Forum: Story Discussion and Feedback

most of the Florida Friends stories are harem stories, my Finding Home has a harem in it, Cazna's Power Tool has a harem in it - they're all over the site.

The fun part of that group of stories is the women are the ones who keep adding more to the harems not the men. Chuck Johnson was the last major victim of that. I know most think it has to be the man adding to the harem, but its funny how much control the women really have.

hi do you know one that has a nerd and his friends get together with his sister and her friends trying to prove they can be better guys for them

Trading friends By sagacious

yes that one

their's another story I'm looking for but it's not herem a guy makes a wish before dying and becomes a girl after it I remember he became his brother daughter and fall in love with a girl that was straight I forgot the name

Some of these dont have a prologue i would like to have some background to know what im reading and i new to the site so some info on that would help to like how the universe things work

A universe is a group of stories that follow the same rules and can occur during the same time period. Sometimes a story can qualify to be in both a Series and a Universe if the writer wants to set them up that way. In fact some of Ernest stories will qualify that way for example:
https://storiesonline.net/s/66183/finding-home

Along with the Chaos Calls stories qualify as a series while his Chaos Calls stories qualify for the Universe designation.

The Chaos Calls series are follow ups of the Finding Home story although they are designated as part of the "Damsels in Distress" Universe.

Okay so if i wanted to look to know the basics of a universe story where could i find those because i tried read a swarm universe story i barely understood what things meant like cap scores and what were the rules for people

Okay so if i wanted to look to know the basics of a universe story where could i find those because i tried read a swarm universe story i barely understood what things meant like cap scores and what were the rules for people

I don't know exactly what CAP stands for, but from context, it is something like Combat Aptitude.

How to learn the basics of a given universe will vary. Some you just have to read the stories from the beginning. Those that are open to multiple authors will typically have author resources somewhere that can be helpful for readers as well.

You can learn more about Swarm here Interested authors should examine the Swarm Author's page at http://www.asstr.org/~Thinkers_tales/Stories/The_Swarm/Swarm_Authors.html

cap scores and what were the rules for people

Here is a quote from the first story in that universe, it gives the basic description for the CAP score for the basic rules of that universe just follow the previous link which is for writers who want to participate in the universe. For another universe's rules I highly recommend the following by Ernest:https://storiesonline.net/s/76905/damsels-in-distress-rules

quote from first Swarm universe story below:

CAP stood for Capacity, Aptitude and Potential

Particularly if they are Russian names. I couldn't read War and Peace, I had no idea which character was on stage at any time because the names all ran together in my head.

Authors should consider using names, at least for dames, that start with different letters of the alphabet. That way they won't have harems with more than 26 females, unless there is a name that starts with &. The cast list is a crutch, but some of us are handicapped and need one. Fortunately on SOL the table of contents is only a click away and then another click takes you to the cast list, if one is available. That's where the information about height, weight, hair color, bra size, ethnicity, and any other extraneous material you might want to sneak into the narrative should go. If it is important to the plot, clit size can go in the narrative, if for example one of the harem girls is going to fuck another with hers. Most data on harem girls is wasted, including waist size. All the reader needs to know is that Anna and Zenobia are going to be really, really friendly in the same narrow bed. While Betty and Yasmine are cooking. If there is a Yasmine, don't have a Jasmine. Us readers are easily confused.

Not sure you should make a general case out of the Joint Chiefs. After all, one of them is not a General, he is an Admiral.

After all, it's hard to care what someone thinks if the author doesn't care enough to grant them a personal history.

Well, I will respectfully disagree. If the character plays a small role, we don't need to know his personal history. The role may be important -- say a skeptical reporter, or a gung-ho military officer, and as long as his opinions are well expressed and plausible, I will care. But, I don't need to know that he loves his wife despite having a mistress on the side, or that he's had a secret passion for his stepsister for the last twenty years. Unless, of course, you plan to insert a hot stepsister sex scene in the following chapter.

A character list can help both the writer and the reader. The writer is helped by being able to keep track of the characters used in the story (both major and minor ). It might not be as needed in a short story, but any longer story needs the list at least for the writer. So if the writer has to create that list and maintain it. Why not post it as a separate chapter like previews are done separately.

