Alpha/Omega Dynamics: Biological Determinism or Porny Good Times?

[tanndell]

So let’s talk about the not so recent trend across fandoms for Alpha/Omega fics heavily featuring knotting, heats and more likely than not mpreg. The trend started, as kink trends so often do in the SPN fandom (take a bow, guys) and now seem pervasive in several other fandoms, particularly in the XMFC fandom. And I will admit to enjoying the kink. It takes the D/S dynamics that I have loved in fic for years to the next level, often leads to excellent character and world building and deals with many issues of preassigned sexual and gender roles, often in fascinating subversive ways. But, with a number of fics popping up on my flist and dash over the last few weeks, I have had a couple of thinky thoughts. Actually, one major thinky thought, and one fic idea/plot bunny that I offer to fandom as my gift for reading through this drivel.


Thinky thought: Now, I read slash (mostly, I have been known to read het and gen in a few select fandoms, but slash is what turns my crank). I am in no way ashamed of this. But while my primary interest is in good looking men getting down and dirty when I am reading pure porn, when I am reading fascinating world building narratives, I like fleshed-out supporting characters, with purposes, dynamics and personalities of their own that add to the universe that the author is setting up. One of the things I have found ignored to a fault in Alpha/Omega fic is what happens to those outside the immediate rules of the world as set up by the author.

Since a Universe dominated by Alpha/Omega sexual trends is per force a Universe where the sexual laws of nature are imperative, said sexual laws being dictated by physical characteristics, usually masculine ones, what happens to a community that isn’t interested in knotting. What happens to those who cannot go into heat? What happens to the transgender community? What happens to those who are asexual, despite the demands of their body? What happens to the lesbian women who cannot conceive in an universe where male pregnancies are possible because men have a penis and women don’t, and therefore the needs for IVF and surrogacy takes on a whole new aspect? Every time I read these fics, incredibly sexy and very smart as so many of them are, I am constantly plagued with questions about the construct of the outsider in these societies, and I have not read enough (any?) fics which deal with these issues. Tell me your thoughts flist, and if you have recs, leave them here. I am keen to read it.

Plot Bunny: That said, I am going to go back to the conventions of the genre to ask for a fic I desperately want to see written. Since one of the aspects of the Alpha/Omega mpreg is the biological determinism, I want to see a world where only Alpha/Omega Male/Male relationships are sanctioned (even religiously approved) because of the element of reproduction. Heterosexual relationships can be Alpha/Alpha, Alpha/Beta, Alpha/Omega, Beta/Beta, Beta/Omega, or even Omega/Omega (though the last two may be frowned upon, because it may be a waste of a child bearing male). But all other homosexual relationships are taboo. I want to see two male Alphas or Omegas fall in love in this world. What would it be like for them, what are the forces that they would have to battle? World build for me more fandom, more! It’s all about me, me, me and what I want fandom to do. But I really would like someone to pick this up and create a rich fascinating intensely flawed universe. If I was a better writer, I’d do it myself. Until then, here you go loves. Help yourself.


Thanks for reading and a very good evening. Back to the porn now

Comments

[ladyk-d-azrael.livejournal.com]

Not my kink at all, I'm afraid - no shame intended towards those whose boat it floats, my logical brain just can't get down with the concept of ass babies (the colon is not a birth canal!).

My lack of engagement in it as a *fan* aside, my fanfic-critic side wonders if this constitutes a progression or expansion of the phenomenon I think of as 'uke-fication' (did I tell you about this before?).

So, uke/seme, as slash invariably was in days gone by (and still is, to some extent), seemed to lead to the uke being given 'feminine' qualities of passivity, emotional sensitivity and physical delicacy. A lot of slash criticism, as I'm sure you know, focusses on this 'romance female' stereotype rewritten over a male body (Veith & Lamb, Penley, Jenkins).

Now it seems to me that as slash has gotten smarter a lot of readers and writers have realised it's not ok to keep writing the uke as 'playing the woman'. So my question is – do you think part of the function of the omega in these 'new wave' fics is to reproduce the comforting stereotype by putting it in the biological determinism AU?

... i.e.: we secretly want ukes; ukes no longer seen as pc; therefore omegas?

[tanndell.livejournal.com]

Each to their own kink... Though my A/O interest is less in the ass-babies (always lulzy) and more in the approach to dominance and submission as a predetermined imperative as opposed to a sexual choice.

But your point about uke-fication is well taken.

The more I look at the fandoms which have a plethora of A/O mpreg (like Erik/Charles, Thor/Loki, Steve/Tony just to name a few) they are fandoms where one partner is very very often seen as being more 'feminine' or more 'vulnerable' than the other, whatever the canon suggests. This is in stark comparison to fandoms like say Sherlock where I have almost never read an A/O fic

I think attributing feminine or uke characteristics to a male character in fandom may well come from the need for a familiar romance trope within a purely masculinist construct. And as always I find that hugely problematic because Alpha/Omega means that 'feminine' characteristics are tied inextricably to child bearing and reproduction. Which is interesting, when applied to men, but also hugely anti-feminist!

