Is it really that difficult to make female characters who feel human instead of sex objects for guys to gawk over about their 3 sizes?
Let me give you an example story I would write if someone asked me to make a harem story that's family-friendly.
If you make a story about 4 girls...
1) Childhood friend
2) Girl Next Door
3) New Friend
4) Old Crush
Now they are all in the same place (I like writing modern stories so the school or something similar. But this could be fantasy, mystery, or whatever the heck you feel like it should be.)
Childhood friend develops new feelings for x protag.
Girl next door is in the same class with x protag and begins hanging out with him more often than x protag's childhood friend.
New classmate x helped out and now has a crush on x protag.
X protag sees old crush in the new year of school.
There's my set-up harem story now how can I keep this family-friendly etc. etc?
Each person is human first, love interest second. They all have their own problems and worries and x protag being a good person to confide in, come to about their problems leads to them going on cute hangouts, alone study sessions, casually eating out that turn into feeding one another their favorite foods. (I'm sure someone can think of 100s of fun ideas that they can do while listening to the heroine's problems and making them feel more human than harems tend to do.)
Then you make the final choice...which 4 girl will be x protags main love?
Get your readers invested emotionally while keeping things light-hearted and fun. Because in real life I'm sure many of us haven't experienced falling into a girl and groping her by mistake, seeing a girl's panties by accident wind blowing, and the like. Let's be honest, harems are unrealistic fantasies made for self-fulfillment in the end. (Which isn't bad as some love to be in the middle of that kind of stuff.)
To be honest, I wouldn't dislike harems as much as I do if the writers in most wouldn't objectify women the way they do. Make your characters human, that's the best way to go about a family-friendly harem.
I agree with most of what you wrote, especially the last paragraph.
Except for these lines:
Because in real life I'm sure many of us haven't experienced falling into a girl and groping her by mistake, seeing a girl's panties by accident wind blowing, and the like. Let's be honest, harems are unrealistic fantasies made for self-fulfillment in the end. (Which isn't bad as some love to be in the middle of that kind of stuff.)
Ok the panty thing does happen just often enough, that at some point in your life you will see it. The accidental grope, yeah not everyone will ever be involved in one.
Harems by the way you wrote do happen in School, certain self sufficient Services (ie Military unit members and their spouses, Merchant Marine, the Antarctic base), just not to everyone and very rarely to a dense introverted MC (indecisive MC sure, but most kids know what is going on sooner or later); what is extremely rare is a "Harem ending".
There have always been that guy/girl in school who is being pursued by 3 or more people and willing to try and juggle them. Of all the Anime MC's I know about, Makoto Iou in School days is closest to that type of person I have seen, real life "Harem" style storylines I have seen in Middle school, High School (several male and females I can think of during that period in three different schools) and incidents occurring around the local University (including several women getting deliberately knocked up to try and keep one guy), I saw it while in the Military. If anything I have seen the more "tropey" 1) Childhood friend 2) New Flame 3) Old flame (one or more), revolving around a woman than I do men, might be because most women have a higher EQ and can string guys along emotionally better, or I am just biased in what I have seen.
Huh, you know I know of one of those right now just four houses down from me, Ex even showed up with a gun last week but got talked down by her Doormat buddy (Childhood friend), Ex got invited in to the house (without gun), the cops showed up, but Ex and her were apparently having sex and had to come out missing a few articles of clothing, the cops left since nothing "happened" as claimed by the three of them it was just a "misunderstanding". All this my wife saw from a distance and got more info from the neighbor who listened in. Ex and Doormat left just before the new flame showed up and took her out. That show has been going on for almost ten years now in one form or another.
Now "Harem endings" normally nope, only ones I know of have an outside "cultural" force that enforces "Harems" as part of their society, or it may be a "Harem" for a little bit but not for long due to reasons.
Hmm a twisted Harem in real life:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manson_Family
The Pr0n king Himself: "It turns out that Hef officially launched his rotating harem after he separated from Kimberley Conrad, his second wife. His coterie has ranged in size from around seven to the current three girlfriends:
Holly Madison (28),
Bridget Marquardt (34) and
Kendra Wilkinson (22)."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/oct/13/insideanamericanharem
Cultural/Forced Harem that still exist
:
Phyllis Chesler, 72, is a feminist scholar and a professor emerita of psychology and women’s studies at City University of New York. In her 14th book, “An American Bride in Kabul” (Palgrave Macmill…
nypost.com
en.wikipedia.org
As a side comment how about these modern "Harem" series, granted no harem ending, just "one girl/boy" wins in the end:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bachelor_(American_TV_series)
en.wikipedia.org