I wonder how "reluctant" these men are and thanks for the info
My perspective of harems are something thats is possible but would never end well in reality you pique my interest with the notion safety and security or the worship part
I think a more realistic one would be mostly about jelousy lust and fear of losing someone that accepts them and how they relate to the other women (men for people who like that sort of thing)

I think its like any ongoing relationship. They depend on mutual trust, respect and communication. Otherwise the relationship is doomed to fail.

Yea but its a really interesting concept harem having one person be the center and focus of multiple people and how they see that person with their different characters and experience with him/her

Yea but its a really interesting concept harem having one person be the center and focus of multiple people and how they see that person with their different characters and experience with him/her

The best part is the fact that the obvious person isn't always the boss. Just the distraction while the real boss works behind the curtain.

*caugh*

*caugh*

Finish A Master's Ring then

*caugh*

The 15 years since the last event could work for that storyline. What is described in AMR is the start of a purge. The continuation could be looking back from a decade or two later.

Very Well Aged has a number of stories set in the Philippines where one guy, often older and not exceptionally attractive gets a relatively large number of women because of economic factors. Maslow's Hierarchy of needs helps explain why food and shelter can motivate people to make sexual decisions when their other choices are worse.

That's the only real logical reason i can come up with to how multiple women would want to be with only one guy.

There is at least one other reason. Something happens that leaves you with significantly more women than men. It sets up a situation where if the women want heterosexual sex and/or children, they have to learn to share.

My reason was purely on a sexual level, i mean, i'm a guy, i would love to have a harem but at the same time i don't because i know i can't keep up satisfying them plus women are more likely to be sexually active in their 30s or 40s and i've read enough cheating stories in here to kill any harem fantasies i might have.

The women you aren't currently entertaining, entertain each other. Or maybe they read SOL.

Yea, i guess it comes down to their personality.

I mean, even if you have 15 inch monster cock that will split even the loosest whore, if the girl is inherently greedy then she'll obviously will still want more.

if the girl is inherently greedy then she'll obviously will still want more.

In the situation I described where something has thrown the gender ration off to where you have 3 or more women for every man, the women will learn not to be greedy or jealous. This will happen, because in that situation, it's the greedy jealous women who will end up with nothing in terms of m/f sex.

That situation would be a fantasy to any man but if you think about it, as a man in a world where gender ratio is heavily imbalanced in favor to women, you'll be treated as nothing more as a breeding tool.

That situation would be a fantasy to any man but if you think about it, as a man in a world where gender ratio is heavily imbalanced in favor to women, you'll be treated as nothing more as a breeding tool.

I don't have access to the papers any longer and this is very much historical. After the big South American War Paraguay lost most f its territory and of its males. To be more precise it is thought that, including all ages, less than ten thousand males survived. Of course women didn't fight and were not a target so the imbalance did occur. What happened as a result I don't know.
Looking at the news I would guess that Iraq and Syria have an imbalance with all the men in Calais and the camps throughout the EU.

I don't have access to the papers any longer and this is very much historical. After the big South American War Paraguay lost most f its territory and of its males. To be more precise it is thought that, including all ages, less than ten thousand males survived. Of course women didn't fight and were not a target so the imbalance did occur. What happened as a result I don't know.

Amazingly enough, Paraguay after losing the War of the Triple Alliance is what I thought of, too. My understanding is they legalized plural marriages, and the Pope issued a dispensation to Catholic Clergy in Paraguay to marry. Mind, this is my recollection from reading about it in the early 1970s, when I was just a kid, so I could be in error.

Amazingly enough, Paraguay after losing the War of the Triple Alliance is what I thought of, too. My understanding is they legalized plural marriages, and the Pope issued a dispensation to Catholic Clergy in Paraguay to marry. Mind, this is my recollection from reading about it in the early 1970s, when I was just a kid, so I could be in error.

My understanding is that is a conjecture based on fairly circumstantial evidence. It's possible there were more-or-less acceptable arrangements with more that one woman in them, and it's also possible that some of the local clergy looked the other way. It's doubtful there was ever an official dispensation.

That situation would be a fantasy to any man but if you think about it, as a man in a world where gender ratio is heavily imbalanced in favor to women, you'll be treated as nothing more as a breeding tool.

