Dating dynamics if vore was possible (human f/m)

[roundness]

Earlier today I was standing in line next to this super pretty pregnant lady, we started chatting and it got me thinking about what social and dating dynamics would be like, in a society where vore was a thing, from the standpoints of social interaction and evolution. I am not sure if these aspects have been discussed before in this optic.

At first, I started wondering, how would I know if she's expecting or if she's just got a full stomach? In this hypothetical world, if you saw someone with a big belly, it could be a baby or it could be a previous prey being digested.

Then I thought, what if wanted to ask them on a date, or they invited you over? You wouldn't know for sure if it was safe. If she was pregnant, cool. If she was a pred, not so much.

You would next have to consider

a) if she was a pred

b) would she be too full to eat you tonight

So your thought process might go something like: "She's asking me to come over, but is she pregnant? No, I think from her vibe that she's a pred and her belly is so big because she's digesting someone. How much room does she have left? Could she eat me tonight and stretch out more?" And so on.

You'd have to weigh your options and see if it's safe to go ahead, sometimes not knowing for sure. Sometimes she'd be pregnant, other times she'd be too full. But those in-between times? Many people will end up as dinner instead of having a good night together or getting laid.

So next I wondered, in a world where vore was real, what the predation and mating strategies would be. A girl with a full stomach, halfway through digesting but wanting another meal, could pretend to be pregnant. Maybe fake some kicks, or carry around a bag of baby stuff. So she could attract a mate. Then again this decoy would probably become obvious very quickly. So what other ways would they have?

Girls with flat stomachs would be super risky because you'd have no clue if they're a pred or not. The only safe ones would be the ones who've just eaten someone and are obviously very full, with the biggest bellies.

I'm not sure how far I can take this idea. Just thinking out loud.

Next, what are the implications for evolution and sexual selection? Girls with a flat stomach would not be considered attractive, as the males that found flat bellies attractive would have been eaten and selected away over the years. So for mating, a round stomach would almost invariably be a safer bet.

If a full stomach would be safer so more attractive, then girls would have to develop strategies to lure in males. the ones that could do it, would thrive and pass on their genes. One implication is, i think, that evolution would naturally select for girls that can expand the belly more and more; say one can digest only one person at the time; for several days she's have a relatively small belly, and males would steer clear until she managed to eat and be super full again.

However, a girl that say she had someone inside, half-digested, but whose stomach can expand to fit someone else, could fool a partner into thinking that the belly is too full for him to be eaten, and then when he got home, gulp!

I think this makes sense. But then, I'm not sure how attraction would work in such a risky scenario. How would a pred lure someone in? How would a non-pred signal that she's safe?

[IddlerItaler]

At some point, I feel like it would be safer to just date flat-bellied girls if a full-bellied pred could just want you as seconds. And pregnant girls would functionally be like flat-bellied girls in terms of how sated they are, except perhaps hungrier due to pregnancy cravings.

[FloozyFox]

I'd expect something along the lines of the dating dynamics found in praying mantis or certain kinds of spiders.
If vore was real and only women could be preds, then in all likelihood there would be a two-class system with men being second class citizens.
From an evolutionary standpoint, I think it's reasonable to assume that in this world women would be stronger and larger on average. The reason certain animals eat their partners after mating in nature is for the pregnant female to gain more nutrition to maximize the survival chances of the offspring. As a strategy this wouldn't make much sense for humans, so I'd expect them to evolve away from a K-selection (one offspring, intense parental care) toward an r-selection (many offspring, less parental care) to make up for the increased loss within each generation.
There are several options how that could go, but I'll stick to one for now.
Within a litter girls and boys would likely be treated the same, and they might even look the same, until they hit puberty/reproductive capability. At that point, in nature, either the males are kicked out while the females continue to receive care, or they all get kicked out and are left to fend for themselves. This would certainly majorly impact society and make cheap labour abundant. Education, especially higher education, would only be available for girls, as it would be seen as a waste of resources on boys - the same way girls were often barred from higher education a hundred years ago as their societal purpose back then was seen as becoming a housewife. Perhaps thanks to the abundances of modern society, there would be progressive movements to stop eating men as the biological need to eat them is no longer necessary once industrial food production enters the picture, and they would eventually be allowed into higher education.
When it comes to online dating, there would be somewhat of a role reversal. Women would be unlikely to reject men, while men would reject practically all women.
In terms of mating success however, women would still be choosy and men that don't meet their standards will simply be eaten right away. Perhaps you would have women pretending to be progressive online to score with a man, only to then eat them anyway. There would also be men trying to escape their fate, who developed/evolved behavior that would leave a woman too distracted to eat them (possibly by being very good at sex?), thus allowing them to escape and mate again with another woman. Depending on the circumstances this behavior would potentially be stigmatized in society the same way cheating is in the real world, but perhaps not. There might also be differences across different cultures.

