Explain reverse harem to me

TheEldritchGod

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I see stories with a reverse harem tag. A bunch of guys love the same woman, but she either doesn't have sex with anyone, or just one. How is this a harem? I get the reverse part, but I have yet to find a manga that is reverse harem with multiple male partners.

I'm not looking for examples. I'm looking for why this is considered a harem at all. I don't get it. Is it assumed? But the setting for many of these do not seem to be societies that would tolerate a 4 guys one girl situations.

What am I missing? Assume I'm an idiot.
 

ProjCRys

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Isn't a harem where an MC have many love interests.
So in standard harem the MC is a boy and many girl love interests
And in reverse harem the MC is a girl with many boy love interests

Then there are varieties such as girl having many female love interest or a guy with many of his homies are his sleeping partners. And there some MCs are so open minded that they don't care about sex or gender.

(Correct me if I'm wrong but this is my interpretation of what a harem is.)
 

Silbern

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A reverse harem is a story focusing on a woman and her relationship with a group of men, not necessarily in any romantic, sexual, or romantic/sexual sense, rather in a more platonic way.

However, this is not a situation where the woman has to choose her only true love at the end of the story; instead, the woman simply does not choose.

The story's plot and ending depends on what the woman does between the events of the story. There is no reason the woman must have sex with one or more man.
 

Schultz_von

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I see stories with a reverse harem tag. A bunch of guys love the same woman, but she either doesn't have sex with anyone, or just one. How is this a harem?
So, From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Harem is a kind of story in Japanese anime and manga where a male character is surrounded and loved by many female characters. Therefore, a reverse harem consists of one female protagonist and three or more male love interests.
but she either doesn't have sex with anyone, or just one
So in your mind, to be in a relationship one needs to have sex with each other?
But the setting for many of these do not seem to be societies that would tolerate a 4 guys one girl situations.
Well, that depends on what kind of plot the author wants to tell, isn't it?
What...? Did you want to tell me that all harem and reverse harem stories need to be in a medival setting or only in the world where only polygamy is acceptable and monogamy is forbidden?
 

Lire

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Reverse Harem = Gangbang (With the female's consent)
 

Varstark

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Dunno about reverse harems, but harems don't usually get the sex on early because most male-orientated fiction tend to have sex later on after it's 'earned' so long as the MC isn't some giga chad gary stu.

Also, a lot of these harem/reverse harem stories tend to focus on the 'being popular' part of the wish fulfillment, so you've got a lot of meat and fat on the non-18 stuff. Everyone's wanted to be fawned over by the opposite sex regardless of whether it ends in bed or not. Some more than others.

Or you could brush it off as some biological urge thing. Men's biological mission is to impregnate as many women as possible. Women's biological mission is to get impregnated by the best man possible.
 

TheEldritchGod

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So, From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Harem is a kind of story in Japanese anime and manga where a male character is surrounded and loved by many female characters. Therefore, a reverse harem consists of one female protagonist and three or more male love interests.
I had many friends who were girls. I didn't fuck any of them, but we were close. I didnt date then as I w as interested in someone else, but to say we loved one another. Yeah. Some serious shit went down. For about 2 years, we even were housemates, but they were more like sisters to me.

So that was a harem? Karma would have kicked my ass if i used that term, and she was working as a dominatrix at the time. Not to me mind you. I was never into sub. Then there was beth... who was that other girls name? God 25 years will do that to you.

My point is, if there's no sex, how is it a harem?
 

Ambly

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I see stories with a reverse harem tag. A bunch of guys love the same woman, but she either doesn't have sex with anyone, or just one. How is this a harem? I get the reverse part, but I have yet to find a manga that is reverse harem with multiple male partners.

I'm not looking for examples. I'm looking for why this is considered a harem at all. I don't get it. Is it assumed? But the setting for many of these do not seem to be societies that would tolerate a 4 guys one girl situations.

What am I missing? Assume I'm an idiot.
Yeah, you got the reverse harem part right.

As for what's considered a harem? I think it's 4 or more women (men if it's reverse).

I know you're not looking for examples but I do have a few, reply if you are interested.
 

LilRora

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I think you could ask the same damn question in any story with a harem protag who isn't a degenerate. The "reverse harem" tag, just like "harem" tag or any convoluted version of it (in my opinion) refers more to the feelings and behavior of the love interests... or however you want to call them. Point is, if you have one person with at least two that want to get into their pants, it's either rivalry or harem, and most authors either are incapable of writing the former or want to write the latter.

It's generally a thin line between these two things, and the border between a harem or not can be unclear in itself. One can argue that it's a harem only if each member of it is intimate with the, uh, the protagonist (because I've no damn idea how else to call that one person). Personally I think that as long as a person has feelings for the protag, be it lust, love, or yet something else, then that person can be counted as a harem member in a loose meaning.

Sooo I think it is assumed. It's like with that scarecrow, yes? Sometimes it's there and sometimes it's not, and you find no reason why apart from that the author thought it would be funny. Personally, I see it like looking from outsiders perspective. If a completely unrelated person would judge it's a harem based only on the public image of the characters, then you can safely classify it as a harem.

As for why it is as such... Well, I don't think there's a single person alive that can answer that question.
 

Echimera

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My point is, if there's no sex, how is it a harem?
Well if we argue this way, we'll also have to remove the harem tag of at least 75% of all harem manga, because there's no sex in these either.
Potentially more than 90% if we disqualify everything where the only sex is with the one girl the protagonist gets together in the end, if the manga actually decides to give a definitive end.