Wen Spencer wrote something like that in A Brother's Price.

That's why, for many of them, the women are the ones in charge. They set the situation up, dictate the rules to the guy, and approve who gets brought in so they don't fight over each other. If anyone causes trouble and upsets the happy household (i.e. by trying to steal the main character for themselves) gets kicked to the curb, though normally a stern talking to is sufficient.

It's a slightly more believable premise than 'guy screws hundreds and no one ever fights'. The fact the guy is initially reluctant and has to be talked into it helps set it up.

In most of the better ones, the guy tends to fight the growth of their harem almost every step of the way. There may be a few of them he wanted at the onset, but he's going to push back on the subsequent additions. Being a harem fiction however, the wives will have their way and the harem shall grow over time.

i've read enough cheating stories in here to kill any harem fantasies i might have.

If the guy is honest and up front with the women that he isn't promising them monogamy and they all know about each other which is typical of true harem stories, it isn't cheating.

Thanks but probably need more recommendations soon been binge reading and if thier is one where the guy is a bit more possesive with the ones i been reading its not a relationship if there is no hint of any jealousy

Maybe the jealousy is assumed. Say, most harem stories i read have women who were bisexual.

For there to have been little to no jealousy they have got to love each other thus no one will feel left out.

The above will probably be feasible with a threesome relationship, i don't know about a foursome or even one exceeding 5.

I guess that's why its called a fantasy. Unless you're a powerful figure(wealth and influence) then you can probably have your own harem.

In reality, three-way relationships are inherently unbalanced, since you generally have the main 'couple' and an outsider.

Not necessarily. There are stable possibilities if the relationship forms as a triad rather than adding a third to an existing couple.

One scenario I have seen for this is twin sisters who share almost everything, falling for the same guy at the same time. A little friction at the start but then they share everything else, so why not share him too.

A possible stable scenario for a couple + 1 is a couple formed of bisexual females that decide together to bring a male into the relationship.

True any relationship regardless of how many are involved requires two major factors: 1 Trust and 2 Communication.

Without those two factors and they are only the tip of the iceberg, as the saying goes. All relationships will fail. Sure sex is probably involved in almost all the SOL stories, but those two factors are still critical. It doesn't matter if its just 2 individuals or a 100 (being a wise ass). Without those basic factors constantly being active, the relationship will fail. Just based on my personal observations over the many long years of being the outsider.

Try one of the harem ones by John Wales, or one of his that is not marked as such, but seems to go in that direction according to my memory, which is:
Shelly Hugh Driscott

A way underrated author who writes long stories that you can get absorbed in.

was that the author who wrote 'time'.

I enjoyed his stories alot.

Yes, same author.

https://storiesonline.net/a/John_Wales

I cant seem to find Shelly Hugh Driscott from what i can see of his stories are interesting

I cant seem to find Shelly Hugh Driscott from what i can see of his stories are interesting

Try the following link:
https://storiesonline.net/s/54983/shelly-hugh-driscott

Thanks it was filtered

Getting back to the original question, if good harem stories are sought, how can you tell the difference between good ones and bad ones? Maybe good ones are on SOL and bad ones elsewhere?

Personally, I prefer polyamory and group marriage stories more than harem stories, for a variety of reasons. In part, as Crumbly mentions, too many harem stories seem to rely on established sexual stereotypes or worse on completely new forms of mysogyny. In addition, I find that many of the logical leaps that authors use to explain their harems just don't make any sense.

To expand on Crumbly's comment about characters, though, I'd suggest that there are three big issues about character development in harem stories that are the most crucial for the story to work. These are also the three biggest things that most authors seem to get wrong. ((Note, I'm assuming a one guy/group of women harem for pronoun use, but I've seen other types work.))

First, the character whose harem it is needs to make sense as a harem leader. Personally, I don't like the very violent, post-apocalyptic type of harem story where the harem master is a warlord who is controlling the women through fear and violence, but at least that does make sense.

In the more common story, where the harem master has all of these partners because he's just so amazing, the author needs to actually explain why all these women just happen to want that one guy. This is often made more difficult by authors who haven't yet learned the value of "show, don't tell" writing, so we're simply told that the character is handsome, kind, and amazing in bed, but the prose doesn't back that up.

