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Violet has a problem. She’s drowning in student-loan debt after getting a master’s degree in a field where no jobs are available, and she can’t afford her rent. So she answers a “help wanted” ad for “technicians and assistants.” There’s no experience necessary, generous pay, and full benefits, including dental. The catch is that Violet’s new job involves … jerking off minotaurs to collect their copious semen for use in producing ED meds for humans. As you might imagine, this line of work leads her to some unexpected places! Okay, and also to some totally expected places: There’s one milking client, Rourke, who’s got a shinier mane than the others, not to mention sculpted biceps, a wardrobe of crisply tailored suits, and a very long, “Coke can”–thick, wildly prodigious (24-plus ounces) minotaur member. As Violet and Rourke’s milking sessions gradually become more intimate than clinical, she soon finds herself, against her better judgment, falling head over heels in love with a half-man, half-bull hybrid. Welcome to C.M. Nascosta’s viral sensation Morning Glory Milking Farm and to the world of monster-human romance, if you’re not already there.
Monster romance is burning up BookTok, a space where women share enthusiastic recommendations for the latest book that has stretched their imaginations. “I want an actual creature,” says Charlotte Swan, a fan of the genre and author of the novel Captured by the Orc General, in this memorable TikTok. “I need him to be diabolical. A lot of you are giving me buff man with horns, he may have a few claws. That’s not what I’m talking about. I need scales. I need leathery wings. I want him flapping,” she says. “I’m talking sharp teeth, extra-long tongue. I need the works.” The monsters in these books — be they gargoyles, Krakens, horned barbarian aliens, tentacle monsters, wolf-human hybrids, snake-human hybrids, orcs, mothmen, or ambient shadow-creatures — all seem to possess a little something extra. They all have enormous dicks, it goes without saying. Some might have a bifurcated appendage, or more than one. Their penises might have odd shapes or abilities, ridges and spurs and bulbous knots at the base. Monster heroes might also possess tails that enable double penetration. Tongues, as well, can be textured or thick or long and prehensile with a tip capable of suction. They are monsters, on the one hand, but on the other hand, they are a sex-toy shop made flesh and blood. So that’s one reason why these books are popular. But that’s not all there is to it.
Human-monster pairings are what sets monster romance apart from its close cousin, the wildly successful genre of romantasy, a genre epitomized by Sarah J. Maas’s blockbuster A Court of Thorns and Roses series. In those books, more established and more human-adjacent paranormal creatures like elves, dragons, and fae dominate the stories, and humans are reduced to bit players, if they figure into the books at all. But in monster romance, we’re usually in a world that’s vaguely similar to Earth, or at least connected to it in some way. For many readers, ACOTAR was the gateway drug to other books with nonhuman characters. Others found their way there via fanfic, where the themes that dominate these books became established over the years via an iterative, collaborative process that gradually hardened into tropes. They generate reams of conversation. In one popular TikTok, Laura Whitney at first seems to scoff at monster-romance readers by saying, “People are literally out here reading monster romance?” Then she whispers, “Which ones?” So many people appreciated the 3,712 recommendations generated in the comments that 18,900 people have bookmarked the post.
When I first told friends about the latest turn my reading had taken, I got a lot of blank stares at first but soon fell into a delightful text exchange with a friend who has a Ph.D. and who also read Morning Glory Milking Farm. She sent me a link to Hermione Granger–Draco Malfoy fanfic that she said had taught her a lot about BDSM. I started to realize that, though many of us may be out here walking around with the latest literary fiction from Riverhead or Pantheon in our tote bags, our phones runneth over with stories of men with tails and two dicks.
The explosion of monster romance is a relatively recent phenomenon, says Jane Nutter, the director of communications at Kensington, which publishes previously independently published romances across genres. Ten years ago, she says, there was only one series she worked on that included fantasy. Now, nearly all of them have that element. Nutter’s theory is that books with monster heroes allow readers to safely explore sexual inclinations that they might otherwise feel some shame around. “I think people are definitely looking for ways to make things more palatable to themselves,” she says. “They’re thinking, Well, of course, this guy’s a monster, it makes sense that this is how he is and this is how they explore together, rather than thinking, I have a taboo kink.”
This might explain the overwhelming interest in the Omegaverse subgenre, in which otherwise human characters have wolflike biological aspects. Characters are Alphas, Betas, or, rarest of all, Omegas, classifications that determine aspects of these characters’ personalities as well as their sexual needs. Omegas are hardwired to be dominated by Alphas — they enter “estrous,” a physically uncomfortable forced heat cycle, that only repeated sex with an Alpha can soothe. During estrous, Omegas’ vaginas ooze with “slick,” responding to the Alpha’s intoxicating pheromonal perfume. Alphas, born to dominate Omegas, have a unique sexual characteristic: Upon reaching sexual climax, which involves staggering amounts of semen (and I really mean staggering; these wolf-people must go through mattresses like Kleenex), their dicks swell at the base, creating a “knot,” which lodges them inextricably in the Omega’s slick-soaked (I am so sorry) vagina. Then they just have to wait it out until the knot subsides, at which point they usually fuck again. We don’t really hear much about Betas except that sometimes Alphas mate with them out of desperation because Omegas are so rare. These books are usually narrated from the Omega’s POV, and thus typically have a built-in enemies-to-lovers story line, e.g., “I hate him for [reasons] but I am biologically compelled to mate with him.”
