"What about other species in your world? Like... squirrels. Are there six sexes of squirrel?"

"I think most non-primate mammals only have four sexes."

"...Which four?"

"Well, not the same four as humans, obviously. I think there's one that's like desret and desan and one that's like if you crossed desan and desmi and one that's like if you crossed harret and haran and one that's like haran and harmi."

"That's weird."

"It's simpler!"

"Well, yeah, and not having any spices in your food would be simpler, but it wouldn't be as much fun."

"What's so fun about having six genders?"

"It's--it's who I am. I'm a harmi, not some kind of harmi/haran hybrid. And you don't get as much to choose from--I'm not terribly attracted to desret, so if desret was all there was I'd have to pick between marrying someone I didn't like like that and not being able to have children. And I didn't mean to say that having two genders was worse, just that simpler doesn't necessarily mean better."

"...If there weren't a harmi/haran distinction you wouldn't miss it," Aurin points out. "And there's plenty of variety even with only two? Like, I guess we don't smell like much, but people do all kinds of stuff with the 'being a guy' basic idea."

"And even if you didn't have spices, you could still have fruit sauces and cheeses and sparkleaf and stuff to give food extra flavor," she shrugs. "There's lots of ways to be a person with the system we have too. I'm not saying you're horribly destitute, or anything, but you're way, way out of anything I've ever seen before. And vice-versa, I assume, I'm sure I'm plenty weird to you."

"Yeah. I'm not getting anything substantially different-and-interesting as far as I can understand off the words - I mean, figuring out culture from words is not very reliable or in-depth but still."

"If you're not used to gendering people by scent, you probably wouldn't. I mean, someone whose species didn't have genders at all probably wouldn't see much difference between your desret/desan and your haran/harmi two genders either."

"I mean, there's the obvious, but yeah."

"And if your species reproduced asexually the obvious probably wouldn't seem to matter as much. I get your point, though."

"I can actually smell the smell," he mentions. "It's nice. Just doesn't scream 'major feature of gender' at me."

She smiles a little smugly when he mentions how she smells. "And a member of a sexless species would probably be able to observe that I have pectoral adipose reservoirs and you don't. It just wouldn't scream 'major feature of gender' at them."

"They wouldn't have a concept of major features of gender."

"True enough."

"So can any two people have kids together without magical help where you're from, or just certain matchups...?"

"...No, of course not. Any desi can get someone pregnant, and any hari can get pregnant, but--wow, I was not expecting to have to tell someone about the swans and the minnows today. A desret can get anyone pregnant who can get pregnant, which is all three hari genders and also desmi. A harret can only get pregnant by a desret or another harret and can get anyone pregnant who can get pregnant. A desan can get a haran or a harmi pregnant. A desmi can get a harmi or another desmi pregnant. Haran and harmi can't get anyone pregnant. Um, have I forgotten anything."

"...I don't know, I completely lost track of that halfway through and may need a chart."

"...Bar, can I have paper and a pencil please?"

If you borrow a whiteboard and marker instead I won't have to add it to your tab.