Second, the women/ harem members have to be distinguishable. This isn't just a matter of names and descriptions, they have to be given personalities. Aroslav does a very good job of this in "Living Next Door to Heaven", where each of the girls not only has her own interests and personality, but each has a slightly different sexual relationship with the protagonist. In addition, a couple of the girls are bisexual, and what they like when they are both in bed with the protagonist is different from how they react when with him individually.

Third, there has to be reasonable interaction between the various group members. Relationships are hard, and the more people involved the more difficult they become. Why does this group of people stay together? Does the harem reach a certain size then stop growing, or does the protagonist keep adding to it? If the latter, when does it reach the point that he has no time left for old members, so there's no difference between the harem and just a list of past partners?

Finally, and this isn't about characters, a harem story needs to be a story. Too many stories are either just an explanation of the author's tortured logic for why harems really are a good idea or a check-list of the protagonist's sexual conquests. The latter might work for a short stroke story, but not for anything longer.

The story needs to have an actual plot, character development, conflict, and so on. In other words, it needs to be a story which involves the creation or existence of a harem, not just "a harem story".

"I Feel Lucky" by cmsix is both a good and bad example of a harem story. The early chapters are very good, with the 14yo protagonist seducing his older twin sister, their college age ex-babysitter, a couple of his father's secretaries, and working on his sister's friends. The girls' interest makes sense: he's handsome, courteous with old-school manners, won't talk about anything they do together, and comes from a family that is obscenely rich with political ties. The story itself works because cmsix will spend several chapters on each girl's personality and seduction, and then her integration into the existing dynamic.

The later chapters descend into a conspiracy of evil cabals who use sex as a way to instil mind-control mechanisms into their targets. By that point, there are dozens of women in the harem, sex scenes happen off camera, and the entire story almost literally becomes a check-list.

The scene where I stopped reading was when a young mother is crying because her husband tried to rape their adolescent daughter, the protagonist explains the conspiracy and that the only way to protect them is for him to have sex with them instead, they reluctantly agree, and then it's just a perfunctory "I took them into the office and gave them both orgasms". He doesn't even acknowledge that an adolescent girl who was almost raped by her father might have issues with sex.

Correct me if i am wrong here but harem is single male/female to more of opposite gender
While polygamy multiple marriages like example 2 males 3 females ?

Correct me if i am wrong here but harem is single male/female to more of opposite gender
While polygamy multiple marriages like example 2 males 3 females ?

You are wrong. Polygamy is very specifically a marriage of one man and multiple women. One woman and multiple men would be polyandry.

That I am aware of, there is not a specific word for group marriages/relationships involving multiples of both genders. These sorts of group marriages are a purely modern concept while polygamy and more rarely polyandry can be found throughout human history.

Polygamy is very specifically a marriage of one man and multiple women. One woman and multiple men would be polyandry.

Incorrect. One man and multiple women is polygyny. Polygamy encompasses both polyandry and polygyny.

Polygamy encompasses both polyandry and polygyny.

... and group marriage - wherein the family unit consists of multiple husbands and multiple wives (Wikipedia), also see polyamory, a parnership of more than two, with no genders specified.

Also note that polygamy seems to be generally legal in Muslim countries (Middle East and most of northern Africa), and there are a few countries where polygamy is only legal for Muslims (just to get the thread drift going...).

Funny part is that erotica isn't the only area where the topic is used. At least one or more of Heinlein's stories also had that theme, just without the actual sex descriptions. Well written stories have and will include all forms of relationships, just the only ones which will have the down and dirty parts will be called "Erotica" or worse. Like any relationship there are successful ones and major failures. Just the failures seem to make more noise. Like in the news, good deeds go unnoticed, bad deeds become international headline stories.

Over the years, there were always people in the community (and I've lived in a lot of places) where everyone would whisper about "the man with two wives", or the "four people living together".

Its funny my attitude is rather strange or weird. I don't care what any consenting adult's lifestyle is, as long as they don't try and force their choice on someone else. There are enough good and bad people in all lifestyles or cultures. An open mind let me try and not be a judge. Instead I always asked what I could learn. I wasn't always successful, but it did have its great moments leading to great memories.

