Wednesday, August 23, 2023

Manga: Sating the Wolf

OMG. Guys, you don't know how bad you need to read this manga! I gave it a quick look before going to sleep last night I couldn't stop until I finished it! It's Sating the Wolf, by Troy Arukuno. Thanks to the publisher for sending me a review copy!

  • Mangaka: Troy Arukuno.
  • Publication Date: 21st July 2023.
  • Publisher: TokyoPop.
  • Print Length: 192 pages.
  • Genres: Adult, Comedy, Fantasy, Gay, Omegaverse, Romance, Yaoi.
  • 5 / 5 stars.
Noah, a wolf with no family, was banished from his beloved pack after presenting as an Omega. While wandering alone in a village of herbivores, he meets Henri, a rabbit who lives alone with his little brothers. In a town where carnivores are feared, Henri bravely takes Noah in and offers him a job. When Noah accidentally goes into heat, it suddenly awakens Henri's Alpha instincts.
Will a world divided between carnivores and herbivores accept the relationship between a little Alpha rabbit and a big Omega wolf?
This book contains explicit sexual content. It is not intended for anyone under 18 years of age.

Just the synopsis is good enough, and I will not listen if you want to tell me otherwise. What's interesting about the omegaverse genre is that it often plays with the issue of consent to create drama and tension in the relationship; a few of them try to romanticize it as a form of "acceptable" abuse, but this is the whole opposite.

We see Noah's inner struggle, his insecurities, his fear and trauma due to his rare condition, the way he feels because of being rejected as an abnormal member of the pack that raised him yet easily discarded him as if it didn't matter. You can say he's by far my favorite character, because not only he fights his inner struggles, but also his own body.

Henri's is another character I fell in love with due to how sweet and understanding he is whenever necessary. He's the one that makes communication as a form of support a must in this relationship, letting Noah feel safe and leading him on a path of acceptance. Not to mention, a twink top? Yes please! It's something I haven't seen in... forever? It challenges the expectations on yaoi and gay media, and we so need more of that!

Sating the Wolf is a manga that plays with social expectations, what's accepted and not, but also shows body shaming, self-image, and inner homophobia under a different light to let the readers know that it's okay to fill whichever "box" they might be in as long as it makes them happy: it doesn't matter what you might look outside, but what's inside of you.

Kinky regards, K!

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Tuesday, August 15, 2023

Bisexual, Polysexual, Pansexual...?

I've read about the Bi Umbrella for a long time, and I was okay with it, even if I didn't fully understand it. However, thinking about all those identities made me feel uncomfortable because I didn't have the difference as clear as I would have liked. It also made me wonder if I was bisexual or if I was something else entirely. Enter a quick existential crisis.
I felt like that little fella in there. I was definitely under the umbrella, but was I in the right position? His face is priceless. Photo by Ivan Babydov.
However, I do want to make it clear that I haven't had contact with people of all of these orientations, so this is just the perceptions I've gotten, so any constructive feedback is always welcome (and encouraged if the language I'm using is not the best/problematic). Basically, they are my first impressions and a writing exercise to understand my identity in a better way.

When I did a quick search, I saw this:
  • Bisexual people are attracted to any number of genders that's more than two, historically associated to attraction to men and women.
  • Polysexual people are attracted to more than one gender, usually including non-binary identities.
  • Omnisexual people are attracted to all genders.
  • Pansexual people are attracted to all genders, usually regardless of their gender or without preference.

With all of those definitions, I found it confusing at first. Labeling myself as bisexual has become a big part of my identity and who I am, so the possibility of changing it because I might be mistaken... it was uncomfortable, not to mention scary.

However, I gave it some thought, and I wanted to share this because I think it might be useful for those trying to understand the differences whether to understand us or understand where they are in this umbrella.

Being bisexual for me means that I have a preference, romantic and/or sexual, towards men and women. It doesn't deny that I might feel attracted to non-binary people, just that there's a tendency, a preference, if you will.

Polysexual would be, then a bisexual who also feels the same way regarding binary and non-binary genders. They might have a preference regarding which one is more attractive, but those three would be the ones that get the most attention.

Omnisexual would be someone who feels attracted to anyone of any gender. No matter the preferences, they might feel attraction to anyone of any gender. Pansexual, however, would be the attraction regardless of gender; as in, there might be a preference, but gender doesn't play such an important role in their attraction.

Considering this, I decided that I'm still bisexual because, even if I can feel attraction to non-binary identities, even if I can pay not too much attention to gender, I still feel a strong attraction to men and women, regardless of if they are cisgender or transgender. I used to say that I was bisexual with some pansexual inclination, but doing this gave me the clarification I needed.

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