While I might have phrased some things differently I think you are correct in most of your points. However, I did want to address one point here:
- As the hatred for NTR grew, the definition of what NTR is has changed. Some tags that aren't the strict definition of NTR is often labeled as NTR by haters (lesbian, bestiality, Group sex, etc.) Basically anything where a lover is involved with someone, or something else may be called NTR by the most extreme. This further ostracized the community against the NTR haters, furthering the extreme views. (I suspect this is why the mods changed the tag name from "NTR" to "Netorare" as a way to further define the tag.)
It's actually more complicated than this. An initial, likely unintended, change of the definition for use on an English site was part of what caused the issues with NTR to start in the first place.
When I joined this hobby several years ago it was (I think) right at the beginning of what you are likely referring to as the "red scare" build up era of "anti-NTR" sentiment. I had never heard of NTR, I wasn't a weeb or into anime and stuff. I got into AVNs and I knew I hated it when girls fucked other people and I saw this term "NTR" attached to those games. I wasn't in any forums really and hadn't even made the account I use here yet when I first got into it. I hadn't even found F95 yet when I first got in to the hobby. I just bought some games on itch or steam and was just getting into the broader scene. I actually only made my account here to download mods and walkthrough for games I had bought.
Well, I wanted to know what NTR was, so I looked it up, saw it was short for Netorare and I dove into it so I would know what it was. And it's a Japanese term meaning " to be taken." And so I started seeing how they applied it and found the sub-forms of it. In Japan you could have a scene in a game where a mom bangs a black guy, and it wouldn't be an incest game, she wouldn't be a love interest and it could be called, "
The time I was NTRed by a black foreigner," Or you could have a story where a guy is on his bike coming home from school and turns down an alleyway and sees a whore getting plowed, then he turns down another alley and it happens again and again another time and the title could be, "
I was NTRed over and over on the way home from school." In Japan you don't even need a sex scene, just the Mc hearing about two people fucking could get the tag depending on the context. So you could theoretically have a Japanese game with NTR in the title and it might not qualify for the site tag, but I'll get into that in a moment.
Well, I came to this site and others and started joining the conversation, pointing out that many games needed the tag, but I was told by a bunch of non-Japanese people that the things I was pointing out "weren't real NTR," and I got called insecure and insulted and stuff, all of which pushed me into the "anti-NTR" group, but I tried to stay calm and not get into the bulk of the "fighting." I started to try to argue from the wrong definition that the site had after that. Surely the users and people on the site would at least apply f95's definition fairly... but that wasn't the case. The site tag required romantic interests, so clearly different from the Japanese use of the term, but that happens, I wasn't going to make a stink about it. The site tag says now (it just said NTR at the time but the wording is the same):
So I took it at face value and in my naivety as a new person in the hobby back then I tried to just up hold that definition at least even if it was far off from the Japanese use, but I soon learned that that was a mistake as well. I was still told that it didn't apply even when it should.
Romantic interest, meaning someone the Mc is romantically interested in, not necessarily involved with at the time, but interested in and might want. But I always got told, "they aren't together," or "she isn't a love interest yet," well romantic interest and love interest would be different things anyway, but regardless neither of those necessitate being together at the time. In fact, by definition using the term interest means you
aren't with them yet, as once you are together they aren't an interest anymore they are just your partner or lover. But I got called names and insulted for pointing this out and told that it didn't matter, it didn't count as "real NTR," and again, this flies in the face of the Japanese tag which can be used for family, friends, and even co-workers that will never be with the Mc in any way sexual or romantically and can be used in works that don't even have sex scenes in them.
Designed to cause jealousy, well, that's even more subjective than what I was talking about above (which shouldn't be that subjective at all). "Designed to cause jealousy," in who? The player? The Mc? And what makes one person jealous might not phase someone else. Does it depend on the dev's admission? That they say, "this was my design, to cause jealousy?" Because in that case they can just lie to prevent the tag or even to try to get it. Also, if I reject a girl and then see a sex scene of her, well isn't that the dev making a scene to "show me what I missed," thus trying to make me, the player, jealous of missing out on the sex that the Mc could have had? Or, imagine a scene where a girl is fucking another guy right in front of the Mc, and she says, "I'm doing this to make you jealous Mc," and the Mc responds (independent of player choice) with, "Now that you have done this, I am not jealous, just angry, I don't even like you anymore bitch." Would that get the tag? Or the games that start with a cheating girlfriend and show her fucking someone else, how are those not "deigned to cause jealousy," in the Mc no matter what the player feels (since without the emotional connection and background we might just not care about the scene at the moment while it breaks the Mc)? When that anger and jealousy are the thing that might spur the Mc to never be taken advantage of again? I heard users say (paraphrasing many posts that said basically this idea), "Well, I'm not jealous and since the Mc is my avatar then it doesn't count, after all, I selected the choice to see it so it's not designed to cause jealousy." (EDIT: Which implies they are self-inserting, but I'm also told over-and-over that NTR fans "never self-insert like the anti-NTR incels...")
