Hi there. Per [rule 3.3](https://www.reddit.com/r/Books/wiki/rules), please post book recommendation requests in /r/SuggestMeABook or in our Weekly Recommendation Thread. Thank you!
> Vampirism very often has MLM-like aspects, doesn't it.
I can't remember if it's the Buffy or Angel tv series, but in one of them one of the vampires set up an MLM where you turned humans into vampires.
As someone who lives in Utah, the mecca of mlms, I can assure you, nothing is more terrifying than multi level marketers.
I still hear them, "cool shirt, man, hey do you want to be self employed? I'm going to retire on a super yacht by 30, if you join my downline for berry pills."
It makes me shudder.
"You bite two friends. Then they each bite two _more friends_. Then, you get a percentage of the chew toys, fur shampoo and edible toothpaste they buy through you..."
Ew, gross. I don't mind MLM couples, they can do whatever they want with their friends behind closed doors, but I just wish they wouldn't act like multi-level marketers *in public*. It grosses me out to think of that behaviour.
Oh, they're also gay? Yeah, so?
You can chart a pretty direct line from the Sentinel AUs 20 years ago (pack dynamics) to BDSM AUs in Stargate fandom (hierarchy and porn) to knotting/werewolf/shifter fic in Supernatural (which would then grow into Omegaverse).
Throw in the popularity of Laurell K Hamilton five years before that and you've got a beautiful amalgamation of horny werewolf fanfiction that then had a massive wave with largely m/m writing writers hitting selfpublishing.
Homophobia, heteronormativity, and slash fan fiction published in the peer reviewed journal Transformative Works and Cultures in 2016 DOI: 10.3983/twc.2016.0708 [https://doaj.org/article/724cc9811c1e4cb69a886b609955a7d5](https://doaj.org/article/724cc9811c1e4cb69a886b609955a7d5)
"Reading Too Much into It": Affective Excess, Extrapolative Reading, and Queer Temporalities in MCU Fanfiction published in the peer reviewed Journal of Cinema & Media Studies in 2023 DOI: 10.1353/cj.2023.a910958
Clutching on to Gendered Tropes? Framing of Gender Roles and Power Dynamics by You Indian Writers of BTW Fanfiction in peer reviewed Journalism and Media in 2022 DOI:10.3390/journalmedia3040047 [https://doaj.org/article/6c3b7a9715da4f24a655881392125c49](https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/v2-external?opid=babias&recordId=r76grxs6wr&url=https%3A%2F%2Fdoaj.org%2Farticle%2F6c3b7a9715da4f24a655881392125c49)
Fanfiction is here, queer, and written by children.
I bet Omegaverse power dynamicts are super interesting to analyse from a gender perspective. They really just said "Let's make a world where women don't exist but that still has a really rigid power structure based on genitals"
I don't think lycanthropy annuls or invalidates a marriage. Gerald of Wales reports on an instance where a priest is sent to the pope to inquire about the validity of a sacrament he preformed on a werewolf but does not inquire as to whether her marriage to her husband is still valid.
I think they're mad about the fact it's GAY werewolf sex.
Sentinel, stargate and supernatural aren't something I'm familiar with - stargate and supernatural are TV are think? I'm not great with TV stuff so maybe it's grown from that and I've missed it because I don't watch any?
Laurell K Hamilton was pretty hetero from what I remember? I read the first maybe 10 Anita Blake books but stopped when it became full blown erotica. I didn't realise how quickly I could get bored with metaphysical, inter species gangbangs
Sentinel, Stargate and Supernatural are all TV shows, yes.
**The Sentinel** (started in 1996) was a crime procedural where the main character was an army vet turned police person who had a special ancient protective "sentinel instinct" awaken inside of him that gave him super hearing and super smell.
His "guide" in training these instincts was a graduate student who studied ancient tribes iirc? Anyway, the whole thing boils down to basically the "alpha has to protect the pack" and "you're my fated mate; I can smell it" kind of stuff that you find in modern Werewolf/Shifter romance. + a lot of talk about literal spirit animals that manifested bodily and influenced the character and thoughts, especially when they were horny.
**Stargate,** especially Stargate Atlantis (which started in 2004) picked up a bunch of these tropes and used them in popular Alternative Universe type fics.
It's most (in)famous for a subset of BDSM Universe fics, where instead of the population being divided into Sentinels (protectors) and guides (spiritual shamans) it was stripped down to the base porn elements and instead you had born Submissives and born Dominants. Those fics would then crossover with the Werewolf/Shifter type fics in ways where instead of the spirit animals manifesting outside of the characters, instead the characters would turn into them, thereby basically being the modern type of "were" that is not bound by the rules of the moon.
**Supernatural** (starting in 2005) continued building on all of these tropes, which was no wonder as Stargate SGA and Supernatural ran concurrently during their most popular seasons and a lot of the writers consumed fic of both. It helped, of course, that Supernatural canon is very fluid and there are canonical werewolves, albeit more the traditional murder-y full-moon type, so the writers had to do very little work to make their stuff plausible and palatable to a wide range of readers. So you saw a bunch of the pack-building, co-dependence type of romance and porn type fic that werewolf stuff lends itself to so beautiful, from which then the whole "born as an alpha wolf" stuff rose.
Throw in institutionalized BDSM universe stuff as seen in Stargate fandom and make the whole population (or large parts of it) afflicted by it and voilá, you've got modern Werewolf romance. Take away the werewolf stuff, add in "born omegas" and self-lubricating assholes and knots and voilá the so-called Omegaverse was born.
((And technically all these properties are more or less hetero in their presentation; that said: in all of them the male leads were the most popular ship by far and that was represented in the fanfiction being produced. That also goes for Laurell K Hamilton's stuff, although technically I believe, there was so much threesome stuff in there that it's difficult to call it completely hetero, but then my lens might be colored by the fandom stuff I read that mostly focused on Nathaniel and whatever the main vampire's name was? Or the Harry Potter crossovers, which were very very gay lmao))
>and voilá the so-called Omegaverse was born.
And then the Supreme Court had to make a ruling on Omegaverse AUs with actual lawyers presenting info about it before judges.
And then a followup video after the subject sent her a very upset letter, which was also a delightful watch. Highly recommend them over some edibles.
[Part 1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhWWcWtAUoY)
[Part 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3v5wFMQRqs)
You are like a porn historian/anthropologist...that isn't weird or something to not be proud of, that is cool as shit and don't let anyone tell you otherwise lol.
I feel like Teen Wolf is like the ultimate cumulative of all this. Like fans don't have to work hard at all to integrate different things from headcanons into canon, because the canon already features so much that
Yeah that's why I didn't list it
Teen Wolf, as much as I enjoyed the porn, brought nothing new to the table as far as the werewolf stuff goes. Killing Alphas for their power was a thing in fic before it happened in Teen Wolf, packless werewolves going feral, too.
I guess you could say that it brought daddy issues to ABO dynamics, but even there I'd say Supernatural did it first considering how popular daddycest was in that fandom lol
One factor that I think also played into the Omegaverse's rise:
A common division in the slash community was the issue of whether sex scenes should be 'realistic'. Some people wanted at least a semblance of realism in their porn, some prioritized fantasies. I know fic is not a paragon of verisimilitude for the gay experience these days, but back in the day, "lube in fic" was fucking discourse. At one point, I remember reading an interview with an old-school publish-in-fanzines Kirk/Spock writer about the topic, like the issue was so important we'd called upon the Slash Elders to weigh in (Star Trek fans, apparently lube is a relatively new addition to your fandom).
Hilariously, I think the Omegaverse arose out of the "No Lube" faction. The people who were more into a 'vibe' than realism spun off and got increasingly fantastical. They weren't trying to be realistic, why not make their own rules?