The topic is pretty complex, and this is only one possible scenario.
For example if the ratio between men and women changes drastically, societal impact would be inevitable. If the ratio stayed at roughly 50:50, women would be likely the only ones going to war and many women would end up without a mate, which would encourage aggressive dating/mating strategies and competition among women, while in a scenario where the majority of children are male, society could still function similarly to our own, with the exception of men being a lot more expendable. A society with a majority of children being girls would look more like an ant colony or a bee hive, where only the elite has access to a harem of men. Each of these would be drastically different from the others, so we've only really scratched the surface here when it comes to the possibilities.

[SPHikeV2]

Earlier today I was standing in line next to this super pretty pregnant lady, we started chatting and it got me thinking about what social and dating dynamics would be like, in a society where vore was a thing, from the standpoints of social interaction and evolution. I am not sure if these aspects have been discussed before in this optic.

Well, I think there are a few aspects we have to take into account.

1st: The legality of vore.

Vore can either be fully legal, fully illegal, or have conditions.

In my opinion, to be fully legal, vore would either have to be exclusively non-fatal OR the situation would have to be contrived, but that assumes biology that (besides allowing vore) is otherwise different from humans, so belongs in a different point.

If vore is fatal, then it would have to be fully illegal, since that would very literally just be killing, and vore would only be the tool, same as a gun or a knife. Of course, the same caveat as above can be applied, and the same response is given.

As for conditions, if there is reformation in a world, or vore is only sometimes fatal (such as requiring pills to digest people), then various laws would likely exist regulating it in a more nuanced way.

2nd: The biology of vore.

I mean this in regards to how it modifies human biology, in a way that only affects vore (or mostly only does), so not special conditions, such as super strength. Vore, in my eyes, can either be somehow endo, or can fall somewhere on the spectrum of digestion speed.

If vore is endo then there are no issues with it, at least from a killing perspective. But speed is where it becomes interesting.

If digestion is very fast, it could be used to quickly kill someone in an alley. This could, while slower than a weapon, be a useful method of killing since it does hide people better, and could be disguised more easily. But if digestion is slow then, while not necessarily useless (bodies can still be gotten rid of), it wouldn’t be very efficient either, and would be quite at risk of one being caught, and the victim rescued.

Of course, another aspect is WHAT is digested. The above point about disposing of bodies assumes bones are digested, but if they are not it no longer has as much value.

3rd: Misc. Factors

This is where things like alternate physiology, other sapient species, etc, come into play. Such as women being bigger than men naturally, or if anthros existed and were powerful hunters, etc. This also covers alternate societies. All of my above propositions are about a normal, human, society where the only difference is that vore is POSSIBLE. Of course, if the society is unjust, and preds somehow had all the power (which would require vore to be very powerful, so likely needing high capacity, able to move while full, quick digestion etc). I made this section because those theoreticals are very common in fan stories.

TLDR
If vore is fatal it would be murder. While in fiction I may find it very hot, the bleak reality is that it would just be another method of killing someone. Even if there was consent, proving it would be very hard, and in many modern societies potentially irrelevant, similar to if you claim the person you shot told you to. Basically, while I find mass vore hot, irl lawyers would find it mass murder.

