Netorare with FMC : Change my mind

[Lupiscanis]

I have seen many, many games now with female main characters (FMCs) that are labelled as netorare (specifically netorare, not just cheating) where the male partner of the FMC never cheats on her.

Netorare in my opinion is defined as a situation that induces a feeling of emotional betrayal when a character's romantic partner is seduced or taken away by someone else.

Now, you might say, "well, that means that if she is seduced by the men in the game, then even if you are playing as her, that makes it netorare" - and I would say you are incorrect, since netorare also relies on the emotional component of the feeling of betrayal induced by the seduction of the partner. If you are not playing as the man in this scenario (and often they're little more than a token character that you barely interact with), how can you have an emotional response to this?

I also see a lot of games where there is a male main character (MMC) who is given the option to cheat on his female partner but these games are not tagged as netorare and most people would argue that they should only be tagged as netori instead.

I see a lot of people argue however that I am incorrect - so, change my mind.

---

Minor notes :
1) I would accept a game with a FMC where the focus of the story is the emotional repercussions of the male character that she's cheating on, or at least a more sincere look at his emotional reaction it, being tagged as netorare.
2) I'm not expecting perfect tagging. I just don't understand when people argue that this is netorare, since in my opinion it's clearly not, hence the thread.
3) To clarify, I would argue that these games should simply be tagged as 'cheating', not 'netorare'.
4) The site tag rework will define netorare as "A love interest has sexual contact with someone else without the approval of the protagonist, either voluntarily or from some form of coercion (eg, drugs, mind control, blackmail, rape)" if/when the rework ever happens (please don't argue about this here) - in my opinion, this clearly delineates that it is a love interest of the protagonist and not the protagonist who needs to have sexual contact with someone else for it to be netorare.

 

[Saerwen]

Japanese NTR is being cheated on and Western NTR is cheating.

 

[Lupiscanis]

Japanese NTR is being cheated on and Western NTR is cheating.

I specifically used netorare because NTR is a little vague for this site at the moment, due to the lack of more specific tags for things like netorase and netori.

Cheating will still be a tag in the rework (and is currently) - "The protagonist has sexual contact with someone other than their partner, without approval from their partner" - which is what I think would cover the scenario I was suggesting in my OP, unless it's specifically cheating with someone else's partner, in which case it would be netori - "The protagonist has sexual contact with another character's love interest or partner, without the approval of said character."

I'm unclear if the expectations are that the game would be tagged with both if it was netori or just netori however, but I don't think it matters overly much.

 

[pazhentaigame]

I think Netorase game doesn't need to show Male Mc emotion
the Act of FMC is already justify it
the player that like Natorae can think of emotion by themself
but yes if game show the MC emotion that is a plus
but again Natorae doesn't always target to who love the Cuck feeling
like me... I just like to play Natorae to see woman fallen to pressure from the situation
and don't care about male MC at all

 

[HELIO CESAR]

I personally believe (source: voices from my head) it was just a trend that went to far, because male pov netorare to can go only these ways:
MC knows and can't/won't do nothing about, turns into what most would call cuckolding and its mostly depressing shit.
MC knows and does something about it, most of times turn into netorase with humiliation, because if not so game would be over in 2 minutes.
MC doesn't knows, its what most call mystery netorare, some love some hate it, most times you must play the whole game to unlock full or FMC pov.

There are some extras or a mix of those, but it's mostly like this, so to give the players more sex scenes i believe devs started to make full FMC only pov games to show more things, but at some point they lost the essence and forgot that netorare relies in a person mix of felling like jealous, depravity, competitiveness and so on and completely forget about the FMC 'significant' other.

I said some time ago that these games would benefit more a tag like: Cheating-wife/girlfriend/FMC. Than simply a catch all netorare tag.

VNDB has tags like Heroine Having Sex with Others but i believe to these games a Female Protagonist Having Sex with Others would suffice as a major catch all for them.