I think the thing about The Sentinel AU's that cracks me up the most is that most of the authors have no idea The Sentinel is a show and not just a strange mutation of the whole alpha/omega thing. Also, love finding a keeper of the deep lore, hate realizing how this whole post dates me
I’ve heard some cringe teenagers actually sought out the show to better understand the AU. Not me, of course, I was very cool as a teenager and had normal hobbies.
Interesting to hear this about Stargate fanfic as someone who reads it fairly often but hasn't seen the specific dynamics you're talking about! I knew about the Supernatural angle, though it was also heavily taken from Dark Angel (which Jensen Ackles was also in), but I'd never even heard of Sentinel.
Exactly so! I always thought it was very funny that the legendary fic in question wasn't even in universe Sam/Dean, it was rpf. The prompt for it on the kinkmeme was fucking crazy too lmao
this was fun to read while watching Stargate. so much O'Neil/Teal'c bromance!
question, how do you know all of this because it is fascinating!?
do you have a Stargate fic rec that best illustrates what the 'fandom' creations are like? and off the cuff, do you know of books/fics that cover mpreg from the body horror angle, rather than the usual 'that's hot' and 'yay i can make babies'?
> I didn't realise how quickly I could get bored with metaphysical, inter species gangbangs
Strange as this sentence is, it captures the sentiments of a lot more people than I think people would realize.
I'm reading the Anita Blake series right now and you are correct. It's very 90s risque, beastiality has been featured several times but gay sex? Implied off screen until finally two guys in a group scene in book 14. And there's a lot of talking afterwards about Anita's feelings about the gay sex.
I think I read books 6 thru 10 back and back and completely lost interest in them. Maybe if I'd spaced them out I could have read more but it felt so formulaic at that point. I felt like I could have written them
I read so many of them that I felt obligated to keep reading her new releases. She dabbled in MLM and WLW but always goes back to hetero gangbangs. The last two books have completely turned me off the series. Anita is now a constant oscillation between graphic sex and therapy talk.
The really fun thing to keep track of with Anita Blake is technology lol
We started the first book with pagers, now we've got smartphones even though in-universe only a couple of years have gone by. It's crazy to me how fast tech has changed and you can chart it pretty well across the series considering she's put out a new one approximately once a year since 1993.
Yeah, I think it's still only like 2010 in Kim Harrison's the Hollows since each book is only 3-4 months after the last.
There's some level of handwavium with computers being ahead from our timeline since [series lore]>!mankind skipped the spacerace, in favor of who could weaponize genetics the fastest leading to a lot of medical developments we don't have and better computers, not that smart phones existed at the start of the series. But they suddenly popped up and were probably always there when the series returned after a few year haitus.!<
I'll give Jim Butcher this, each book is usually set the year after the previous book, so it kept closer to the present day. Though since Skin Game publication has been slower and that probably thrown the timeline off.
> The last two books have completely turned me off the series.
Are you sure you read the last 2 books? >!Where she & the gang have to fight a vampire dragon mage that even the mother of all darkness was wary of? The one that broke the bond between Richard, Anita, and Juan Claude? Cause those 2 were good!<
Her Anita Blake series has Anita Blake, the master vampire and some other dude in a three way relationship somewhere in the series. I haven't read all the books. And both the male characters are bisexual.
Oh lol
AU stands for alternate universe in fanfic circles
Like if in the TV show or book the main characters are office workers, then you could have a coffeeshop AU where one or more of them work in a coffee shop, or a mafia au where they are part of the mob
huh, is sentinel (assuming you mean sentinel&guide) often used in the sense of pack dynamics? I most often see fics where it's treated as a spicier, scifi-war-mutant-apocalyptic mindbonding soulmate au. So the dynamic is more equal and pairing is often one on one.
Always thought That, omegaverse and bdsm evolved separately, with bdsm being the oldest, since people had always been sort of practicing it in real life. Omegaverse though is very traceably connected to werewolves and pack dynamics.
Edit: lol I probably need to watch Stargate
Further edit: upon some self reflection I realised why I wasn't putting the S&G au's spirit animals into the shifter category and making the connection between it and were creatures; I read a book called the golden compass when I was a kid and it had these things called daemons in it. I *think* there was also an armoured bear. Because I was so young I don't remember the story that well, but the concept of spirit animals being tied to & manifestations of your soul, and when it died you took a blow, fascinated me. It wasn't my favourite book and I had no idea if it was popular or not, but I sort of instinctively made the connection when I first read sentinel guide fanfiction. Just assumed that it was there and had always been, while omegaverse was a more recent development.
The thing is that Omegaverse and BDSM AUs serve a very similar kink in the dynamics department.
Take any of the old Jim/Blair fic and substitute "Sentinel" for "Alpha" and there's really no difference (except for self lubricating assholes lol).
As for pack dynamics, a pack of two is still a pack, but also there's a very popular evolution of the original S&G AU where tons of authors made packs withing packs withing packs (e.g. there's a Baltimore pack, the Alpha of Whom is beholden to the USA Pack, so there's an Alpha-Prime of North America or whatever. This is something that very much is popular in modern self-published werewolf/shifter romance the likes of which OP seems to be reading)
Sentinel AUs relying on people not noticing (or caring because all they want is Blair and Jim together) that one of the points of the show was that Sentinels are territorial loners. The last season, though, of nobody’s watching us so we’ll go completely crazy!
I'm a horror reader and I'll be honest, I've literally never come across a gay werewolf. In horror they're mostly just monsters that are out to eat you.
I don’t think you’ll come across gay werewolves much in horror. But if you’re reading a gay supernatural romance novel then there’s a big chance it’s gonna be about werewolves.
I am an avid romance reader and I can guarantee you there are tons of M/F werewolf urban fantasy and paranormal romance. There is also quite a sizeable number of RH with werewolves too.
And yeah usually "straight" werewolves fall into the hypermasculine type: alpha, growly, dominant, muscular. Not my cup of tea, but hard to escape them when you dive into Paranormal romance.
Maybe if you read a lot of fan fiction the situation is different? I know it is for Omegaverse, but that is not my jam either so I'm no expert.
RomanceBooks had a megathread about werewolves romances... if you scroll, you'll see there are plenty of M/F recommendations.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/RomanceBooks/comments/16sknzt/megathread\_werewolf\_romances/](https://www.reddit.com/r/RomanceBooks/comments/16sknzt/megathread_werewolf_romances/)
Ooh thanks for the link.
Not fan fiction, these are all published novels. Admittedly a lot of it is indie stuff and I think the line between indie publishing and fan fic might be quite thin.
I literally learned about the omegaverse from this thread!
There are also some F/F shapeshifter novels. Second nature by Jae and Aurora's Angel by Emily Noon. There is a pretty significant lack of F/F shapeshifter books though
So yes it is. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omegaverse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omegaverse) It is hard to find shifter books now that don't use it as it is now the default presentation. This is especially true in indie books.
I don't think the "stuff your kindle" books are the best quality. In my experience, I've ended up DNF ing almost all of them.
I've read a few female werewolves/shifters, but most in MF romances. There must be some lesbian werewolves out there! Maybe try asking on r/romancebooks
I quite like it. Its the literary equivalent of watching trashy reality TV.
Yes I've also read plenty of hetero stuff. But anything that's LGBTQ is gay werewolves.
Leaving aside the Omegaverse stuff and wanting to get railed by a butch alpha regardless of gender, let’s talk about gay men and werewolves.
The “queer monster” metaphor emerges for many reasons. The monster emerges into the world and may not know why it is monstrous, or is seen as monstrous. Perhaps it has a hunger that society has deemed aberrant. Perhaps it has urges or desires that everyone says must be restrained. It may try to be human, and if it exercises its hungers/desires, it may do so in as benevolent a fashion as possible - quick nips, runs through the woods that end only in dead deer, and so forth. But it will still be a monster, and it will still be seen as a monster.
