i understand the natural thought process of wanting to explore subversions of Sanji's obsession with women is to give him a reality-shattering attraction to a beautiful man. which is fair and a fun in its own right. but i think theres untapped potential in the dynamics of introducing Sanji to the concept of butch women, also.
Because like, walk with me here. Generally speaking, One Piece women tend to come in two categories: Beautiful Babe and Ugly Hag.* And Sanji usually has two different reactions to this: either complete obsession and devotion to a Beautiful Babe or disdain towards the Ugly Hag for not being a Beautiful Babe. (See: his tossup in how he interacts with Shinobu in Wano when shes first introduced vs when Oda decides to blast her with his barbie beam.)
*for the sake of the conversation i am not considering the types of young girl archetypes (re kids and teens.)
Oda's design philosophy splits the idea of an attractive woman and an unattractive woman down the middle, and every version of an "attractive woman" looks, generally, exactly the same and follows the same principles of feminine attractiveness via the male gaze. Even attractive women who might be supposedly more "masc" are very much a tomboy archetype; kind of boyish in a very feminine way.
So theres this grey area of interaction with women Sanji never has, because the concept of an attractive masculine woman, much less a butch or a stud, is just Not something that has been shown at all in One Piece. There are no handsome women, and certainly no masculine women who aren't caricaturized so that the audience wouldn't feasibly consider them potentially attractive.
But if there was, if there was a woman who shows up and is so incredibly masculine, a true solid fuckin stone butch who is presented as being attractive the way One Piece presents its Beautiful Babes to be attractive, that. Would be interesting to me. In the context of Sanji and his interactions with women. Because Sanji will always have an opinion on a woman. If a character is a woman, and Sanji is aware of her, we will get brief passing knowledge of what he thinks of her.
So what does a handsome woman do to a guy like Sanji. What chord does an attractive, masculine woman strike in his brain. You know. Is there a sort of crossing of wires that happens when a character is still clearly very attractive, just not in the way he typically associates with femininity. Sanji is shown to be easily emasculated by other men, but not by women even if they are objectively more capable than him in the moment. He'll let a woman walk all over him as he attempts to provide them with things they don't need, he's never really dissuaded by their lack of need for him, he still insists upon it anyways. So where does the intersection happen. What reactions happen, what crossroads does his typical attraction to women come across. Is it the physicality of masculinity that emasculates or compromises him, or would the threat receptors in his brain shut off once his brain properly reroutes his view of this attractive, masculine person to "woman."
Its a weird question because this concept in of itself to me is a big muddy mess of doylist versus watsonian readings of Sanji and his attraction to women. There really is no true answer you could find, but still. I think its neat. I think he deserves to have his brain fried by the concept of a very handsome woman.
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