Not even gonna comment about f95 tags

 

[Lupiscanis]

I personally believe (source: voices from my head) it was just a trend that went to far, because male pov netorare to can go only these ways:
MC knows and can't/won't do nothing about, turns into what most would call cuckolding and its mostly depressing shit.
MC knows and does something about it, most of times turn into netorase with humiliation, because if not so game would be over in 2 minutes.
MC doesn't knows, its what most call mystery netorare, some love some hate it, most times you must play the whole game to unlock full or FMC pov.

All three of these however, are the protagonist having their love interest taken away from them. Even in the last case, the player knows, even if the protagonist doesn't. (I'm not saying you disagree, just clarifying).

There are some extras or a mix of those, but it's mostly like this, so to give the players more sex scenes i believe devs started to make full FMC only pov games to show more things, but at some point they lost the essence and forgot that netorare relies in a person mix of felling like jealous, depravity, competitiveness and so on and completely forget about the FMC 'significant' other.

I said some time ago that these games would benefit more a tag like: Cheating-wife/girlfriend/FMC. Than simply a catch all netorare tag.

The thing is we already have a cheating tag that would cover this, but people insist on labeling games where you play as a FMC cheating on a man in the game as netorare.

See https://f95zone.to/threads/lioras-price-of-dignity-v0-1-0-prerelease-aura-dev.253856/

VNDB has tags like Heroine Having Sex with Others but i believe to these games a Female Protagonist Having Sex with Others would suffice as a major catch all for them.

I think that's covered under the other tags though - if she's a love interest of the protagonist, then it would be netorare (or BSS, but we don't have a tag for that and a lot of people don't make the distinction), and if she's not, then it's just voyeurism if we get to watch? If we don't even see it then it's inconsequential.

Not even gonna comment about f95 tags

Fair.

 

[seifukulover]

What makes it NTR or not depends just on who's telling the story.
Let's say we have Alice and Bob who are in a relationship, and Alice starts cheating on him with Charlie.

If Bob is the MC, it's netorare (NTR)
If Alice is the MC, it's reverse NTR
If Charlie is the MC, it's netori

Netorase (NTS) is a separate thing, for example Bob calls up Charlie and says "Come on over and fuck Alice so I can watch"

So for a female MC game to properly be labeled netorare, it would have to be something like 'Alice (you) and Bob are in a relationship, and Bob starts cheating with Carol'

 

[Lupiscanis]

What makes it NTR or not depends just on who's telling the story.
Let's say we have Alice and Bob who are in a relationship, and Alice starts cheating on him with Charlie.

If Bob is the MC, it's netorare (NTR)
If Alice is the MC, it's reverse NTR
If Charlie is the MC, it's netori

Netorase (NTS) is a separate thing, for example Bob calls up Charlie and says "Come on over and fuck Alice so I can watch"

So for a female MC game to properly be labeled netorare, it would have to be something like 'Alice (you) and Bob are in a relationship, and Bob starts cheating with Carol'

That's not what I understand reverse NTR to be. Reverse NTR is if the protagonist is seduced away from the partner. It's not gender dependent as in your example.

If Bob is the MC, it's netorare (NTR) (agree)
If Charlie is the MC, it's netori (agree)

If Alice is the MC, it's reverse NTR

This is where I'm having issues - if Alice is the one pursuing Charlie, then it's cheating. If Charlie is the one pursuing Alice, then it's reverse NTR. Since Alice is the protagonist however, you will nearly always have the choice of how that seduction plays out, meaning you control what's going on, so I'd argue that it's still just cheating.

This is more significant when it's a game that allows choice obviously. If it were a kinetic novel (or non-game media, such as manga etc), it would be very easy to set it up as reverse NTR, since you have no control over what's going on - but if it's a game that allows choice, I don't think you can define it thus unless choice gets removed from you.

 

[seifukulover]

Reverse NTR is if the protagonist is seduced away from the partner.

That's what I'm trying to say. It's not about the sex of any character. I guess it was a bad example.

This is where I'm having issues - if Alice is the one pursuing Charlie, then it's cheating. If Charlie is the one pursuing Alice, then it's reverse NTR. Since Alice is the protagonist however, you will nearly always have the choice of how that seduction plays out, meaning you control what's going on, so I'd argue that it's still just cheating.

