Whenever I see a post on tumblr suggesting aliens don’t have gender, I always think–‘but what if also the reverse. What if aliens also have some fundamental social construct we don’t’.
Like, they come and meet us and they’re like ‘hey this is an awkward question but what’s your gooblebygark?’
And we’re like what.
‘You know, the… the thing. Your goobledygark. The thing that dictates whether you’re gnarfgnoovles or brubledoopes’
What. What. What the fuck, those words don’t even mean anything??? What are you talking about?
‘Look, your ridiculous human languages don’t seem to have the words for these! But they’re totally a thing, they’re like, fundamental aspects of social life for our species, just… just let us lick you so we can know what verb tense to use when we speak to you.’
What does one thing have to do with the other??? That makes no–
‘UGH, nevermind, you’re totally brubledoopes, I can just tell, I don’t even need to taste your bacterial skin colonies.’
And then another alien overhears and is like ‘holy shit, you can’t stereotype like that, that’s SO NOT COOL’
‘yeaH BUT THEY WON’T LET ME LICK THEM’
They never let me lick them.