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⌈ Secret Post #2524 ⌋

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I'm new to this concept, but why are Betas always just regular people? If Alphas can impregnate, whether they're male or female, and Omegas can be impregnated, whether they're male or female, why wouldn't Betas be able to both whether they're male or female?

It seems like wasted potential in terms of the setting just to make them normal males and females as you'd find here, especially if the point is to toy with gender/sex roles.

Hrm. I don't know for sure. A couple of theories:

Betas are there to make alphas/omega more unique. This makes them mysterious and also helps with the "one person finds out they are an omega and have no idea what is going on" plots.

Betas are usually the majority. This can also go back to making alpha/omegas unique but it has also been used in stories to show that alphas and omegas are dying out. Some common reasons are that betas have low birthrates. An alpha or omega can only occur from a alpha/omega pairing (though rarely in beta/alpha or beta/omega).

In some cases betas are used to show how their is some kind of discrimination against alphas or (usually) omegas.

Or (most likely) authors don't think about this because they are influenced by other A/B/O writers who also don't think about this.

Also, a great deal of A/B/O actually doesn't have betas.

If they can do both, alphas and omegas aren't that special or remarkable anymore.

As far as I can tell, the point is usually to toy with gender/sex roles while maintaining the existence of gender/sex as we know it. If there isn't and never was a beta group where reproductive role depended on sex, there's no reason for male and female to even be a thing.

Because it's based off a weird prompt on the Supernatural Kink Meme, not a well thought out world with good rules. Really everything in A/B/O makes little to no sense. It's just there to hit certain kinks for porn.

Also, I think people wanted a basis for comparison. If you have betas, which are normal people, then you can easily compare the normal to the abnormal in your fic.

Overall, no one cares about wasted potential because most A/B/O isn't about social commentary or well thought out worlds, it's about sex. Sorry, anon. If you really wanted to see something toy with gender or sex roles in the way you describe and you've already mined what's out there you can either write your own or prompt it maybe?

Edited 2013-11-30 20:51 (UTC)

I may not be a representative example, since I mostly write A/B/O to play around with tropes and social dynamics, but in my 'verse, betas can either impregnate or become pregnant, regardless of their sex -- but they have dramatically reduced fertility rates, compared to alphas and omegas. I have some vague notions about generalized gametes and reproductive structures, but not enough to write a treatise on it or anything. Basically, from what I've seen (which is admittedly not much), every A/B/O writer comes up with their own take on the biology.

It's mostly to keep the need for both males and females in the universe, because it's a fanon thing. Seems like betas usually exist so people don't have to mess with female characters having penises or being cast in the stereotypically female role of omegas while still having the existing female characters be in the universe. This varies depending on author though.

I've actually seen that once or twice.

One thing you need to understand from the get-go is that there is no set standard of ABO dynamics - most authors either tap existing tropes for their (sub)fandom for shorter fics or just do their own system and worldbuilding for longer fics.

especially if the point is to toy with gender/sex roles.

It's usually just about fetishizing sex and gender roles, as well as impregnation kink, and sometimes D/s themes (I say sometimes because some people consider a D/s structure inherent to the ABO structure, but others think you can have an ABO structure without the D/s - depends on your own headcanons and whether you see ABO as just a physiological set-up, or a social and physiological set-up).

ABO is not my thing at all and just about the last thing I would find sexy, but I am a sucker for worldbuilding and science metas, so I've read quite a few people's essays on it.

Mostly it's just an excuse for porn like an other, but I've seen at least one where things are like you describe it: betas can have either, but as I recall are not very fertile/virile. "Male/female" dimorphism evolved separately, as the former body type is slightly more geared to virility and better at thriving in times of plenty, and the latter is slightly more geared to fertility and better at surviving when resources are scarce (irl, in fact, female sperm outcompete male sperm when their parents bodies are under stress, while male sperm edge out female sperm by a small ratio when they aren't). Over millions of years of evolution, those groups who had few males were less able to capitalize on times of plenty and were outcompeted by those who had more, and those groups with few females were more likely to die out in times of scarcity than those with more, so eventually the successful modern humans were those with a roughly 50-50 mix of the two body types.

My bone to pick with most ABO worldbuilders is the assumption that alphas would be both military grunts and great leaders because size/aggression/"dominance"/etc. I... those are mutually exclusive. Nobody who "leads" wants to die young, horribly, and most likely of an infection. Particularly if this is a world in which alphas are the rare elite. You'd probably never see them in the infantry, in that case, certainly not as anything other than a rear echelon officer, and now that most modern militaries have mandatory IQ tests for officers - and men with high levels of testosterone tend to have lower IQs than those who don't - you probably wouldn't even see them there.

I don't know much about the ABO universe but my guess, from an outsider's perspective having read snippets of this and that and lots of comments about it, is that giving someone "beta" status is basically a way to have them recognized and sort of get them out of the way without giving them the Special Status of an alpha or omega, which the stories are really about.

I could be totally off-base, though.

Here is a super great primer someone wrote:

http://archiveofourown.org/works/403644/chapters/665489

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