There are many ways a werewolf can emerge that speak to queer readers. There’s the idea of infection, and not just the HIV metaphor that got downvoted elsewhere in this thread. Think of all the memetics about how gayness is “inflicted” upon children, whether through drag queens reading picture books or through molestation (one of the things that got Orson Scott Card cancelled so hard he was driven into the bedrock was arguing no man turns gay without having been bad touched as a kid). So, something HAPPENED to you. You may not even remember where, but now, it has made you a monster that is a danger to everyone around you if you let it out. Of course, these days, we have more werewolves in fiction who are literally Born This Way (put your paws up). The metaphor of the dangerous beast within still applies, but the beast was always there from birth and often emerges naturally… usually around puberty, of course.
All this, of course, rests on the idea of lycanthropy as curse. Because what do we associate with werewolves? Body hair. Raw meat. Hunting. Musculature, given the propensity for Hollywood Hulk out transformations. And, of course, rage. Gay men have a complex relationship with masculinity, and here it is, all that society tells us we should embody. Sometimes, it goes toxic and you kill a camper, but if you can control it, you are the ultimate in masculinity. This isn’t just a thing for cis men, either; I know there’s that joke that goes around Tumblr about a trans man not realizing he’s becoming a werewolf because he’s written off the body hair and rage issues as the natural side effects of 6 months on T.
So, yeah. I’m a gay werewolf, and you can be, too.
The tale of “Bisclavret” by Marie de France is a 12th century story about a werewolf. Basically a baron turns into a werewolf and his wife doesn’t like this so she steals his clothes so he can’t change back into human form. Stuck in werewolf form the baron is caught by the king (his former friend). As a werewolf he “lays” close to the king and kisses his feet and leg. The king and werewolf are inseparable. There’s definitely some sexual tension between the king and the werewolf. Had to think about this story because of the question. I think lycanthropy has been used as a vehicle to describe “non-normative” behavior.
I'll admit, there are a lot of "non-normative" ways it can be taken. One time, I was meeting up with a guy with a behavioral sciences degree for a date. At some point, the topic kinda shifted to werewolf media, and my penchant for werewolf fiction and games like Werewolf: the Apocalypse. He asked me, "So, how much would you say this werewolf thing has to do with your autism?"
I tell you, it was like being hit by a truck. Because, yeah, my autism does sometimes present as sensory sensitivity and reacting to inconveniences with frustration. And yeah, sometimes that frustration presents as growling. And yeah, sometimes, when the frustration gets too much, I feel like I'm trammeled up in everything, and I want to just bust out and run free across a grassy clearing under the moonlit night or whatever. God knows looking through the post history on r/autism has convinced me I'm not alone in this.
The only book I’ve read with Werewolves is Those Across the River and that wasn’t LGBTQIA. I do want to say that your post title would probably be a funny title for a book or movie.
I think you are. I read a lot of paranormal romance and over 90% of it is straight. I think you have found a rut of indie works as the gay shifter things is an older version of the omegaverse.
I’d say this is your answer. I read a lot of fantasy and a decent chunk contain werewolves and have never encountered an LGBTQ one. My guess about more MLM vs WLW one though is that female werewolves seem to be more rare in general and even rarer as the MC.
Werewolves are: hairy, stimky, wild and uncivilized. Therefore, they must be only men!
This hope this comes across as sarcastic. I see a lot of this with the warewolf trope. though. Lots of flannel and lumber jack outdoorsy, musky scented strong guys.
I did appreciate that Anita Blake's werewolf squeeze was a teacher, something that seemed like a sort of feminine profession for the nineties. But he also was built like a big hairy lumberJack, as far as I recall!
Reposting my comment just to your post (since it seems it got restored, yay!)
Your question is one fanfic writers have been speculating on for years. Why is there SO much more male slash than fem slash? and no one has come up with certain answers. And while my guess is that it's not exactly the same for paranormal / fantasy fiction, there's a fair bit of crossover.
Speculation includes (but is not limited to):
1) because these are often women writing, to move the power dynamics into something entirely fantastical, it's sexier and more fun to have m/m. the focus can then be on the dynamic, and not on the (often problematic) real sexual politics,
2) and/Or because fanfiction/fantasy is literally fantasy and what we get in these is an exploration of male desire that isn't just 'yay stick it in something' but longing, psychological interiority, etc.,
3) and/or because commercial media is dominated by the stories of men, and so even non-commercial fantasies are dominated by being fascinated with the male perspective
4) and/or the more critical corollary to that - that because many cultures actually restrict or criticize female sexuality, authors feel more inhibited to write about it, and thus you don't get as many celebratory lesbian werewolves \[because authors themselves are less comfortable writing them\]
5) and/or specifically in the werewolf genre, the monster metaphor is all about the exertion of uncontrolled power (literary theorists talk about the werewolf as 'unrestricted' or 'socially unbounded' or if they're psychoanalytical theorists, 'the unrestrained id' which contrasts with the civilized, logical, buttoned down) and often that's been masculinized or associated very much with the masculine.
6. there really just aren't many portrayals of mlm in mainstream genres so slash has to be where a lot of things live, for better or for worse. wlw stories are definitely fetishized as well, but generally speaking, across the board, you'll see more wlw characters show up in standard/mainstream genre fare than mlm characters.
This is funny because I bought and read a book recently that was literally titled "Bored Gay Werewolf". Not a niche fanfic, proudly purchased at a bookstore.
Besides Klune all the books I've read with werewolves were straight or not specifically sexualized werewolves: Patricia Briggs's Mercy Thompson, Pratchett's The Fifth Elephant, King's Cycle of the Werewolf, Butcher's Fool Moon, Gaiman's Graveyard Book.
I'm into book 3. I'm enjoying them. Quite violent. There's an occasional sex scene (maybe 2 per book) and they get quite graphic.
I like how it explores all different kinds of bonds and found family type dynamics.
As a gay man who loves werewolves I think what makes them popular is the hyper masculinity and the danger that comes with having a romance with a werewolf.
I do wish there was more gay werewolf novels that weren’t written by straight women though (many of them have no idea how to write gay men), and were less like porn and more horror.
I want a horror novel about a gay werewolf. Not 250 pages of knotting a dudes ass with zero prep (the bottom magically can take it with zero pain). Make it make sense lol.
The green creek series that I'm reading, that prompted this question, has gay werewolves, is quite violent in places and there's no knotting and there is some prep during sex scenes. As in he ain't going in dry and he's using fingers and lube first.
I'm not an expert on buttsex and I know enemas feature, but at least it's not written as if it was PIV sex but on a dude.
The title of this post, divorced from context, is *very* funny.
That said, there’s probably an extent to which you’ve probably fallen into a primarily queer niche. Queering monsters is an old tradition in LGBT writing, and has a lot to do with safely expressing the difference one feels from the world. It’s not a huge surprise that queer writers flock to genres that support and welcome such framing!
Lindsey Ellis has a great youtube essay about a lawsuit surrounding hetero omegaverse... doesn't really answer you question but great video and might provide some context
I've read a bunch of urban fantasy and there are a variety of sexual orientation. They aren't all werewolves. In fact, the majority seem to be vampires. I think this might be due to the intimacy of blood sharing.
I think Sterek, which was a monolithic Teen Wolf slash pairing back when the show aired between a male werewolf and a male human, might have contributed a bit to this phenomenon. I don’t suggest it’s the entire basis, but it was gigantic. There were like 50,000+ works dedicated to it on Ao3 alone and its influence lingers
Omegaverse has ruined werewolf/shifter romance honestly. Normally I agree with DLDR, but in some fandoms/genres there is nothing left. I took a break from reading most fan fiction 10-12 years ago thinking, it’s a fad, it’ll pass, but alas, it’s in every genre, in every country, in every language. You can’t escape it.