On the other hand in fiction girls eating guys is hot af.

Answers

With my propositions out of the way, my answer is that it depends. Since I’ve already said non-fatal would be a-ok, I’ll just cover fatal below.

Assuming predator just means capable of vore, then vore being most likely illegal would mean you were in no more danger than if you dated someone with a knife. Most girls would likely be this way, the same way most people irl don’t shank or shoot everyone they meet. It would be a potential risk to consider, but if they don’t have super strength it wouldn’t even be that big of a deal. Those girls who do seek to eat people would effectively be serial killers, luring victims away. Assuming vore leaves body signs, such as weight, it might promote a slight preference towards skinny women, since they would be basically proven non-preds, but I doubt it would be a big deal.

And if you WANTED to be eaten, I am sure the dark web would have ways to achieve that.

[Bright]

The mantis approach, have sex, get eaten, carry on your genes.

The spider approach: Bring tasty treat, have sex, run away before she can eat you.

The anglerfish approach: The male slowly becomes part of the females body while giving her the sperm.

The green anaconda: Bring all your friends for an orgy, some of you might get eaten, but that is a risk you're willing to take.

https://www.britannica.com/list/6-anima ... heir-mates


An interesting video on the female mantis.
Female on male cannibalism rarely occurs if there's enough food since the pheromones the female produces increases when she's had enough food.
EXCEPT
When she's really hungry, she really pumps out the "I wanna have sex pheromones."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDpvHOsXC8g

So translating this to the dating scenario,
the most dangerous predator would be the really sexy, but thin girls.




There is also some male on female cannibalism that occurs in nature due to:
"Low food availability"
or
"Female didn't want to mate"
or
"Older female less likely to reproduce and thus better chance of being food."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_cannibalism

[IddlerItaler]

An interesting video on the female mantis.
Female on male cannibalism rarely occurs if there's enough food since the pheromones the female produces increases when she's had enough food.
EXCEPT
When she's really hungry, she really pumps out the "I wanna have sex pheromones."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDpvHOsXC8g

Thanks for bringing it up. We have this habit to portray mantises and other bugs as these cold-hearted killers when there is variety in their behaviour.

So translating this to the dating scenario,
the most dangerous predator would be the really sexy, but thin girls.

Yea I will concede that if someone is super-thin but also lively and energetic they might have a very powerful metabolism.

Clearly we should invoke the "Find the stand user" meme. The best way to avoid a predator is to look for the girl who looks most average - not too thick, not too lean, a modest design without too much flourish. An artist would never bother making a generic character into a pred, right? Then again, the most faved piece on this site features a generic trainer lass from Pokemon as pred, so you never know...

[Laminatedcardboard]

Well, generally, it would depend on two parameters: 1. Preferences and 2. What are we holding constant

Preferences being pretty straightforward, like is digestion fast enough that a pred could remove evidence in an hour, or would they be stuck with a gut clearly marking them as suspicious for days or weeks? But also, how often are they eating people, and are all women choosing/capable of doing so or just a portion?

Secondly, is this assuming the modern world with vore tacked on? Or are we letting history change to integrate it? Because it would no doubt alter the structure of society or even just make a stable society impossible. I think in the development of a society where one group is capable and perhaps incentivised to eat others, that group will likely either be the ones in control or be strongly ostracised/oppressed.

To take it to the biological side of things, If we chalk it up to an evolutionary trait, I think it could occur from more factors than just sexual cannibalism, but also potentially as a response to overpopulation/crowding, resource competition/deficiency or as a strategy to eat substandard males in hopes of attracting better ones. This might determine what circumstances subconsciously push a woman to eat someone, whether that's after sex, if her diet is deficient and she's stressed, living in cramped conditions with others or eating guys she has rejected.