This is more significant when it's a game that allows choice obviously. If it were a kinetic novel (or non-game media, such as manga etc), it would be very easy to set it up as reverse NTR, since you have no control over what's going on - but if it's a game that allows choice, I don't think you can define it thus unless choice gets removed from you.

I figured 'cheating' and 'reverse NTR' were one and the same. I never really made the distinction about who is pursuing whom, but I guess it doesn't matter if you can choose either way.

 

[Maxell5]

Well, there are some intrinsic differences from a biological role standpoint that can be exploited (and have been) in this stories, that make the POV focus change the dynamic. (The idea of ultimately "mark the woman permanently" with the Netori seed, and make her carry his child is a consumation of the act of betrayal that can be used as the last emotional "gut punch" to the "MC", and the final conquest of the Netori.

So you will notice this is a "surrendering to another" if you use the female POV, a "conquest" if you use the Netori POV, and a "betrayal" from the cuckold POV. The idea of "corruption of feelings of love" is prevalent through the three POV.
This corruption serves to explain what you are saying.

There are some caveats between the term Netorare in the West and Japan. Netorare is referred as cheating there, but netorare works have, over time, have focused on the emotional component of what this cheating represents emotionally for the stablished couple.
From the Male pov its the feeling of losing someone he believed he had. This is not only losing it to the other male, but losing it in itself, as now her loved one is "no longer who she thought he was".
So a lot of stories focus on this "new side of the female" that is brought forth by another man, be it because her partner didnt accept her, or was absent, or she didnt communicate enough or whatever trigger made it pentup as a frustration (usually sexual). So this is ends up with a sort of "transformation" of the female.

Why im explaining it like this? Because there is always a component of "change" that the involvement with the netori ends up bringing to the situation, for better or worst (lots of times worst for Male MC, 50/50 for female, and whatever/good for netori).

So you could say that if the POV is the cuckold, the emotional aspect should make it netorare in classification.
If the POV is on Netori, its cheating in a sense, but as MC, you are not always bound to the bad emotional aspects in this situation.
If the POV is the girl, then it gets more nuances:

- Does the story focus on the emotional gutpunch of the guy that lost her? Then it makes sense to be Netorare.
- Does the guy hardly appears and its only mentioned? Is she saving herself for someone? its just her and the netori? Then the story from that POV could be considered more of a "corruption + cheating" tags. Becous its her fall into lust that takes a priority, not another person suffering from it.
The nuance is that because player self-inserts, and sometimes dissasociates from the female, they still see it as a "witness", so it feels like "seeing a corruption". And if the girls constantly references her "loved one", the focus is more on the guilt of her corruption.

So to summarize, its complicated and also not. Netorare is the emphasis on the feelings of the cuckold.
Technically if its a FMC, it should be treated as corruption + cheating. (as we distinguish here cheating from netorare tags).

But is more nuanced. Because people also tend to "extract" those feelings from the emotion of guilt of the FMC POV.
That, coupled with the predetermined "self-insert", makes it easy for stories of female corruption, where she references a loved one, be "felt" as netorare in nature, at least adjacently.

And this is done more on FMC games because they tend to focus more on her feelings of guilt and reluctance about what happens.
(I havent played a game where a Male MC feels guilt for been "stolen away by another woman" and this is treated as his "corruption". But im not that savvy, so im sure there are examples of it, other veterans of the forum for sure know them.)

 

[Lupiscanis]

That's what I'm trying to say. It's not about the sex of any character. I guess it was a bad example.

It's no problem, perhaps I just misinterpreted what you said

 

[Lupiscanis]

- cut for brevity -

I largely agree with what you've posted and have a follow up question regarding point point 4 of my minor notes in the OP.

If the tag rework will define netorare as (and thus should be the current thinking in my opinion) "A love interest has sexual contact with someone else without the approval of the protagonist, either voluntarily or from some form of coercion (eg, drugs, mind control, blackmail, rape)" then does our position on whether netorare as a concept revolves around the feelings implied really matter?