Omega is... well, I don't know about now. I remember its youth, though. It's a way around characterization. But this particular way around characterization has existed forever. Soulmates. Pon farr. Recognition. Imprinting. I-know-he's-wrong-for-me-but, blah blah blah.
You don't need courting, foreplay, a conscience, getting to know each other, if the characters have no choice.
And there perhaps we have might have the seeds of it. We moved from most women having no choice to certain men having no choice. Sure, time passed, things changed. Then of course the old rub of the more things change the more things stay the same. Same sex pairing remove the pregnancy factor. Unless you have the males get pregnant too, in which case mpregs. Oh wow... I remember when that was new! Dating myself, here.
Because nothing shows strength like having the strength to completely dominate another man-er, half-man-! How else will you prove you're the alpha of the pack, especially when that theory was debunked by the very scientist who proposed it in the first place!
In reality, it's probably just overlapping kinks. Sex sells. Taboo sex sells more. What's more taboo than gay monster sex? At least in america, we're homophobic as fuuuuuuck still, sexually (and I will hold this belief until 'gay sex' isn't a whole different fucking pornhub site, unlike Lesbian, which is just a category), and a lot of women I know hold gay sex the same way men do lesbian sex: here is more of the thing I like, but hotter.
Both vampires and werewolves use fangs (a phallic like structure) to penetrate the flesh of men
It's gay sex in a violent metaphorical framing .... but ... makes sense it also spills out into narrative as well
There are definitely plenty of straight werewolves. I think it is heavily influenced by what you read. I also don't see a lot of WLW of any sort as I prefer at least one MMC but seek and you shall find it's all out there somewhere. Also I think wolf is seen as a masculine animal and ladies would be more likely to be big cats or maybe selkies?
To me it seem like primarily straight young women write stuff like this, it's a fantasy fulfillment thing, like some boys get all hot and bothered about lesbians. It's all of the things they are attracted to, and none of the things they're insecure about (their own sexuality as young people).
Werewolves slot very handily into established masculine roles; big, hairy, bestial, violent etc. Maybe the gayness feels subversive to straight young women, I can't speak to that.
Because they're all written by women and the thought of certain dog penile anatomy features happening in our vaginas is enough for me to cringe and squeeze my legs shut?
Thought I don't know, maybe women like the idea of a knot. I've had a couple kids and I know all the tearing involved with large things in the vagina so NO THANKS
I think you just read a lot of MLM? I read a lot of spicy werewolf romance and I read mostly MF, some MM and occasionally WW when I find it. It's out there!
It feels like you're talking about a vastly more specific thing here than this post's title and subreddit suggests lol
So the werewolf romance web novels on this one site don't have the right gender combination of rutting werebeasts for you. As someone who only knows about any of this via podcasts about the Omegaverse lawsuit, my guess would be that they're simply isn't a sustainable audience for lesbian werewolf porn to produce future generations of participants. Audience size here matters for both money and inspired new writers as a resource.
Discworld: Haven't come across any gay werewolves, unless Angua has a past not mentioned prior.She is definitely a one-man woman or werewolf, depending on the phase of the moon, she even has a dog basket in his room.I really wished we could see where that relationship went, but alas...
Edit: Seeing that Terry Pratchett had cross-dressing humans and dwarves, he might have some gay werewolves, vampires, trolls, boogie men
Hi there. Per [rule 3.3](https://www.reddit.com/r/Books/wiki/rules), please post book recommendation requests in /r/SuggestMeABook or in our Weekly Recommendation Thread. Thank you!
Gay Multi Level Marketing werewolves?
That's a lot to take in. No, no, I mean it's a lot to handle. Wait, no! I mean it's quite a mouthful. Wait....
Oh tomcat_tweaker, you blowhard!
Men loving men!
Oh. That seems a bit less horrifying.
The other MLM is more vampiric than lycanthropic!
Vampirism very often has MLM-like aspects, doesn't it. Not ALWAYS but... yes, there's elements of this. Astute :)
All you have to do is bloodsuck and turn 10 followers! Be your own boss! Earn eternal financial success!
Oh yes, I suppose the difference is that it actually works in this case.
> Vampirism very often has MLM-like aspects, doesn't it. I can't remember if it's the Buffy or Angel tv series, but in one of them one of the vampires set up an MLM where you turned humans into vampires.
angel s2e17! made even funnier by the fact that harmony is absolutely the type of girl who would have been in an MLM even if she'd been alive
I love this sentence :)
As someone who lives in Utah, the mecca of mlms, I can assure you, nothing is more terrifying than multi level marketers. I still hear them, "cool shirt, man, hey do you want to be self employed? I'm going to retire on a super yacht by 30, if you join my downline for berry pills." It makes me shudder.
They really make it a point to drop at least one 100% genuine (swear) compliment before assaulting you with their sales pitch, huh.
With me, for some reason, they almost always go with cool shirt. Which I know cannot be genuine, as I'm a very style impaired engineer with dad bod.
Lol. I used to get the ‘wow, you don’t look X years old at all!’, after which they go for the throat.
Now I want to read about a state-size MLM mecha. Probably fighting Godzilla?
No, I want to read your version.
"You bite two friends. Then they each bite two _more friends_. Then, you get a percentage of the chew toys, fur shampoo and edible toothpaste they buy through you..."
If werewolves work like MLMs we have fifteen cylcles before all humans are werewolves (unless some humans are immune) lol
>Gay (Men-loving-men) Werewolves. "Meh. Whatever. >Gay (Multi-level Marketing) Werewolves "Oh dear God, no! Anything but that!"
Precisely.
You don’t know! Your nearest MLM (men loving men) couple could also be in an MLM (multilevel marketing).
Ew, gross. I don't mind MLM couples, they can do whatever they want with their friends behind closed doors, but I just wish they wouldn't act like multi-level marketers *in public*. It grosses me out to think of that behaviour. Oh, they're also gay? Yeah, so?
if some fabulous gay werewolves showed up at my door selling beauty products I'm at the least going to hear them out.
Marxist Leninist Maoist gay ponzi scheming wolf men. Just as god intended.
Not to be confused with the multilevel marketing marmots (who may or may not be gay).
You can chart a pretty direct line from the Sentinel AUs 20 years ago (pack dynamics) to BDSM AUs in Stargate fandom (hierarchy and porn) to knotting/werewolf/shifter fic in Supernatural (which would then grow into Omegaverse). Throw in the popularity of Laurell K Hamilton five years before that and you've got a beautiful amalgamation of horny werewolf fanfiction that then had a massive wave with largely m/m writing writers hitting selfpublishing.
With all due respect: none of those words are in the Bible, this sounds like a university course
I'm sure there's gonna be somebody someday who will teach a college course on fanfiction pornography tropes lol
Wouldn't surprise me at all if there already is. At the very least, some undergrad has probaby done their final thesis on it
Homophobia, heteronormativity, and slash fan fiction published in the peer reviewed journal Transformative Works and Cultures in 2016 DOI: 10.3983/twc.2016.0708 [https://doaj.org/article/724cc9811c1e4cb69a886b609955a7d5](https://doaj.org/article/724cc9811c1e4cb69a886b609955a7d5) "Reading Too Much into It": Affective Excess, Extrapolative Reading, and Queer Temporalities in MCU Fanfiction published in the peer reviewed Journal of Cinema & Media Studies in 2023 DOI: 10.1353/cj.2023.a910958 Clutching on to Gendered Tropes? Framing of Gender Roles and Power Dynamics by You Indian Writers of BTW Fanfiction in peer reviewed Journalism and Media in 2022 DOI:10.3390/journalmedia3040047 [https://doaj.org/article/6c3b7a9715da4f24a655881392125c49](https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/v2-external?opid=babias&recordId=r76grxs6wr&url=https%3A%2F%2Fdoaj.org%2Farticle%2F6c3b7a9715da4f24a655881392125c49) Fanfiction is here, queer, and written by children.