Of course, this depends on what level of legality we hold vore to, from 1. Actual murder - 2. Antisocial behaviour - 3. Accepted.
Number 2, I imagine, would probably still not be legal, but existing in the sense of being an uncommon, dangerous thing done by unscrupulous people if given the chance, so it is more comparable to general violence, robbery, etc, as opposed to literal serial killer behaviour.

In any case, men would probably be much more cautious and wary of dating, valuing character validation from others.... unless said biological development of vore pushes men to mate even harder, most likely in the case of sexual cannibalism.

[Doku]

This is well outside of my wheelhouse or really comfort zone as a rule. However, the artist Natsume Metal Sonic delves extensively into topics like this in their comics. I would say that 'worlds where vore is a thing' with heavy slice of life aspects and how people interact because of such activity is probably one of the more common themes that run through their material.

https://aryion.com/g4/user/Natsumemetalsonic

I'd recommend their work, or the work that they frequently favorite. You're bound to find more thoughts on this subject.

[roundness]

Some good replies and interesting points of discussion.

I was thinking of a society that was grossly like hours, mostly because I had the starting point of not being able to distinguish a pregnant woman from a pred that was digesting someone, and the implications starting from there. I agree with previous posters that if vore was possible, widely different societal structures may develop, but I wanted to assume some constraints - a society that somehow evolved to be like hours.

One case in point is about its legality. If it was a natural part of eating then it's possible that the legal code would not condemn it as murder.

So translating this to the dating scenario,
the most dangerous predator would be the really sexy, but thin girls.

That is an interesting point. I'm thinking that when people are attracted to someone, really attracted, they already tend to take more risky behaviour (going to the home of someone they just met, drinking too much, not using protection, and so on). So it's a good point, the most attractive preds would be successful at luring men, and also feed better than the least attractive ones. So one could basically go home with a girl, even knowing she's a pred, if they were very horny and very attracted, just because at some point you want to have sex no matter what.

Preferences being pretty straightforward, like is digestion fast enough that a pred could remove evidence in an hour, or would they be stuck with a gut clearly marking them as suspicious for days or weeks? But also, how often are they eating people, and are all women choosing/capable of doing so or just a portion?

Yes, good question and I should have been more specific: digestion would take a while, and a woman would have an enlarged stomach for days. If that was not the case, then my initial question - how would I know if the lady I was chatting with was pregnant, or if that was her stomach - would not really apply, if digestion was superfast. She could just stay at home until the belly was flat again.

And I was thinking that just a portion of women would be able to swallow someone. If all did, then the issue would not be there I think, as the risk would be there with every women you were chatting with.

[ArcaneSigil]

Seeing this post again I had a thought. Dating Dynamics would become very "lesbian friendly". Because any lesbian women that had a crush on a girl that a guy had a crush on would simply eat the guy to get him out of the way and make the girl, also lesbian or not, think she was "better than any guy".

[roundness]

Seeing this post again I had a thought. Dating Dynamics would become very "lesbian friendly". Because any lesbian women that had a crush on a girl that a guy had a crush on would simply eat the guy to get him out of the way and make the girl, also lesbian or not, think she was "better than any guy".

True, and what's intersting is that the girl would see this other woman with a large stomach, and not know if it's her pursuer was inside. They would suspect, if eating a romantic male competitor was common practice. Not sure how this would change the dynamics?

Additionally, a male that wanted to get rid of a competitor, could set up a date with a 'good friend, she's safe' to get the other guy gobbled up.

It might become more lesbian-friendly also if males were a lot more cautious in engaging with women, so that women would have adapted to have more saffic relationships. I read somewhere that it's generally more common for heterosexual women to have had at a time a relationship with other women, because in many human tribes men are less reliable so groups of women can stick together to rise children. I don't know if it's true that women then to have flings with other women, but with almost all of the heterosexual female friends that I know, this was correct.

[gbboyth]

It might become more lesbian-friendly also if males were a lot more cautious in engaging with women, so that women would have adapted to have more saffic relationships. I read somewhere that it's generally more common for heterosexual women to have had at a time a relationship with other women, because in many human tribes men are less reliable so groups of women can stick together to rise children.