I think that games need to be able to be discretely labelled for a site such as this and thus we need to find some kind of (at least mostly) objective basis for decided how things get tagged.

---

As a side note, going back to your point of :

So to summarize, its complicated and also not. Netorare is the emphasis on the feelings of the cuckold.
Technically if its a FMC, it should be treated as corruption + cheating. (as we distinguish here cheating from netorare tags).

But is more nuanced. Because people also tend to "extract" those feelings from the emotion of guilt of the FMC POV.
That, coupled with the predetermined "self-insert", makes it easy for stories of female corruption, where she references a loved one, be "felt" as netorare in nature, at least adjacently.

If instead this were a male main character expressing guilt over cuckqueening his wife, would we still label it as netorare?

If not, should we really be biased in this way because of gender stereotypes?

 

[Maxell5]

I largely agree with what you've posted and have a follow up question regarding point point 4 of my minor notes in the OP.

If the tag rework will define netorare as (and thus should be the current thinking in my opinion) "A love interest has sexual contact with someone else without the approval of the protagonist, either voluntarily or from some form of coercion (eg, drugs, mind control, blackmail, rape)" then does our position on whether netorare as a concept revolves around the feelings implied really matter?

I think that games need to be able to be discretely labelled for a site such as this and thus we need to find some kind of (at least mostly) objective basis for decided how things get tagged.

Objectively, with the tag rework it should be considered what is the player POV to define what tags should apply, if said tag has as part of its definition that the POV matters.
In this case, if the POV is extrictly the FMC, it "shouldnt" count as a netorare tag. SO you are correct in that, technically, to make it defined as objectively as possible, the correct should it be not having netorare tag.

However, it will always be more nuance because of the nature of the fetish itself.
Its not a binary on/off thing, it depends of the perspective, which is affected narratively
Because: what happens when the POV is shared? what if the cuckold is also playable? What if the three POV are? What if the game only features FMC as playable, but gives a large portion of its narrative to show the cuckold POV?
In this cases, even if some are technically just corruption + cheating, the new tag system (and correct me if im wrong) will have a sort of "tag comment" subsystem, in which the posters and even the devs could give notes about how certain tag applies to that game in to what extent.
So maybe in those cases it could be specified that FMC is corruption + cheating, and under cheating tag a note that says "guilt about cheating, flashbacks to her with her husband" or something like that.
But i have the gut feeling that also some people are going to use it backwards in that sense, atributting netorare tag to a FMC POV game that portrays the cuckold heavely in the narrative, with a note that says "he isnt playable but the story revolves around his feelings of losing him and her feelings of betraying him"

So I get you, technically the tag is misused and could be still misused, by its objective definition. But i think that problems derives from the POV nature of the emotionallity of the kink/fetish.

As a side note, going back to your point of :



If instead this were a male main character expressing guilt over cuckqueening his wife, would we still label it as netorare?

If not, should we really be biased in this way because of gender stereotypes?

Its a complex topic because, giving the nature of sex and biological aspects, at least in my opinion, there is always going to be a difference in gender roles concerning this aspect of human nature. Its a really deep topic that encompases a lot of things, from women being biological gatekeepers of the species, to be in a more vulnerable position do to pregnancy, to the idea of purity that is intermingled with "nurturing" and motherhood that varies from culture to culture, etc.
Just as an example, pregnancy by another man could be seen as an ultimate stage of a woman corruption or her "betrayal" by a lot of nerorare stories. It serves as a physical portrayal of the emotional and mental changes she goes through, which is narratively really powerful. To write the corruption of a man, where he makes his wife a cuckqueen, with or without her choosing, it would need to focus more on the mental aspects of betrayal and guilt, which is more challenging. (but not impossible, you could amplify this for example, if they have kids together, and focus on the "what would they think of me".

So there is a differences that is always going to be present, at leats in my opinion, because woman have that "intrinsic value" that also biological, but we as species have internalized into something cultural and emotional (with good reason).
There is a reason men are considered more expendable, female virginity is more widespread desirable across cultures, violence against women are seeing as "off limits" more (although both being bad), sexual crimes against women are seeing as more reprochable (and kids of course), and even the corruption of the sexuality of a woman in nsfw media (and their fathfulness and devotion) seeing as a more powerful act of "destroying something". Heck, the term "Corruption" says it all.