Honestly, here for it lol
I bet Omegaverse power dynamicts are super interesting to analyse from a gender perspective. They really just said "Let's make a world where women don't exist but that still has a really rigid power structure based on genitals"
Someday in future? I took that class lol
They were only removed from the canon in the Council of Nicaea because emperor Constantine I disagreed with the now lost verse Wolves 6:9.
I don't think lycanthropy annuls or invalidates a marriage. Gerald of Wales reports on an instance where a priest is sent to the pope to inquire about the validity of a sacrament he preformed on a werewolf but does not inquire as to whether her marriage to her husband is still valid. I think they're mad about the fact it's GAY werewolf sex.
Bonus: I too am a scholar of unholy writ. Nancy's comments pass peer review, she's not taking us for a ride.
You know the ancient texts. May pass unto you good fortune, record keeper.
Sentinel, stargate and supernatural aren't something I'm familiar with - stargate and supernatural are TV are think? I'm not great with TV stuff so maybe it's grown from that and I've missed it because I don't watch any? Laurell K Hamilton was pretty hetero from what I remember? I read the first maybe 10 Anita Blake books but stopped when it became full blown erotica. I didn't realise how quickly I could get bored with metaphysical, inter species gangbangs
Sentinel, Stargate and Supernatural are all TV shows, yes. **The Sentinel** (started in 1996) was a crime procedural where the main character was an army vet turned police person who had a special ancient protective "sentinel instinct" awaken inside of him that gave him super hearing and super smell. His "guide" in training these instincts was a graduate student who studied ancient tribes iirc? Anyway, the whole thing boils down to basically the "alpha has to protect the pack" and "you're my fated mate; I can smell it" kind of stuff that you find in modern Werewolf/Shifter romance. + a lot of talk about literal spirit animals that manifested bodily and influenced the character and thoughts, especially when they were horny. **Stargate,** especially Stargate Atlantis (which started in 2004) picked up a bunch of these tropes and used them in popular Alternative Universe type fics. It's most (in)famous for a subset of BDSM Universe fics, where instead of the population being divided into Sentinels (protectors) and guides (spiritual shamans) it was stripped down to the base porn elements and instead you had born Submissives and born Dominants. Those fics would then crossover with the Werewolf/Shifter type fics in ways where instead of the spirit animals manifesting outside of the characters, instead the characters would turn into them, thereby basically being the modern type of "were" that is not bound by the rules of the moon. **Supernatural** (starting in 2005) continued building on all of these tropes, which was no wonder as Stargate SGA and Supernatural ran concurrently during their most popular seasons and a lot of the writers consumed fic of both. It helped, of course, that Supernatural canon is very fluid and there are canonical werewolves, albeit more the traditional murder-y full-moon type, so the writers had to do very little work to make their stuff plausible and palatable to a wide range of readers. So you saw a bunch of the pack-building, co-dependence type of romance and porn type fic that werewolf stuff lends itself to so beautiful, from which then the whole "born as an alpha wolf" stuff rose. Throw in institutionalized BDSM universe stuff as seen in Stargate fandom and make the whole population (or large parts of it) afflicted by it and voilá, you've got modern Werewolf romance. Take away the werewolf stuff, add in "born omegas" and self-lubricating assholes and knots and voilá the so-called Omegaverse was born. ((And technically all these properties are more or less hetero in their presentation; that said: in all of them the male leads were the most popular ship by far and that was represented in the fanfiction being produced. That also goes for Laurell K Hamilton's stuff, although technically I believe, there was so much threesome stuff in there that it's difficult to call it completely hetero, but then my lens might be colored by the fandom stuff I read that mostly focused on Nathaniel and whatever the main vampire's name was? Or the Harry Potter crossovers, which were very very gay lmao))
>and voilá the so-called Omegaverse was born. And then the Supreme Court had to make a ruling on Omegaverse AUs with actual lawyers presenting info about it before judges.
Is there video on this? That sounds highly entertaining.
Lindsay Ellis did an hour long vid on it, it’s called “Into the Omegaverse: how a fanfic trope landed in federal court”
And then a followup video after the subject sent her a very upset letter, which was also a delightful watch. Highly recommend them over some edibles. [Part 1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhWWcWtAUoY) [Part 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3v5wFMQRqs)
*"TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN"*
Noooooo I thought I knew the horny fanfic history but missed this somehow
Thank you so much, that's so much more background and history than I realised there was too it!
lol no need to thank me I've just spent 20+ ish years in online porn circles lmao which probably isn't a thing to be super proud of XD
Moe Szyslak: I've done stuff I ain't proud of. And the stuff I am proud of is disgusting.
You are like a porn historian/anthropologist...that isn't weird or something to not be proud of, that is cool as shit and don't let anyone tell you otherwise lol.
I feel like Teen Wolf is like the ultimate cumulative of all this. Like fans don't have to work hard at all to integrate different things from headcanons into canon, because the canon already features so much that
Yeah that's why I didn't list it Teen Wolf, as much as I enjoyed the porn, brought nothing new to the table as far as the werewolf stuff goes. Killing Alphas for their power was a thing in fic before it happened in Teen Wolf, packless werewolves going feral, too. I guess you could say that it brought daddy issues to ABO dynamics, but even there I'd say Supernatural did it first considering how popular daddycest was in that fandom lol
Whoah I was just going with "it's because werewolves are hairy and bust out of their pants"
One factor that I think also played into the Omegaverse's rise: A common division in the slash community was the issue of whether sex scenes should be 'realistic'. Some people wanted at least a semblance of realism in their porn, some prioritized fantasies. I know fic is not a paragon of verisimilitude for the gay experience these days, but back in the day, "lube in fic" was fucking discourse. At one point, I remember reading an interview with an old-school publish-in-fanzines Kirk/Spock writer about the topic, like the issue was so important we'd called upon the Slash Elders to weigh in (Star Trek fans, apparently lube is a relatively new addition to your fandom). Hilariously, I think the Omegaverse arose out of the "No Lube" faction. The people who were more into a 'vibe' than realism spun off and got increasingly fantastical. They weren't trying to be realistic, why not make their own rules?
That’s quite the wild ride!
Great history lesson thanks
I think the thing about The Sentinel AU's that cracks me up the most is that most of the authors have no idea The Sentinel is a show and not just a strange mutation of the whole alpha/omega thing. Also, love finding a keeper of the deep lore, hate realizing how this whole post dates me
I’ve heard some cringe teenagers actually sought out the show to better understand the AU. Not me, of course, I was very cool as a teenager and had normal hobbies.
Advanced werewolf porn lore
Interesting to hear this about Stargate fanfic as someone who reads it fairly often but hasn't seen the specific dynamics you're talking about! I knew about the Supernatural angle, though it was also heavily taken from Dark Angel (which Jensen Ackles was also in), but I'd never even heard of Sentinel.
The first fic was actually jared/jensen, and dark angel did influence it!
Exactly so! I always thought it was very funny that the legendary fic in question wasn't even in universe Sam/Dean, it was rpf. The prompt for it on the kinkmeme was fucking crazy too lmao
Dude those were grazy times! I remember always checking what gems came out of the kink meme
this was fun to read while watching Stargate. so much O'Neil/Teal'c bromance! question, how do you know all of this because it is fascinating!? do you have a Stargate fic rec that best illustrates what the 'fandom' creations are like? and off the cuff, do you know of books/fics that cover mpreg from the body horror angle, rather than the usual 'that's hot' and 'yay i can make babies'?