[sabrina-il.livejournal.com]

Ahaha I think I've read more A/O(/assbabies) fic in the last month than there is water in the sea (several SPN kink memes leading me to each other and taking over my brain /o\) and I have to say the amount of that sort of fic I've seen in XMFC, Avengers or Thor is so minuscule compared to the amount in the A/O's original fandom - Supernatural. (I've read Sherlock A/O fic btw, even though I try to stay away from that fandom - I AM NOW AN A/O EXPERT I GUESS - and it, like many different fics in different fandoms, did play around with the notions D/s. Although in Sherlock I think it's mostly the need to adapt things to Sherlock's semi-canonical asexuality, but idk I'm not in that fandom.)

ANYWAY what I'm saying, I guess, is that I think it's difficult to analyze the A/O trope without reading at least SOME of the fics that actually gave birth to it (ha ha!). I mean it exploded on one SPN kinkmeme, then got ITS OWN KINKMEME in SPN fandom basically (ah, giant fandoms) and then became a staple of ever porn meme in that fandom (of which there are MANY). For example, this was overwhelmingly not a trope that had to do with werewolves (although it's more common in werewolf fandoms, see also Teen Wolf), although werewolves were sometimes part of it.

I actually have a lot of trouble reading A/O stuff that's not SPN (a show I don't watch, lol) just because that trope is so completely tied to the particular vibe of SPN anon kink memes to me, it's hard to read it in other fandoms where it's almost guaranteed to be given a different spin. For example when it's exported to other fandoms it's more often interrogated, I find, with wolrdbuilding and subversion and whatever, than in SPN.

Also in SPN I think the A/O seme/uke thing COMPLETELY does not apply. It absolutely did not originate with fics that assigned seme/uke roles, but more often child/parent or victim/caretaker roles, which tied into helplessness and loss of control and mpreg. I mean pregnancy is always going to be related to gendered bodies and gender roles, but I think it's a very shallow interpretation to look at the A/O trend and assign it the "everyone wants X to be a helpless woobie" thing. I mean I'm sure those fics exist, probably more frequently in fandoms where the trope shows up rarely, though that's just my anecdotal impression, but in SPN it was the result of something quite distinctly different, that tied into SPN's kinkmeme's general tendency towards lots of "dark" themes. Lots of humiliation and loss of control as kinks.

I'd also say that the "in heat" trope in general (which I always think of as Pon Farr even though I'm not a Trek fan, lol) is not necessarily a seme/uke thing, just like Spock is not overwhelmingly feminized by his ~mating periods~. If anything I'd say there's a tendency to make Spock aggressive/possessive/etc more than emotional or open or weak. Certainly when compared with how someone like Kirk is written. Similarly, I'd say mpreg and A/O dynamics are more often used to explore themes of powerlessness and helplessness arguably as-experienced-by-women-in-society-and-relation-to-their-bodies, but I mean, I don't think that's any different than slash fic being overwhelmingly written by women in general and dealing with things that women authors would find more interesting/relevant topics than men writers (such as rape culture, for example).

[ladyk-d-azrael.livejournal.com]

I find that hugely problematic because Alpha/Omega means that 'feminine' characteristics are tied inextricably to child bearing and reproduction. Which is interesting, when applied to men, but also hugely anti-feminist!

... Now I want someone to create a parody A/O verse where the alpha's primary function is to stop the omega killing and eating their own offspring out of sheer boredom.

[persuna.livejournal.com]

You know, I was thinking about this just the other day when I read that alpha/alpha J2 fic on blindfold. I've seen fic where women can also impregnate (lexicale's werecat verse) and fic where women are rarely alphas and face some prejudice when they are (poor-choices I think?), but not any fic that explored the outliers in an alpha/beta society to their true, angsty, interesting potential.

Given how much the sexual differences between men and and women have shaped the inequality between them I can't even imagine how different a world with sort-of-genders within the genders would be. I can see it being most likely a worse world, but there could be an argument for a better world.

On the one hand, super-testosterone charged men with an even bigger biological excuse for abusing their power roam the world and the rest of the population is hardwired to submit at regular intervals, potentially calling their free will and humanity into question with those in power. Women have no unique biological contribution to make and so risk being deemed unnecessary.

On the other hand, pre-contraception women might actually have an easier time when the burden/danger/taboo of childbirth and child rearing is more evenly distributed. Or perhaps the greater obvious varieties in sexuality/gender, rather than the deceptively binary appearing set up we have now, would lead to a greater acceptance of differences than we have? Perhaps the pre-puberty potential for men to go either way would lead to greater cautiousness and understanding as people are forced, for at least a little of their lives, to imagine themselves in a variety of shoes?

To be honest, it would be such a massive change (culturally, socially, politically... in every way) that I can't even begin to settle on one semi-realistic concrete reality in my head!