But i think that yes, if a male cucks her lover/partner/wife, and the game shows or heavily leans into the FMC POV, it should be considered netorare in technicallity, if the game focuses on her "physical and emotional betrayal".

So if you where to, say, take a female character from an harem game of MMC POV, and make a game about her feeling betrayed by the MC sleeping around, and focus on her POV FMC emotions about that, then that would be effectively a netorare game with a FMC. If you include the corruption of her man into a playboy, even more netorare points.

If the game is only about the Male MC feeling guilty about cucking his partner, (whatever gender) and the corruption he goes on, as wrote to your first quote, then it could be safe to say its a corruption + cheating tag game, the male been "corrupted" (which as i say, requires more effort to pullof than female corruption).

If the game is from Male MC POV but also includes FMC POV (if she is "playable", which in a VN or kinetic novel is basically, showing her POV), then you could argue is netorare. She is the netorare, and the game is showing it.

 

[Lupiscanis]

- again, cut for brevity -

(Nothing personal in my shortening of your posts by the way, just to make it clearer and address a couple of specific points).

Again, I largely agree with your points. I think I've voiced most of my opinions and we seem to broadly (although not completely) agree.

However, it will always be more nuance because of the nature of the fetish itself.
Its not a binary on/off thing, it depends of the perspective, which is affected narratively

I think you're right, but I also think that being right in this particular instance matters less than consistency for the tagging system. As an analogue I would raise my own issue with the tagging of games labelled as 'big tits', because that can cover everything from seemingly a healthy normal size to 56PP or something equally insane (this is not me kink shaming).

If the game is from Male MC POV but also includes FMC POV (if she is "playable", which in a VN or kinetic novel is basically, showing her POV), then you could argue is netorare. She is the netorare, and the game is showing it.

Again, I think you're right and I also agree, if the narrative is described such that you experience the emotional impact of something from a particular character's point of view, that can absolutely be viewed as netorare - and most of those edge cases (and that's what I think these kind of things are) are not what I'm really talking about - I'm mostly talking about the kinds of games where you have a strictly defined single FMC who has a significant other (that you often don't even know anything about) and because she cheats on him, it's labelled as netorare, even though all we ever see is her descent into hedonism.

 

[Maxell5]

I think you're right, but I also think that being right in this particular instance matters less than consistency for the tagging system. As an analogue I would raise my own issue with the tagging of games labelled as 'big tits', because that can cover everything from seemingly a healthy normal size to 56PP or something equally insane (this is not me kink shaming).

Again, I think you're right and I also agree, if the narrative is described such that you experience the emotional impact of something from a particular character's point of view, that can absolutely be viewed as netorare - and most of those edge cases (and that's what I think these kind of things are) are not what I'm really talking about - I'm mostly talking about the kinds of games where you have a strictly defined single FMC who has a significant other (that you often don't even know anything about) and because she cheats on him, it's labelled as netorare, even though all we ever see is her descent into hedonism.

Yes, I agree with you, that is better to be objective about the classification system for order sake, and that those types of games should just use the corruption + cheating tag, specially if the game doesnt make any effort into deep diving into the feelings of her official partner.

What I think is happening (and why people are conflating it with netorare) is that the ones who do it, consider the FMC feelings of guilt about being unfaithful as part of the "Netorare experience", instead of the "Corruption Experience".

Maybe this is because the "Corruption experience" is almost all the time a subgroup inside the "netorare experience", so they atribute it to the bigger experience, instead of the specific aspect of her "fall from grace". So people are basically thinking "is netorare if I know it happens" instead of "is netorare if im experiencing it happening", basically deriving the feelings of betrayal of the partner from the feelings of guilt of the corrupted FMC. You could see this even permate the constant "comments wars" in harem games where a subgroup of players express their disgust of "netorare" going by this definition and understanding of the kink/fetish.
(there is also the thing where the mayority of players are male, even with FMCs, so there is a player bias projection of that POV)

Its understandable, as the two things are almost always together, but I think for it to be Netorare, it also needs to have the feelings of the partner suffering, in conjuction and as a response to the feelings of guilt of the corrupted.
So I agree that, if only the feeling of guilt is present, it should be part of the corruption tag, that can be dissasociated from the netorare tag.

