Why was Rom attracted to Leeta physically?

Just a random thought question.....I know in "real life" the reason was probably judge to indulge that fantasy some guys have of the "ugly guy that gets the hot girl". But in universe, I would assume Rom wouldn't really be attracted to non Ferengi's because of the small ears, and how important ear stimulation is to Ferengi. I dunno, what did some of you guys think about Rom and Leeta? as charicters? I kinda had hit and miss feelings with Rom, but wasn't ever a big fan of Leeta, I just felt like a lot of the comedy they tried to put on her fell flat, I think maybe it was a combination of just the writing for her and maybe that the actress who played her just wasn't good at that "type" of comedy. Thoughts anyone?

 

Pretty much every Ferengi we've ever seen has been sexually attracted to non-Ferengi females. Why should Rom be any different?

 

From what we saw on the show the size of a person's lobes only matter when they were male lobes. The bigger they were the better you were meant to be at business. Ferengi women aren't allowed to take part in business so the size of their lobes don't matter. However, given the change in society at the end of DS9 that might change.

As for Rom and Leeta I can't think of any issues I had with them. Rom was their mainly to provide the comedy, though given that isn't how he started there is some unevenness about his character from the early seasons to later on. As for Leeta, I don't have any particularly strong feelings about her. Can't think of any issues I had with her character. Maybe they could have used her character more to address and tackle the sexism on the show.

 

Physically attracted? In that regard, I think the bigger mystery would be: Why is Leeta attracted to Rom?

(Purely physically speaking, that is. I'll agree that Rom was just a nice guy and she could be attracted to that.)

 

As has been pointed out already, Ferengi have consistently been portrayed as being fascinated by non Ferengi females, be they Troi, Crusher, Vash, Leeta.

Far from being a mystery it's exactly in fitting with the pattern shown elsewhere.

 

The Changeling she was boffing probably psychologically conditioned Leeta to wander off and embrace the first man that was not them.

 

...Have they ever been portrayed as being fascinated by Ferengi females? (Quark got fooled once there, but he seemed so impressed by the qualities of the supposed male that any affectation towards the revealed female could be lingering aftereffects of that.)

It may be the Ferengi aren't choosy. Or it may be they are extremely choosy. Do they physically prefer long-legged, small-headed females at the expense of everybody else? Or is that merely just about the only phenotype available in the Trek universe, or at least the overwhelmingly most common, and this fact hides the fundamental disinterest of the Ferengi in physical attributes?

What are those females to the Ferengi? Trophies they take solely because business competitors from other species value this specific type of trophy, and a Ferengi must show he can get more and better? Random pairs of hands capable of ear massage? Copulation partners (in Trek, compatibility is apparently guaranteed courtesy of the Ancients from "The Chase")? Breeding partners (see above)? Does gender even factor in there (it needn't in the middle two options, or in the first unless the competitors come from the apparently very common patriarchal stock)?

Discounting Rom, who may be an abomination atypical of the real Ferengi in every respect (or then just a nice average guy and we generally happen to meet the assholes of the species for a variety of reasons), we get just about two direct hints there, total: the ubiquitous oo-mox references, and that funny fisherman-style size-boasting gesture they do when trying to pick up females. The former appears honest at least, the latter could be but a business trick to better lure in the profitable trophies (that is, the gesture may have high truth value, but low relevance to what the Ferengi is trying to achieve).

In any case, the Ferengi appear to be paragons of tolerance here, perhaps against writer intent. It may be a running gag but well worth a closer examination...

Timo Saloniemi

 

If being able to acquire is the standard for love and lust, yes, they are tolerant.

 

Zek.

 

You could say that Leeta herself is a mystery. We know next to nothing about her apart from the fact that she is a Dabo girl and is Bajoran or at least appears to be Bajoran...

 

Or maybe the most common phenotype on TV? We see few short dumpy females.

Or perhaps the fact of being challenged on their preconceptions, given that they assume females will be naked, submissive and incapable of independent decision making.

 

It's just a skiffy trope that completely dissimilar species would even be biologically attracted to one another at all. We also see this in the SW universe with Jabba the Hutt and all his humanoid female slaves.

But I say we should see more pairings of radically different species, such as humans and Gorn, humans and Tholians, humans and Horta, humans and Species 8-4-7-2. In a galaxy of such wide diversity of intelligent species, that's the wave of the future.

Am I right, or what?

Kor

 

When McCoy slipped his hand into that Horta, he wasn't really healing her wounds.....

 

I just can't imagine copulation between Ferengi and humanoid females would look like.

 

Didn't Gene model the Ferengi on the mythological character Priapus? Maybe that's why Leeta likes Rom.

 

You are right. Wow. Hard to believe in all of her 16 episodes of DS9 we barely learned much about her backstory at all. She doesn't have a life at all, until she started working at Quark's Bar:
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Leeta

So... she's Section 31, right?

To answer the original question, I was a fan of both Leeta and Rom and their subsequent relationship. It was absurd, amusing and downright entertaining. I thought Leeta liked Rom because he was the opposite of her previous boyfriend, Bashir.

 

Put in reverse...would any human male be attracted to the "hottest" Ferengi female? I would probably think not...physically at least. But if Ferengi are not picky and are intrigued by aliens, then that would explain it.

 

Unfortunately,we don't see any Ferengi women whose purpose is not to upset (Ferengi) gender conventions, so I don't know think the answer is entirely clear. From the perspective of production, even more aggressive makeup could still make an actress (or actor) look attractive.

 

The Rom-Leeta attraction is clearly a case of dramatic necessity taking precedence over realism.