with a human...

-As for my dream shifter? What if he is insanely handsome, haunted and gentle with the ability to rip you apart in a heartbeat and literally devour your flesh, yet the human side of him longs to caress it. What if he picks you out of the sea of a thousand seemingly similar and even better looking girls, what if he desires and adores you only, rejecting their blatant advances. What if despite himself he can’t stay away and would do anything to be with you and even die to protect you against all odds, despite his past. It brings him physical pain to see you with another man in fact he cannot bare it – yet he cares for you so much he knows its best you stay away from him. What if he fights for you?

 In the middle of the night, injured, he comes to your bedroom window in need of your help. With trembling hands you tend his wounds as they heal before you. What if he meets your lingering gaze, he grabs your arms forcefully yet tenderly and suddenly despite the forbidden act of him loving you, he does so. Passionately and gently with such commitment and heat, that your heart beats as his hot muscular arms hold you to him in a needy desperate embrace.... 

My shifter fantasy is simply an ideal of what our unconscious brain requires, on a chemical level a concept that at its core contains all the appealing genetic attributes the lizard brain desires, to produce and protect offspring. We want our men gentle, yet strong and very masculine – think Brad Pit in Legends of the Fall. If he’s loyal he is less likely to spread his seed and produce other offspring with other women which will compete with our genetics and he if he has the superhuman power to destroy threats and protect us, all the better.

It has been shown upon reading such things copious dopamine is released. Evolution requires we desire these attributes and rewards us for finding it. Admittedly I speak largely for women. As for why and what men like in the shifter genre, well, that is fodder for another post.