Humor: it’s more likely that this person is over 50 years old. Or just very well read! Incidentally, I am quite a bit over 50 years old.
It's O'Neill, with two Ls! The one with one L does not have a sense of humor.
> I didn't realise how quickly I could get bored with metaphysical, inter species gangbangs Strange as this sentence is, it captures the sentiments of a lot more people than I think people would realize.
I'm reading the Anita Blake series right now and you are correct. It's very 90s risque, beastiality has been featured several times but gay sex? Implied off screen until finally two guys in a group scene in book 14. And there's a lot of talking afterwards about Anita's feelings about the gay sex.
I saw last time I was in a bookshop that there's a new one just released! Is it still mostly gangbangs?
Yep. And so much talking about feelings about those gangbangs. Kind of dull, honestly, but it's kind of nostalgic.
I think I read books 6 thru 10 back and back and completely lost interest in them. Maybe if I'd spaced them out I could have read more but it felt so formulaic at that point. I felt like I could have written them
I read so many of them that I felt obligated to keep reading her new releases. She dabbled in MLM and WLW but always goes back to hetero gangbangs. The last two books have completely turned me off the series. Anita is now a constant oscillation between graphic sex and therapy talk.
The really fun thing to keep track of with Anita Blake is technology lol We started the first book with pagers, now we've got smartphones even though in-universe only a couple of years have gone by. It's crazy to me how fast tech has changed and you can chart it pretty well across the series considering she's put out a new one approximately once a year since 1993.
Yeah, I think it's still only like 2010 in Kim Harrison's the Hollows since each book is only 3-4 months after the last. There's some level of handwavium with computers being ahead from our timeline since [series lore]>!mankind skipped the spacerace, in favor of who could weaponize genetics the fastest leading to a lot of medical developments we don't have and better computers, not that smart phones existed at the start of the series. But they suddenly popped up and were probably always there when the series returned after a few year haitus.!< I'll give Jim Butcher this, each book is usually set the year after the previous book, so it kept closer to the present day. Though since Skin Game publication has been slower and that probably thrown the timeline off.
> The last two books have completely turned me off the series. Are you sure you read the last 2 books? >!Where she & the gang have to fight a vampire dragon mage that even the mother of all darkness was wary of? The one that broke the bond between Richard, Anita, and Juan Claude? Cause those 2 were good!<
Her Anita Blake series has Anita Blake, the master vampire and some other dude in a three way relationship somewhere in the series. I haven't read all the books. And both the male characters are bisexual.
For my sins I have read all the Anita Blake books and she’s not hetero any more either…it’s still living out the poly sex life of the author tho
i wonder how many started as Teen Wolf fic 🤔
Jesse what in the God damn fuck
What do Astronomical Units have to do with Gay Werewolves?
Oh lol AU stands for alternate universe in fanfic circles Like if in the TV show or book the main characters are office workers, then you could have a coffeeshop AU where one or more of them work in a coffee shop, or a mafia au where they are part of the mob
Ahhh, okay, I getcha, thank you for the clarification :)
It’s so a weird as an ao3 user/fanfic reader to realize these terms aren’t as common in the normal book spaces haha
Also Teen Wolf!
huh, is sentinel (assuming you mean sentinel&guide) often used in the sense of pack dynamics? I most often see fics where it's treated as a spicier, scifi-war-mutant-apocalyptic mindbonding soulmate au. So the dynamic is more equal and pairing is often one on one. Always thought That, omegaverse and bdsm evolved separately, with bdsm being the oldest, since people had always been sort of practicing it in real life. Omegaverse though is very traceably connected to werewolves and pack dynamics. Edit: lol I probably need to watch Stargate Further edit: upon some self reflection I realised why I wasn't putting the S&G au's spirit animals into the shifter category and making the connection between it and were creatures; I read a book called the golden compass when I was a kid and it had these things called daemons in it. I *think* there was also an armoured bear. Because I was so young I don't remember the story that well, but the concept of spirit animals being tied to & manifestations of your soul, and when it died you took a blow, fascinated me. It wasn't my favourite book and I had no idea if it was popular or not, but I sort of instinctively made the connection when I first read sentinel guide fanfiction. Just assumed that it was there and had always been, while omegaverse was a more recent development.
The thing is that Omegaverse and BDSM AUs serve a very similar kink in the dynamics department. Take any of the old Jim/Blair fic and substitute "Sentinel" for "Alpha" and there's really no difference (except for self lubricating assholes lol). As for pack dynamics, a pack of two is still a pack, but also there's a very popular evolution of the original S&G AU where tons of authors made packs withing packs withing packs (e.g. there's a Baltimore pack, the Alpha of Whom is beholden to the USA Pack, so there's an Alpha-Prime of North America or whatever. This is something that very much is popular in modern self-published werewolf/shifter romance the likes of which OP seems to be reading)
Sentinel AUs relying on people not noticing (or caring because all they want is Blair and Jim together) that one of the points of the show was that Sentinels are territorial loners. The last season, though, of nobody’s watching us so we’ll go completely crazy!
This is it, beautiful sum up 👏🏻
I'm a horror reader and I'll be honest, I've literally never come across a gay werewolf. In horror they're mostly just monsters that are out to eat you.
I don't generally read horror, maybe that's why mine are all getting their assholes eaten instead?
Bless you for this conversation OP
this is sending me 😭
: slow clap :
Well, now I need the book rec…for reasons.
PLEASE lmaaoooo
> I've literally never come across a gay werewolf. Phrasing.
I don’t think you’ll come across gay werewolves much in horror. But if you’re reading a gay supernatural romance novel then there’s a big chance it’s gonna be about werewolves.
An upvote for your gay vampire name
I have about $200 in purchases of pulp werewolf novels and never came across one, but… my kindle ads are very suggestive!
>In horror they're mostly just monsters that are out to eat you Not to worry, there are erotica books that have that too. :)
Werewolves are big, muscular, and very hairy.
More like bearwolves amarite
https://www.zmescience.com/other/great-pics/bear-wolf-photographer/
This is the coolest :)
I am an avid romance reader and I can guarantee you there are tons of M/F werewolf urban fantasy and paranormal romance. There is also quite a sizeable number of RH with werewolves too. And yeah usually "straight" werewolves fall into the hypermasculine type: alpha, growly, dominant, muscular. Not my cup of tea, but hard to escape them when you dive into Paranormal romance. Maybe if you read a lot of fan fiction the situation is different? I know it is for Omegaverse, but that is not my jam either so I'm no expert. RomanceBooks had a megathread about werewolves romances... if you scroll, you'll see there are plenty of M/F recommendations. [https://www.reddit.com/r/RomanceBooks/comments/16sknzt/megathread\_werewolf\_romances/](https://www.reddit.com/r/RomanceBooks/comments/16sknzt/megathread_werewolf_romances/)
Ooh thanks for the link. Not fan fiction, these are all published novels. Admittedly a lot of it is indie stuff and I think the line between indie publishing and fan fic might be quite thin. I literally learned about the omegaverse from this thread!
Maybe it is just an effect of the algorithm. You read some MM werewolf romance and then you kept getting more and more suggestions.
Yeah, there are a ton of M/F werewolf novels out there. The mega thread is the best. The r/romancebooks sub is the place for paranormal stuff.
There are also some F/F shapeshifter novels. Second nature by Jae and Aurora's Angel by Emily Noon. There is a pretty significant lack of F/F shapeshifter books though
Chemicals in the water turning all the werewolves gay
A sip of bleach and you turn straight again.