I won't deny that harem (and reverse harem) may be thrown around a bit too liberally (especially by authors that want to bait people into reading their stuff), but sex happening or not happening definitely isn't the qualifying component.
 

WandererMonk

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A reverse harem is a story focusing on a woman and her relationship with a group of men, not necessarily in any romantic, sexual, or romantic/sexual sense, rather in a more platonic way.

However, this is not a situation where the woman has to choose her only true love at the end of the story; instead, the woman simply does not choose.

The story's plot and ending depends on what the woman does between the events of the story. There is no reason the woman must have sex with one or more man.
If it is platonic, it is not a Harem.
 

BigBadBoi

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Honestly find reverse harem wierd because unless you're an absolute semen demon you cannot handle that much dick all at once.
 

CupcakeNinja

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I see stories with a reverse harem tag. A bunch of guys love the same woman, but she either doesn't have sex with anyone, or just one. How is this a harem? I get the reverse part, but I have yet to find a manga that is reverse harem with multiple male partners.

I'm not looking for examples. I'm looking for why this is considered a harem at all. I don't get it. Is it assumed? But the setting for many of these do not seem to be societies that would tolerate a 4 guys one girl situations.

What am I missing? Assume I'm an idiot.
most normal harems have the male protagonist never fucking any of the women, so whats your point?
Well if we argue this way, we'll also have to remove the harem tag of at least 75% of all harem manga, because there's no sex in these either.
Potentially more than 90% if we disqualify everything where the only sex is with the one girl the protagonist gets together in the end, if the manga actually decides to give a definitive end.

I won't deny that harem (and reverse harem) may be thrown around a bit too liberally (especially by authors that want to bait people into reading their stuff), but sex happening or not happening definitely isn't the qualifying component.
its really more like polyamory.
 

TheEldritchGod

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most normal harems have the male protagonist never fucking any of the women, so whats your point?
Uh... I don;t know what male harem stories you have been reading, but that's not my experience.

I'm trying to pin this down because I need to figure out what a Reverse Harem in a Reverse world is.

But I'm getting the impression the tag is just not used properly. Got it.
 

SailusGebel

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Uh... I don;t know what male harem stories you have been reading, but that's not my experience.

I'm trying to pin this down because I need to figure out what a Reverse Harem in a Reverse world is.

But I'm getting the impression the tag is just not used properly. Got it.
There is a real harem, and then there is a Japanese harem. Don't know how and why this happened. My guess is it's either mistranslation or evolution of the genre, but the Japanese harem stopped being only and fully a real harem. Now, the tag harem in any Japanese fiction means that one male is loved by multiple females. The end of the relationship and whether it's platonic love or not doesn't matter. There are tons of examples of Japanese non-harem harems. The World God Only Knows and Nisekoi is a couple that instantly comes to mind.

SH is a sister\daughter site of NovelUpdates that hosts an enormous amount of translations of Japanese web\light novels. A lot of readers come here from NU, and they already know that a harem has two meanings, no matter how stupid it may sound. You can consider it a slang or a jargon.

Everything I wrote applies to reverse harems.
 

Echimera

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There is a real harem, and then there is a Japanese harem. Don't know how and why this happened. My guess is it's either mistranslation or evolution of the genre, but the Japanese harem stopped being only and fully a real harem. Now, the tag harem in any Japanese fiction means that one male is loved by multiple females. The end of the relationship and whether it's platonic love or not doesn't matter. There are tons of examples of Japanese non-harem harems. The World God Only Knows and Nisekoi is a couple that instantly comes to mind.

SH is a sister\daughter site of NovelUpdates that hosts an enormous amount of translations of Japanese web\light novels. A lot of readers come here from NU, and they already know that a harem has two meanings, no matter how stupid it may sound. You can consider it a slang or a jargon.

Everything I wrote applies to reverse harems.
That's generally what harem as a tag or genre of fiction stands for, not only for Japanese stories and in contrast to historical harems, where the word is taken from.
But I'm getting the impression the tag is just not used properly. Got it.
It's an affront to the very concept of using tags, that's what it is.
Harem alone already conveys the idea that the protagonist has a bunch of love interests. Any additional information should come in the form of additional tags, like male/female protagonist, GL, BL or bisexual protagonist. Any combination of these tags (plus maybe a few more) tells a prospective reader exactly what they are getting into and if it's for them.
Then again, all this only works when people actually understand tags and use them properly.
 

CupcakeNinja

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Uh... I don;t know what male harem stories you have been reading, but that's not my experience.

I'm trying to pin this down because I need to figure out what a Reverse Harem in a Reverse world is.

But I'm getting the impression the tag is just not used properly. Got it.
So you skip 90% of all japanese harem stories, huh. Makes sense in that case, yeah
 

OP1000

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So in your mind, to be in a relationship one needs to have sex with each other?
I personally think that stories with harem protagonists should lead up to a relationship that involves sex in the long run, but this can also be done without showing the readers any sex (just telling the readers that the protagonist has had sex with a member of his/her harem). Of course this doesn't mean that sex should be the only focus of this type of story in order to be good, as there is the dynamic that both the harem protagonist and the love interests will have with each other throughout the story, the way they grow as characters are written in the story, whether the protagonist does other romantic things with the love interests, etc.

P.S. If anyone reading this finds any grammatical errors in this reply, feel free to point them out to me.
 
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