I think the new tag system with its "notes", will have them take the brunt of the nuances, and the tag classification will be more technically favorable, more objective if you will.

 

[MissCougar]

I think part of the core of netorare is the suffering. So I guess if it was an FMC, the MC would need to find a new girl and the FMC would have to struggle with that.

But if the FMC is the one skipping out I think it is something different and it may not have a term at all. I saw someone say "reverse NTR" but who knows. I do not.

Moat games though don't focus on the suffering aspect though, so probably most netorare games are more like voyeur games or swinging stuff where the MC is all over it or something weird. I dislike the NTR term and how many variances there are and nobody can help me understand them because I'll just immediately forget it.

 

[Saerwen]

That's not what I understand reverse NTR to be. Reverse NTR is if the protagonist is seduced away from the partner. It's not gender dependent as in your example.

If Bob is the MC, it's netorare (NTR) (agree)
If Charlie is the MC, it's netori (agree)

If Alice is the MC, it's reverse NTR

This is where I'm having issues - if Alice is the one pursuing Charlie, then it's cheating. If Charlie is the one pursuing Alice, then it's reverse NTR. Since Alice is the protagonist however, you will nearly always have the choice of how that seduction plays out, meaning you control what's going on, so I'd argue that it's still just cheating.

This is more significant when it's a game that allows choice obviously. If it were a kinetic novel (or non-game media, such as manga etc), it would be very easy to set it up as reverse NTR, since you have no control over what's going on - but if it's a game that allows choice, I don't think you can define it thus unless choice gets removed from you.

Thank you for correcting. Finally someone who understands. Reverse NTR is what girls like. They want to be stolen from a guy hence love triangle in women's fiction and most FMC games have cheating which is just pure sex that doesn't have any emotional attachment.

 

[Lupiscanis]

Thank you for correcting. Finally someone who understands. Reverse NTR is what girls like. They want to be stolen from a guy hence love triangle in women's fiction and most FMC games have cheating which is just pure sex that doesn't have any emotional attachment.

I'm not sure I'd boil it down to just "what girls like" though, I think anyone can enjoy it - my point was just that the way it's framed should be the protagonist being stolen away by a third party (which you can't really do in a game with choice, it would probably have to be a kinetic novel or non-game media).

 

[Lupiscanis]

I think part of the core of netorare is the suffering. So I guess if it was an FMC, the MC would need to find a new girl and the FMC would have to struggle with that.

But if the FMC is the one skipping out I think it is something different and it may not have a term at all. I saw someone say "reverse NTR" but who knows. I do not.

Moat games though don't focus on the suffering aspect though, so probably most netorare games are more like voyeur games or swinging stuff where the MC is all over it or something weird. I dislike the NTR term and how many variances there are and nobody can help me understand them because I'll just immediately forget it.

I think you're absolutely right in that there are a lot of NTR games that don't focus on the suffering - most are often just thinly veiled obfuscations of a woman who enjoys sex and doesn't care about her partner's feelings (because often he's an empty body).

I also completely understand not liking the NTR term - unfortunately there's no real straight comparison in English and thus we are beholden to our perverted Japanese overlords in this regard.

 

[Saerwen]

I think you're absolutely right in that there are a lot of NTR games that don't focus on the suffering - most are often just thinly veiled obfuscations of a woman who enjoys sex and doesn't care about her partner's feelings (because often he's an empty body).

I also completely understand not liking the NTR term - unfortunately there's no real straight comparison in English and thus we are beholden to our perverted Japanese overlords in this regard.

Earlier Japanese NTR games had emotional attachment and Western ones present cheating because of sex which I don't like. I don't like Japanese ones too but they represent NTR the best and if I can say the only Western NTR game that I played and it represents right is Seeds of Chaos.