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Expanding female fantasy dynamic

Once upon a time, fantasy novels were covered in pictures of sweaty, oiled, shirtless men posing with gigantic swords. Contrary to what you might think, this only served to attract male readers. Back then, fantasy heroes were big, muscled, and smelly. Fantasy heroines were helpess damsels of pure virginity or mostly-naked sluts wearing nothing but a metal bikini more suited for giving one a rash than deflecting the strikes of weaponry. All of this made fantasy's fandom the domain of lonely, sweaty, male nerds with poor hygene.

Then, along with the influx of Japanese videogames of the 1990s, came the Japanese take on fantasy. Games such as Final Furniture VII paved the way for new fantasy archetypes. The old idea of the meat-headed barbarian being the hero was replaced with the Japanese idea of pretty, effeminate, girly men saving the day, and adventuring with spunky female sidekicks, and having homoerotic confrontations with even prettier, more effeminate girly men. For reasons unexplainable, this attracted females to the genre of fantasy like ants to an explosion at a honey and sugar factory.

The overweight fantasy fanboy with no social life was now joined with a new stereotype of overweight fantasy fangirls with no social life (see: Christine-Anne McCaoli). This resulted in a lot of awkward come-ons at fantasy conventions that work out chiefly because everyone involved is so desperate.

And thus the fantasy genre continues to expand, with the next generation of fantasy geeks being an unholy union: a bloodline of pure geekery.