Omegaverse & Understanding performative Gender & also Homosexuality in a meta sense
Whilst I lied awake last night at 6 a.m., listening to Connor read BL, he read out loud “omegaverse - a universe where ANYONE can get pregnant” and little smartass me thought “thats not the definition of omegaverse*”.
* except if it is in that particular instance, it’s a pretty freeform universe asdhjds
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Introduction
For those not deep enough into the rabbit hole to know what omegaverse is, let me give you a short definition:
A subgenre of erotic speculative fiction (originating in fan fiction) in which humanity is divided into a biologically-determined social hierarchy based on stereotypical wolf pack dynamics, consisting of the fantasy genders/sexes of alpha (sexual dominants), omega (sexual submissives), and beta.
aka Alphas impregnate and Omegas receive (at least in a lot of variants, sometimes they just add the dom/sub smell or furry-ish and hierarchy elements).
So yes, that means alpha “Women” can impregnate and omega “Men” can be pregnant, don’t think too much about it and don’t google it, be safe.
This is somewhat common in BL (I don’t see it in GL as much but I’m also not that deep in GL), which makes some sense because the Universe largely negates the gender-variable (though you could also just make everyone lgbt+ positive in your work so yknow). It doesn’t matter if you’re female or male, it matters if you’re alpha or omega (or beta, but betas are weird because they’re essentially normal humans in most interpretations).
And then, 6 a.m.-awake me was like “but if omega/alpha/beta are essentially the new sexes doesn't that mean that alpha-omega relationships can't be gay” - and yes, stupid me, that’s the point ffs, but that lead me to think a bit about my perception of sexes and by extend gender.
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So in A/B/O, I think it’d be the most logical to replace our sexes with the A/B/O categories (which imo is the case), because it’s what gives information about the reproductive function, just like the (biological) sexes of “female” and “male” tends to.
Now you could fairly argue that “female” / “male” isn’t really giving definite information about reproductive functions anyway, which is true (intersex & trans people). So from that perspective, this AU is really interesting too, actually. But that’s not something I feel educated enough about to tackle with tact and competence as an outsider looking in.
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As for the whole “where is the line to homosexuality?” argument, here we go.
OKAY, so let’s say A/B/O distinction is based on common reproductive functions within that group. Then if a male omega is with a male alpha, that is by all accounts straight, because “male” wouldn’t be a sex anymore, it would be a visual descriptor. Or well, it would be the descriptor of the “variant” of the alpha.
The AU often tries to really only have A/B/O distinctions but fact is if you base your weird mixer biology on real sexes, you’re gonna end up with a problem - that being that male alphas and female alphas are so biologically different that you’d likely have to separate them into two groups for medical reasons.
So either each sex gets a subgroup, for convenience “male” and “female” (though they only refer to appearance this time, which could be argued is already the case in our world anyway - hi performative gender theory), or we make each combination its own gender - so we now have alpha-m, alpha-f, beta-m, beta-f, omega-m and omega-f.
Betas do really ruin this entire thing because now, suddenly, omega and alpha don’t give away the bodily function anymore, the terms female and male do (because they’re normal humans), so in order to be consistent, they should actually be called beta-a and beta-o....
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So the next argument is whether or not bodily difference would contribute to “homosexuality” in the universe to begin with -- as an example, the fitness of people in our world. You can be attracted to thin or chubby or muscly people (the visual factor), but just because you’re chubby and your partner is as well, you aren’t gay. Because homosexuality refers to the sexes, but those are distinctly visually defined in our world, whereas appearance doesn’t give away your A/B/O, it’s your pheromones (and those are the same across alpha-f and alpha-m).
If we take the performative / aesthetic definition of homosexual attraction, then I’d argue it is still gay if two -m variants get together, at least per our definition, even if the reproductive function is different (oh hi, performative / aesthetic gender theory).
If we don’t, then only alpha x alpha or omega x omega can be considered homo, including alpha-m x alpha-f.
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Tori bashes fulfillment fantasy
I’m aware, once again, that it’s effectively the point. As long as it's omega/alpha it's essentially the A/B/O equivalent of straight, both in “function” (pregnancy) and socially (accepted etc). And that’s a fantasy, of course, it’s a universe where you can have someone with a “male” body and still have kids and, well, be straight basically.
Which, I understand the want for being socially accepted, but I’m a bit iffy about the fantasy of essentially being straight, including pregnancy. I don’t know, it feels a bit like admitting “that way” (being gay) of life is not “ideal” and you SHOULD have all those “straight things”, for the lack of a better word. Fantasy affirms the Standard/perceived Ideal.
I’m also pretty sure that while a/a or o/o would be considered gay, a/b or o/b would just be a mess because it’s not accepted but it’s not EXACTLY homo either, it’s just completely deviant, though it would probably be treated like a/a or o/o. Especially when it’s a variant where betas can’t reproduce with a/o (somehow) (afaik).
I just can’t help but find irony in a universe that very much tries to make homosexuality part of the norm, but in the end only creates more “deviant” combinations that could and probably would be discriminated against.
And that’s why I found the “anyone can get pregnant” so thought-provoking, because if that was the case, that would firstly be a whole other mess biologically, BUT that would truly be an equivalent thing, as long as everyone can also impregnate. And on top of that, if everyone’s the same, then everyone is “homo” (attracted to the same), because there’s literally no other option sexes-wise. Big brain.
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I kind of lost aim so I’m going to stop now. Maybe the goal was the Thinking About Performative Gender Theory we (I) did along the way.
Deviating Meta Funfact - A title that is not “Be my alpha”
So funny story about the title to “Deviating”, my ABO fic. Originally I wanted to make it way more outwardly “typically” ABO. So have @vidaflxwer and me losing it over the title and the attempts to find another title.
*narrator voice* Two weeks later
... and here we are haha :’D
I then proceeded to use a title generator which turned up amazing results like “Wet Wild Winter”, “Rich and ready” or “Ass-et Audit” --- for the genre ROMANCE mind you.
Thanks to Mei for allowing me to share this glory and supporting me in my weird ABOmination.
Tbh in hindsind I kinda wish I’d gone with “unrequited heat” but hey.