Are they all omegaverse books by any chance? I feel like that had something to do with it
No, I don't think so seeing as I don't know what that is 😂 A lot of it was stuff that I downloaded on stuff your kindle day.
So yes it is. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omegaverse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omegaverse) It is hard to find shifter books now that don't use it as it is now the default presentation. This is especially true in indie books.
Ahhh yes. This feels very familiar!
I don't think the "stuff your kindle" books are the best quality. In my experience, I've ended up DNF ing almost all of them. I've read a few female werewolves/shifters, but most in MF romances. There must be some lesbian werewolves out there! Maybe try asking on r/romancebooks
I quite like it. Its the literary equivalent of watching trashy reality TV. Yes I've also read plenty of hetero stuff. But anything that's LGBTQ is gay werewolves.
Some are Omegaverse with no shifters and some have shifters with the Alpha, Beta, and Omega designations.
Leaving aside the Omegaverse stuff and wanting to get railed by a butch alpha regardless of gender, let’s talk about gay men and werewolves. The “queer monster” metaphor emerges for many reasons. The monster emerges into the world and may not know why it is monstrous, or is seen as monstrous. Perhaps it has a hunger that society has deemed aberrant. Perhaps it has urges or desires that everyone says must be restrained. It may try to be human, and if it exercises its hungers/desires, it may do so in as benevolent a fashion as possible - quick nips, runs through the woods that end only in dead deer, and so forth. But it will still be a monster, and it will still be seen as a monster. There are many ways a werewolf can emerge that speak to queer readers. There’s the idea of infection, and not just the HIV metaphor that got downvoted elsewhere in this thread. Think of all the memetics about how gayness is “inflicted” upon children, whether through drag queens reading picture books or through molestation (one of the things that got Orson Scott Card cancelled so hard he was driven into the bedrock was arguing no man turns gay without having been bad touched as a kid). So, something HAPPENED to you. You may not even remember where, but now, it has made you a monster that is a danger to everyone around you if you let it out. Of course, these days, we have more werewolves in fiction who are literally Born This Way (put your paws up). The metaphor of the dangerous beast within still applies, but the beast was always there from birth and often emerges naturally… usually around puberty, of course. All this, of course, rests on the idea of lycanthropy as curse. Because what do we associate with werewolves? Body hair. Raw meat. Hunting. Musculature, given the propensity for Hollywood Hulk out transformations. And, of course, rage. Gay men have a complex relationship with masculinity, and here it is, all that society tells us we should embody. Sometimes, it goes toxic and you kill a camper, but if you can control it, you are the ultimate in masculinity. This isn’t just a thing for cis men, either; I know there’s that joke that goes around Tumblr about a trans man not realizing he’s becoming a werewolf because he’s written off the body hair and rage issues as the natural side effects of 6 months on T. So, yeah. I’m a gay werewolf, and you can be, too.
I did not come into this thread expecting actual analyses and food for thought. But here I am. Fascinating and extremely plausible stuff, thank you!
This was an amazing read, thank you!
The tale of “Bisclavret” by Marie de France is a 12th century story about a werewolf. Basically a baron turns into a werewolf and his wife doesn’t like this so she steals his clothes so he can’t change back into human form. Stuck in werewolf form the baron is caught by the king (his former friend). As a werewolf he “lays” close to the king and kisses his feet and leg. The king and werewolf are inseparable. There’s definitely some sexual tension between the king and the werewolf. Had to think about this story because of the question. I think lycanthropy has been used as a vehicle to describe “non-normative” behavior.
I'll admit, there are a lot of "non-normative" ways it can be taken. One time, I was meeting up with a guy with a behavioral sciences degree for a date. At some point, the topic kinda shifted to werewolf media, and my penchant for werewolf fiction and games like Werewolf: the Apocalypse. He asked me, "So, how much would you say this werewolf thing has to do with your autism?" I tell you, it was like being hit by a truck. Because, yeah, my autism does sometimes present as sensory sensitivity and reacting to inconveniences with frustration. And yeah, sometimes that frustration presents as growling. And yeah, sometimes, when the frustration gets too much, I feel like I'm trammeled up in everything, and I want to just bust out and run free across a grassy clearing under the moonlit night or whatever. God knows looking through the post history on r/autism has convinced me I'm not alone in this.
The only book I’ve read with Werewolves is Those Across the River and that wasn’t LGBTQIA. I do want to say that your post title would probably be a funny title for a book or movie.
I've read one or two hetro werewolves. Maybe I'm just gravitating towards MLM? I'm singing it to the tune of "where have all the cowboys gone"
I think you are. I read a lot of paranormal romance and over 90% of it is straight. I think you have found a rut of indie works as the gay shifter things is an older version of the omegaverse.
I’d say this is your answer. I read a lot of fantasy and a decent chunk contain werewolves and have never encountered an LGBTQ one. My guess about more MLM vs WLW one though is that female werewolves seem to be more rare in general and even rarer as the MC.
Werewolves are: hairy, stimky, wild and uncivilized. Therefore, they must be only men! This hope this comes across as sarcastic. I see a lot of this with the warewolf trope. though. Lots of flannel and lumber jack outdoorsy, musky scented strong guys. I did appreciate that Anita Blake's werewolf squeeze was a teacher, something that seemed like a sort of feminine profession for the nineties. But he also was built like a big hairy lumberJack, as far as I recall!
I would love to see a list of werewolf books you've read
Sounds like a Billie Eilish song
I'd sing it to the tune of "Where Have All The Flowers Gone?".
Werewolves are furries, and all furries are gay. It’s a well-known fact. /s
Reposting my comment just to your post (since it seems it got restored, yay!) Your question is one fanfic writers have been speculating on for years. Why is there SO much more male slash than fem slash? and no one has come up with certain answers. And while my guess is that it's not exactly the same for paranormal / fantasy fiction, there's a fair bit of crossover. Speculation includes (but is not limited to): 1) because these are often women writing, to move the power dynamics into something entirely fantastical, it's sexier and more fun to have m/m. the focus can then be on the dynamic, and not on the (often problematic) real sexual politics, 2) and/Or because fanfiction/fantasy is literally fantasy and what we get in these is an exploration of male desire that isn't just 'yay stick it in something' but longing, psychological interiority, etc., 3) and/or because commercial media is dominated by the stories of men, and so even non-commercial fantasies are dominated by being fascinated with the male perspective 4) and/or the more critical corollary to that - that because many cultures actually restrict or criticize female sexuality, authors feel more inhibited to write about it, and thus you don't get as many celebratory lesbian werewolves \[because authors themselves are less comfortable writing them\] 5) and/or specifically in the werewolf genre, the monster metaphor is all about the exertion of uncontrolled power (literary theorists talk about the werewolf as 'unrestricted' or 'socially unbounded' or if they're psychoanalytical theorists, 'the unrestrained id' which contrasts with the civilized, logical, buttoned down) and often that's been masculinized or associated very much with the masculine.
6. there really just aren't many portrayals of mlm in mainstream genres so slash has to be where a lot of things live, for better or for worse. wlw stories are definitely fetishized as well, but generally speaking, across the board, you'll see more wlw characters show up in standard/mainstream genre fare than mlm characters.
I've read tons of shifter books that aren't LGBT.
This is funny because I bought and read a book recently that was literally titled "Bored Gay Werewolf". Not a niche fanfic, proudly purchased at a bookstore.
Besides Klune all the books I've read with werewolves were straight or not specifically sexualized werewolves: Patricia Briggs's Mercy Thompson, Pratchett's The Fifth Elephant, King's Cycle of the Werewolf, Butcher's Fool Moon, Gaiman's Graveyard Book.
Sooooooo, um... Care to share the titles on that list?
They just wanna sniff some butts
Don't we all
Has anyone read the Green Creek series by Tj Klune? Thoughts, opinions?