Omegaverse tropes reached a wider audience than ever before when Ali Hazelwood published her best-selling novel Bride in February. Hazelwood had already established herself with several traditional human-human rom-com romances, building a devoted following before taking a turn toward the paranormal. In Bride, a Vampyr woman named Misery must be wed to an Alpha Were in a marriage of convenience, but the unlikely pair end up falling for each other. The sex in Bride is tamer and, to me, hotter than the psychologically and physically messy couplings in other Omegaverse books; it’s more consensual, and the Alpha doesn’t force his knot on Misery. Politely, he takes care of her pleasure and then comes outside her body, sparing her the forced-breeding aspect of the Omegaverse, while still including just enough Alpha Were characteristics to titillate.
For readers seeking a gentler, less rape-y reading experience that still has that horny biological-compulsion, fated-mates element, there are the Ice Planet Barbarian books, by Ruby Dixon. Cindy Hwang — VP and director of editorial at Berkley, the division of Penguin Random House that publishes both Bride and this blockbuster series — told me that these books surged in popularity early in the pandemic. “I think maybe it was a lot of readers’ introduction to nonhuman sex, but in a way that they found understandable.”
There are 21 Ice Planet Barbarians books, plus novellas and other extras set in the book’s extended universe, making it perfect for binge-reading during lockdown. At the outset of the series, some evil aliens have captured a group of 22-year-old women from Earth and, when their ship experienced some kind of mechanical malfunction, dumped them on a distant ice planet. The women have no chance of surviving there on their own, in part because they lack a parasitic symbiont — a khui — that all living inhabitants of the planet must be implanted with in order to exist in its atmosphere for more than a few days. Luckily, they are rescued by a tribe of barbarians: blue seven-foot-tall horned males with tails, velvety fur, and shining ice-colored eyes. The barbarian tribe, known as Sa-khui, hunts a giant beast with the parasitic khui worms in its heart and then implants them in the women’s chests, more or less with their permission — after all, what choice do they have? What they don’t know, but soon learn, is that when your khui resonates with a male’s, you are destined to fall in love and procreate, whether or not you’ve ever had a conversation before. You can imagine the intrigue, enemies-to-lovers, and other story lines involved as each captured female eventually finds the member of the barbarian tribe who is destined to worship and fuck the living daylights out of her for the rest of their lives. Oh, and their dicks have a sensitive spur on top designed for clitoral stimulation. It’s just as blue and velvety as the rest of their big alien bodies.
Maybe even more importantly, the Sa-khui are consummate gentlemen. They wouldn’t think to glance at any woman besides their mates, and they’re constantly telling their mates how perfect they look, smell, and, yes, taste. They literally live to serve their human mistresses, and it’s a powerful fantasy. As Laura Whitney, the BookTok star, told me, “Seeing these brooding and powerful men completely simp over their women is fantastic. I love how you get these tough, could-rip-you-apart-with-their-pinkies monster men who aren’t afraid to lay all of that down and be vulnerable with their partners.” Books Are Magic bookseller Josie Meléndez said something similar: “I think a lot of women just want to feel safe in relationships, but still be able to have that excitement.”
When I saw that there were 21 of these books, I figured I’d read one and move on — then suddenly, I looked up and I was on book seven (Barbarian’s Touch). I’ve now read the whole series. While I didn’t think the Omegaverse books were hot at all (knotting just doesn’t do it for me), I found myself actually turned on by the Sa-khui and their implacable need to please their mates. I was also impressed by the world-building and attention to detail in these books. Life is hard on the ice planet, and Dixon doesn’t spare the reader myriad descriptions of hunting expeditions, hide-scraping, and fire-building. But the humans quickly adapt to a life spent swathed in fur and leather tunics and leggings, layers that are often a pain in the ass to remove prior to their frequent and passionate couplings. The sex and the plot bear equal weight, and I appreciated the recognizably human traits of the shipwrecked women, who often just crave a burger and a movie. Most of all, I loved that nothing that happens or has ever happened on Earth matters anymore to these people. Their lives are reduced to ice-planet survival, plus sex, making these books the definition of escapism.
On BookTok, the overall vibe in the #monsterromance hashtag is one of coziness. Everyone’s hanging out in sweats, “light makeup” filter on, recommending books where a mothman with a prehensile tongue gives oral to a woman lying in bed all the way from his perch on a tree branch outside. The juxtaposition of “literary” signifiers — personalized Kindles, beautifully organized bookshelves — with all that monster kink make the over-the-top perviness of the books’ actual content feel almost cute and certainly accessible to all. It is now truly no more weird to be aroused by a gargoyle as it once was to be titillated by a prince or a fireman.
It seems, also, like the romance genre as a whole is being pushed by monster romance to make things in human-human books as freaky as possible. One example of this phenomenon might be Emily Rath’s wildly popular Pucking Around series, which follows the adventures of a hot and spectacularly horny new NHL team. In the first book in the series, a physical therapist finds herself tending not just to the team’s injuries but to the sexual needs of a pair of hot best friends. What begins as a one-night stand very quickly becomes a throuple, with two hockey players fucking each other while the heroine calls the shots. This genre, “why choose?” or “MMF” (or sometimes even MMMF or MMFM), and also known as “reverse harem,” always features a heroine who is showered with sexual attention by men who are also sexually involved with each other.
The next book in Rath’s series also features a poly bisexual awakening and comes out this fall. For romance fans, it’ll be competing for hottest new title of the season with a new book by Ruby Dixon of Ice Planet Barbarians fame. That one’s called Bull Moon Rising, and its hero is — what else — a minotaur.
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