Involved with someone other than the Mc, is again not totally clear. Involved how? Sex would obviously be included (EDIT: But even then, what level of sex? Would a hand-job count, would making out, would a foot-job or oral...), but what about flirting or even just a date? That is involvement, and if it is done to "cause jealousy" then shouldn't it apply. And "someone" is very broad too, it doesn't limit much who the other person is, male or female. EDIT: As well as current spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend are still a "someone" that is "involved with" the "romantic interest," and could be used to "create jealousy." Think of all the games where the son sees the mom get fucked and that "jealousy" of "I wish it was me," is the catalyst for him going after her in the first place. And does "someone" apply to animals? They, strictly speaking, aren't a someone but a something. But if the scene was designed to cause jealousy then shouldn't it apply? But I heard over and over that, "unless it directly shown sex with another guy it doesn't count," and that lesbian sex never counts even if a girl is actively cheating because "lesbians are always hot," and could
never cause jealousy. EDIT: Or the old excuse of "they're married or dating so it doesn't count," but why was it shown if not to cause jealousy and spur the Mc to some emotion or action?
I could go on, but suffice to say that breaking down the tag and showing how it should be applied and pointing out that it was not only failing to fit the Japanese use of the term but often the site ignored even it's own definition of the term is actually very easy. As should its application be simple. It is just that many users seem entirely unaware of the actual tag's definition and what it actually means and don't really care, they just want to use their own definition and what they think it should mean.
So, all this added to the frustrations. I literally have seen a dev say, "My game has NTR," and then a mod will say, "No, the tag doesn't apply," and it won't get tagged. I once watched in mostly real time as the NTR tag was added to a game, then removed, then added again and then removed again several times over the course of a couple of hours as different mods went back and forth about it. Meanwhile the harem tag is often applied to every game that has the Mc fuck more than two girls no matter what. Even regardless of if the girls even know about it (which is actually in the site definition) or if the game ends in a harem or forces the Mc to pick a single girl. But the harem talk is a discussion for another time. This also isn't meant as a dig at the mods, per se, it's just that the NTR tag, more than many others, has built into it subjectivity and ambiguity and a incongruity with the word it is even communicating from the language and culture that invented it. So, in many ways, it isn't their fault but a inevitable outcome from choosing to use a foreign word and then applying a new definition to it and that definition being ambiguous and highly subjective since the tag is so divisive and even those who like it often disagree about how to "properly," apply it.
The "NTR hate" was largely birthed because there was a decent size group of people who got tired of seeing it show up after years of development or because devs just weren't adding it to the genre tabs and stuff and so they started asking, "Will this game have NTR," or "Is NTR avoidable," if it was listed as being there. And that alone got them called insecure incels and worse. And I'll point out again the time I saw someone ask this in a new game, get insulted and then say they were asking because they liked NTR and still, just the question alone got him called all kinds of names. Those asking were accused of "being weak and pathetic," "not having real girlfriends," and "needing to escape into their power fantasy," like, "little babies who need their mommy." All things that have even been repeated (in varying degrees) in this very thread, some just a few posts up in fact... anyone who doesn't like NTR, let alone asks questions about it or states they wish it wasn't included... must be deficient or something. So the push back started and sadly, as happened to me and I saw first hand, the push back got hammered down hard. I saw people who never insulted anyone that would just respond to insults get banned from threads and some times even the whole site while the ones who had been insulting them (sometimes even following them into different threes to do it) had nothing happen to them. It reminded me of when I was in high school and a bully would push another kid and finally the other kid hit back and they were the ones that got detention while often the bully, at most, got the same punishment and sometimes didn't get punished at all. But again, I can understand it, since they only see what gets reported and they can't be expected to read every post in a thread even if one does get reported. So it is often a case of the first one to report in the situation is the one who is seen as "in the right," even if they might have instigated it. Like how some people will pick a fight but then record the other person's action and only post part of it to TikTok and stuff. People react to a part of the story before the whole story is even out there.
And as for the surprise NTR and harem bait and other things that caused the "paranoia" that pushed things even further, well, that was for sure a thing that happened and still happens. One of my first review on the site, if not actually my first review, was for a game that I think I even mentioned earlier in the thread. The dev said NTR was optional, but even with the toggled set to off, the wife still gets knocked up by another guy, the other guys raped love interests (just off screen), the love interests still talked about fucking other guys... so it was and is real, as you pointed out, "optional in name only."
It's funny, I even have old posts, still up, where I mention that I didn't hate sharing or NTR content, I would play games with that if it was avoidable. I just hated stories where the Mc gets cucked and it couldn't be avoided. And it always seemed so lazy and hacked in when it happened. I'd often roll my eyes more than get upset. Then I started getting insulted and lumped in a group so I was like, "Okay, I guess I'm on this side now,"
But anyway, I've rambled on long enough, I'll probably set the thread to unwatched again and only reply if I get quoted or something. I just wanted to add some thoughts to your post, which again, I mostly think is correct. Other than some phrasing I might have changed or some "order of events," I might put differently. And I wanted to vent a little.
To anyone who read all this, I hope enjoyed another JoeTheMc essay,