I agree, I think this would definitely be the case if we assume only women are preds (and OP makes no mention of male preds, so I'm guessing that's the case in this scenario.) That's what I figured for the world of my game - if only women can be preds, the population of men will dwindle, and eventually women would become more inclined to seek relationships with each other. It might even reach a point where having a relationship with a male is seen as strange.

[roundness]

[quote="gbboyth" I agree, I think this would definitely be the case if we assume only women are preds (and OP makes no mention of male preds, so I'm guessing that's the case in this scenario.) That's what I figured for the world of my game - if only women can be preds, the population of men will dwindle, and eventually women would become more inclined to seek relationships with each other. It might even reach a point where having a relationship with a male is seen as strange.[/quote]

This discussion is turning up some interesting scenarios. A relationship with a male might indeed seem strange, and also say you see a couple in a bar, first date maybe, then you would wonder what her intentions are. Like, is this guy ending the night in her bed or inside her stomach? She looks too friendly, and on a different league, that's suspicious and I don't think she plans to bed him.

Would someone try to warn him, or would there be instead a tendency not to interfere? I suspect different people will do either, but probably most would warn the male. Hey dude, that belly, she's not pregnant, she was here 2 days ago with another guy and her stomach was flat, you better get out of here if you don't want to be next to join him inside her.

I also wonder how it would be with regards frienship among women. Say a woman has a boyfriend, he stops calling, then she asks their common friends if they've heard from him, and one of the female friends sports a very large stomach for a few days. There would be no way of knowing if she ate him specifically, and if she suspected she did, how would she confront her. Accuse her? No, it's not your boyfriend in here.

This could affect the relationships among women in strange ways, not only between men and women.

[Randomdude5]

I guess I will add my perspective by rambling. First a disclaimer. I don't like f/m vore, and male prey is one of my blacklisted tags.

To be technical, cannibalism exists IRL amongst humans, but is very rare. It is usually either crazy criminals, or time of extreme starvation. In normal circumstances the risk, and penalties of being caught are way too high, and the reward would be negative, because of the fear, guilt, and/or shame of it. What does this have to do with vore worlds? In a setting where vore is possible, fatal, and viewed as murder, it will be rare, because the law will crack down on it. In low tech or survival situations where there is no law, there will still be rules amongst groups in order for them to work together. Settings where vore is illegal and rare can be interesting, where a pred has to keep from getting caught by the law.

However the question is about how vore would affect dating. If vore is just another form of murder, then it could affect dating, but IRL most people are not worrying about getting murdered by their date. Vore settings where vore is common, normalized and fatal are my favorite. In those settings, people with the ability to eat others, can use it as a form of violence to get what they want. Because the question was about how it would affect dating if women could eat men. Assuming that women can overpower and eat men, and get away with it, they could use it to threaten the guy to get what they want. They could eat other girls' boyfriends, if they don't like the girl. They could eat their boyfriend, if they thought he was cheating. They could threaten to eat thier boyfriend, if he wasn't doing enough housework. They could threaten to eat a random guy if he doesn't date them. Assuming that women are stronger than men, in order to overpower them, and swallow them, then there would be no societal rule about not hitting a woman. Since fatal vore is a form of violence, men would get violent to defend themselves. Weapons would be used if a guy wants to fight a woman that is stronger than him. As with any normalized, fatal, same-size vore setting, people who are worried about being eaten would probably carry a knife in their pocket.
There is one more detail I want to point out about settings where it is legal for humans to eat each other. They would break down. One of the best ways to avoid being eaten by a pred is to have friends that will protect you. One of the best ways for a pred to eat someone is to have friends that help restrain their meal. Assuming that people don't want to be eaten, then these groups will agree not to eat each other. Society would break down into small group that protect each other from other preds. In order to build society back up into larger groups, where not everyone in the group knows everyone else, there would have to be laws that prohibit unwilling fatal vore. A vore story in a setting where society is starting to fall apart into small groups sounds interesting.