One important objection to half the men having more than one wife is that the other half of men will have no wives as all the females are taken.

This is only true if you assume that all persons above a certain age have the same legal rights to marry. Historically, at least in Europe, marriage was generally not an option for younger men; it was assumed that a man had to be established professionally before he could marry. Even with 90% of the population being farmers, that still meant that he had to be old enough to have earned his own parcel of land, or to have inherited his father's lands, rather than still be working an older relative's farm.

Now, harems obviously weren't an issue in Europe for the most part, but the limiting factor on the female population was that childbirth is difficult and risky when you don't have natal drugs. As recently as the mid-19th century there were 5 maternal deaths per 1,000 live births, which gets worse when you consider that most women were having a dozen kids. Some estimates from the Middle Ages suggest that as many as 20-25% of women died during childbirth.

Thus, the dynamic became that men in their twenties and thirties would marry younger women, often teenagers, and have children by them. If the woman died, the guy would usually remarry as quickly as possible, both to ensure he had enough sons that one would survive to adulthood (high child mortality rates), and to take care of any existing kids.

The result of this is a sort of serial harem effect. No man is married to more than one woman at a time, but many men (and a few women) would be married multiple times as spouses died.

but the limiting factor on the female population was that childbirth is difficult and risky when you don't have natal drugs. As recently as the mid-19th century there were 5 maternal deaths per 1,000 live births, which gets worse when you consider that most women were having a dozen kids. Some estimates from the Middle Ages suggest that as many as 20-25% of women died during childbirth.

And war and hard labor limited the male population. Average life expectancy in Medieval Europe was somewhere around 35-40. Now if a man actually made it to his 30th birthday, he could expect to see his 60th. However, near constant warfare and the hardships of peasant life meant few men even made it to 20.

Average life expectancy in Medieval Europe was somewhere around 35-40.

This is one of the most quoted but least correct statistics about life expectancy. In reality, if a male lived to be 18-21 (depending on location, class, and year), he could generally expect to live until his late 60's to early 70's.

The "average life expectancy of 38-41" figure which everyone reads is based on factoring in all live births, thus the high infant and child mortality rates bring down the number. In addition, many still births were actually treated as live births long enough to baptise the baby; records vary as to how these were treated, so infant mortality rates may be higher than we think (but child mortality rates lower).

if a man actually made it to his 30th birthday... few men even made it to 20.

That's not what that statistic is referring to. The point about men living to their late 60's is because they had a longer life expectancy than women did.

Warfare is basically irrelevant to peasants in the middle ages because there were no standing armies, war was conducted between small forces of nobles. That's how the whole feudal system works. Some peasants would die if a battle took place too near their land, but that was rare, most battles were in open fields during the day. It wasn't until the renaissance era that there started to be large mercenary armies preying on the populace.

As for the "the hardships of peasant life", those affected everyone. The point of the life expectancy is that children were most susceptible to disease and accidents, so anyone who made it to full adulthood was relatively hardy, but women had an additional threat that men did not.

So the result overall is that so many children and women died that it brings down the average, but if you just look at male life expectancy among adults then you see that human life expectancy hasn't changed as much as we think it has. Instead, what modern medicine has done is to level out the playing field, making it more likely that children will reach adulthood and that women won't die in childbirth.

Its funny how all movies and such have both men and women being portrayed as being over 20 when that was a rarity.

It's not funny or hard to understand at all, the truth would offend modern sensibilities. Women were considered eligible for marriage at 14, and mostly to older men who had managed to survive.

The funny part is the number of movies and TV shoes with modern settings that have actors/actresses in their early 20's playing high school kids.

The funny part is the number of movies and TV shoes with modern settings that have actors/actresses in their early 20's playing high school kids.

Very true the industry actively looks for actors and actresses who naturally look younger than they are.

But that is why when I read a story based in either another time period, another culture or both I at least attempt to adjust my requirements to meet their situation instead of my own. Leads to a lot of laughs when it highlights the discrepancies. Not only in entertainment but the way history is presented.

https://storiesonline.net/s/76454/second-chance

nope not that one maybe they took it down it's guy walking in the night made a wish before dying and got a second chance as a girl he falls in love with another girl he meet even though at first she not a lesbian man I wish I knew the name of it