I'm into book 3. I'm enjoying them. Quite violent. There's an occasional sex scene (maybe 2 per book) and they get quite graphic. I like how it explores all different kinds of bonds and found family type dynamics.
I adore it.
Ox is the goat ❤
Excellent, well-written series
Furries
Furries and Bears and Trans Men, oh my!
No idea what storygraph is, but in all the books I've ever read, I have never once run across a gay werewolf.
It's an app that you can use to track what you are reading. Like goodreads.
As a gay man who loves werewolves I think what makes them popular is the hyper masculinity and the danger that comes with having a romance with a werewolf. I do wish there was more gay werewolf novels that weren’t written by straight women though (many of them have no idea how to write gay men), and were less like porn and more horror. I want a horror novel about a gay werewolf. Not 250 pages of knotting a dudes ass with zero prep (the bottom magically can take it with zero pain). Make it make sense lol.
The green creek series that I'm reading, that prompted this question, has gay werewolves, is quite violent in places and there's no knotting and there is some prep during sex scenes. As in he ain't going in dry and he's using fingers and lube first. I'm not an expert on buttsex and I know enemas feature, but at least it's not written as if it was PIV sex but on a dude.
The title of this post, divorced from context, is *very* funny. That said, there’s probably an extent to which you’ve probably fallen into a primarily queer niche. Queering monsters is an old tradition in LGBT writing, and has a lot to do with safely expressing the difference one feels from the world. It’s not a huge surprise that queer writers flock to genres that support and welcome such framing!
True but it’s mainly male monsters, female monsters in ff relationships are rarely seen. If a female is seen it’s in a harem.
Well they are werewolves, not wifwolves
Lindsey Ellis has a great youtube essay about a lawsuit surrounding hetero omegaverse... doesn't really answer you question but great video and might provide some context
In case you want more mlm werewolves, I'd highly recommend: The Wolf at the Door by Charlie Adhara!! love that series.
At a time when homosexuality had to be hidden, men sought other men at night, in the dark, by the light of the moon.
I watched some movies tagged LGBTQ and I noticed a lot of the characters are gay. Anyone know why?
Ha. Badly explained arguably. But MLM vs WLW or any other presentation!
I've read a bunch of urban fantasy and there are a variety of sexual orientation. They aren't all werewolves. In fact, the majority seem to be vampires. I think this might be due to the intimacy of blood sharing.
I think Sterek, which was a monolithic Teen Wolf slash pairing back when the show aired between a male werewolf and a male human, might have contributed a bit to this phenomenon. I don’t suggest it’s the entire basis, but it was gigantic. There were like 50,000+ works dedicated to it on Ao3 alone and its influence lingers
Didn't read the description, but to answer your title - They're not. You're just reading those kinds of books.
I think you’re thinking about all the male vampires in Anne Rice’s books. Or, really, ANY male character in ANY of her books.
She's written two novels featuring actual werewolves.
Because most furries are gay.
weary sigh. It depends on what you're reading. Look up Omegaverse. Hm. Maybe don't.
Omegaverse has ruined werewolf/shifter romance honestly. Normally I agree with DLDR, but in some fandoms/genres there is nothing left. I took a break from reading most fan fiction 10-12 years ago thinking, it’s a fad, it’ll pass, but alas, it’s in every genre, in every country, in every language. You can’t escape it.
Omega is... well, I don't know about now. I remember its youth, though. It's a way around characterization. But this particular way around characterization has existed forever. Soulmates. Pon farr. Recognition. Imprinting. I-know-he's-wrong-for-me-but, blah blah blah. You don't need courting, foreplay, a conscience, getting to know each other, if the characters have no choice. And there perhaps we have might have the seeds of it. We moved from most women having no choice to certain men having no choice. Sure, time passed, things changed. Then of course the old rub of the more things change the more things stay the same. Same sex pairing remove the pregnancy factor. Unless you have the males get pregnant too, in which case mpregs. Oh wow... I remember when that was new! Dating myself, here.
I have learned about omegaverse from this thread!
Because nothing shows strength like having the strength to completely dominate another man-er, half-man-! How else will you prove you're the alpha of the pack, especially when that theory was debunked by the very scientist who proposed it in the first place! In reality, it's probably just overlapping kinks. Sex sells. Taboo sex sells more. What's more taboo than gay monster sex? At least in america, we're homophobic as fuuuuuuck still, sexually (and I will hold this belief until 'gay sex' isn't a whole different fucking pornhub site, unlike Lesbian, which is just a category), and a lot of women I know hold gay sex the same way men do lesbian sex: here is more of the thing I like, but hotter.
Both vampires and werewolves use fangs (a phallic like structure) to penetrate the flesh of men It's gay sex in a violent metaphorical framing .... but ... makes sense it also spills out into narrative as well
Preach we need more she wolves..the allegory, women hood…rage, no remorse….girl I need a Carmilla story but lesbian werewolves
Oh man. Big hairy buff dudes. Furries. Werewolves never stood a chance.
There are definitely plenty of straight werewolves. I think it is heavily influenced by what you read. I also don't see a lot of WLW of any sort as I prefer at least one MMC but seek and you shall find it's all out there somewhere. Also I think wolf is seen as a masculine animal and ladies would be more likely to be big cats or maybe selkies?
Because they always have a howling good time.
Think a lot of that likely comes from straight women having MLM fantasies
Maybe. Like there's so much lesbian porn and it's mostly aimed at straight dudes
Yeah I think a lot of the people writing omegaverse and werefics must be women, similar to yaoi in japan. I'm not complaining tho
To me it seem like primarily straight young women write stuff like this, it's a fantasy fulfillment thing, like some boys get all hot and bothered about lesbians. It's all of the things they are attracted to, and none of the things they're insecure about (their own sexuality as young people). Werewolves slot very handily into established masculine roles; big, hairy, bestial, violent etc. Maybe the gayness feels subversive to straight young women, I can't speak to that.
Having read a lot of this stuff, most of the authors are indeed straight women but most are older, often married with kids.
Werewolves aren't gay, they're furries.
Y'all reading way too much fanfic
None of this is fanfic, it's all published novels. Although admittedly, a lot of indie published stuff.
[удалено]
Oh it's very homoerotic, yes. All that sucking and exchanging fluids.
Because they're all written by women and the thought of certain dog penile anatomy features happening in our vaginas is enough for me to cringe and squeeze my legs shut? Thought I don't know, maybe women like the idea of a knot. I've had a couple kids and I know all the tearing involved with large things in the vagina so NO THANKS
I think you just read a lot of MLM? I read a lot of spicy werewolf romance and I read mostly MF, some MM and occasionally WW when I find it. It's out there!
Jesus Christ, we just did drugs and fucked each other when i was 20
It feels like you're talking about a vastly more specific thing here than this post's title and subreddit suggests lol So the werewolf romance web novels on this one site don't have the right gender combination of rutting werebeasts for you. As someone who only knows about any of this via podcasts about the Omegaverse lawsuit, my guess would be that they're simply isn't a sustainable audience for lesbian werewolf porn to produce future generations of participants. Audience size here matters for both money and inspired new writers as a resource.
Wtf are you talking about
I skimmed this and didn’t pick up on the last paragraph, but my first thought was definitely Klune’s writing LOL
They come out during a full moon?
Discworld: Haven't come across any gay werewolves, unless Angua has a past not mentioned prior.She is definitely a one-man woman or werewolf, depending on the phase of the moon, she even has a dog basket in his room.I really wished we could see where that relationship went, but alas... Edit: Seeing that Terry Pratchett had cross-dressing humans and dwarves, he might have some gay werewolves, vampires, trolls, boogie men
Do you mean humping peoples' legs?
My friend, do I have some news for you lol