Now if all women are preds, and have some biological need to eat and digest prey of the same species then things get interesting. If vore is outlawed, then the species goes extinct, so some form of vore has to be legal. There would have to be enough prey for the preds to eat. That means there would have to be enough prey being born to keep the population from being wiped out by vore. Maybe vore unwilling fatal vore would be legal, as an unpleasant necessity. Maybe woman would be assigned a man to eat from the government. Maybe in a stone age setting, one tribe could raid other tribes for people to eat.


Anyways, those are my random crazy thoughts.

[IddlerItaler]

I agree, I think this would definitely be the case if we assume only women are preds (and OP makes no mention of male preds, so I'm guessing that's the case in this scenario.) That's what I figured for the world of my game - if only women can be preds, the population of men will dwindle, and eventually women would become more inclined to seek relationships with each other. It might even reach a point where having a relationship with a male is seen as strange.

On the flipside there would be a lot more MxM relationships and, unless the universe runs on strictly male prey only, some girls who are afraid of getting eaten by stronger preds would also feel safer around males.

...Pepper spray would also be a lot more common among both genders.

[Sharystria]

I will answer this question based off of the reality setting that I have created, as it is where I am best qualified to chime in from!

So, Predators are always elves. Not all elves are Preds, but all Preds are elves. Not only that, but Predator elves have distinctive physiology (such as longer and sharper talon-like claws on their fingers and toes) that usually stands out, as well as other details that tend to set them apart from the people around them. So having said that, Predators are usually fairly easy to recognize when out and about. If they have large round bellies, maybe its due to pregnancy, or maybe a digesting meal. That, you still may not know. Sometimes a Predator's belly can be so much bigger than pregnancy typically achieves, so if her belly is *too* big and round, it's most likely due to a meal.
Moreover, Predatory elves eat humans primarily because their biological health requires them to. They will starve to death if they don't eat some humans sometimes. They can eat other things too, but they need to eat human flesh periodically in order to stay alive. So, you would likely know right away if you were talking with a Predator or not, and if you are a human, you know right away that there is the possibility that you may be eaten. If you wanted to approach that elf and as her on a date, or if she approached *you* and asked you on a date, you really don't know for sure what's going to happen.

You would have to ask yourself, "Do I feel lucky?".

If the answer is "yes", then go ahead and talk with her and see where that goes. If the answer is "no", then it likely wouldn't matter much if she's already right there with you anyway, so the questions that you would need to ask at this point are entirely different than had her attention not come to you to start with. Isn't dating so much fun?!
As the pretty elven Predator lady, I must say that I rather like when cute human guys ask me on dates <3

[IddlerItaler]

So, you would likely know right away if you were talking with a Predator or not, and if you are a human, you know right away that there is the possibility that you may be eaten. If you wanted to approach that elf and as her on a date, or if she approached *you* and asked you on a date, you really don't know for sure what's going to happen.

You would have to ask yourself, "Do I feel lucky?".

If the answer is "yes", then go ahead and talk with her and see where that goes. If the answer is "no", then it likely wouldn't matter much if she's already right there with you anyway, so the questions that you would need to ask at this point are entirely different than had her attention not come to you to start with. Isn't dating so much fun?!
As the pretty elven Predator lady, I must say that I rather like when cute human guys ask me on dates <3

Okay, while "There's an innate pred species who must pred to survive" is not among my favourite premises for vore, I do love the way you're presenting this scenario. Maybe the pred will not devour and digest their date, especially if the need for prey is lenient like one guy a year. Maybe. The thrill is part of the fun.

[Bright]

I could see this work in an Aztec tribal scenario where the predation is done by one tribe towards other trives. Perhaps under certain conditions.

[roundness]

Thank you for the discussion. It brough about some interesting ramifications.

Was at work today, and there too talking with a pregnant collegue/friend (attractive). I did wonder, again, would there be any way to know if her belly would be caused by a baby or if it was someone inside the stomach. But I guess the answer at the moment is no, it's anyone's guess.