This is twelfth of fourteen essays contained within the third issue of the Adult Analysis Anthology, a collection of longform writing that seeks to expand the breadth of critical discourse around adult games and adult game culture. If you’d like to support the creation of more high-quality writing about adult games the full anthology is available for purchase on Itch! Anthology logo by Pillow!

Written By: Leo G.

A few years back I was in a voice chat. The subject of cuckold porn was brought up. Someone said, “It’s fucking disgusting. What kind of loser would jerk off to the idea of his wife getting fucked by another man?” I responded innocently with, “Wait, you imagine yourself as the cuck?” The room went silent, and the topic was quickly changed. I think about that conversation often, not only because it was really funny, but also because it made me realize how many facets and angles there were to NTR and cuckold porn.

NTR (an abbreviation for the Japanese term “netorare”, which translates literally “to take off” and is used to describe pornography wherein a character’s love interest is seduced and stolen by a sexually-aggressive antagonist) has a reputation. If you’ve ever clicked on an NTR doujin and scrolled down to the comment section, there’s usually someone who took the time out of their day to let everyone know that if they’re masturbating to this, they’re sick. The way they’ll talk about NTR brings to mind the type of comment you’d see on an entomologist’s cool pictures of a tarantula or millipedes. “KILL IT WITH FIRE,” someone would yell into the post tagged “#thing you don’t like.”

But it goes deeper than not liking a genre. As we’ve seen online, people will get very possessive and disturbed when it comes to the concept of a woman they desire having a relationship with another man. And to a degree, why wouldn’t they be? A lot of the gacha and anime industry is predicated on creating a parasocial environment, where the idea is that these women exist just for you. They’ll never have a man in their life canonically, and might as well be wearing purity rings. What I find fascinating about this phenomenon is that cheating in erotica is a tale as old as time. The housewife that has sex with the milkman, the married duchess who hates her boring marriage, the examples are endless. Romance and pornography would have a much slimmer catalog if we removed all instances of extramarital sex.

For the vitriolic commenters that love their waifus, NTR is all about the nasty feelings associated with being the victim of cheating. But these days, NTR can mean anything from “two adults who consensually swing,” to “man sobbing in a closet while his wife pays off his debts with her pussy.” A content warning that’s too generic can lead to unwanted surprises, and for that reason I understand being uncomfortable with it. But then, why is it so popular?

A typical NTR game (excluding VNs, which have the versatility to just tell a story) follows this formula depending on the husband or wife POV character:

1. Establish a happy couple with hot wife/girlfriend.
2. Conflict! External force rocks their world.
3. Tan blond man appears, his (rarely-drawn) eyes on wife/girlfriend.
4. Daily grind. You do your errands or jobs that inevitably lead to sexual acts escalating in lewdness as the game progresses.
5. Finally, we end, with either a “good end” where the couple resisted temptation, or a “bad end” where the wife/girlfriend turns into a slut.

What about playing as the bull? The formula can change. One angle gaining popularity is the harem builder, with an unrepentant scumbag protagonist, like Self Defense Dojo, NTRaholic, or NTR Legend. In each of these, you do your daily jobs and build a “relationship” with the available women. Eventually you steal them away from their boyfriend/husband, with varying levels of consent, and obtain an ending with your favorite chick. With that framework, you build the player up, making them feel like they’re becoming stronger in a macho way. Yeah, working hard and fucking hard, nothing more manly than that!

Or what about playing the wife? In games like Stolen Newlywed Monica ~Tsundere Wife’s Titillating Task~, you work multiple jobs as the elven wife/girlfriend, Monica, to pay off a debt that you and your husband are on the hook for. As you advance in your separate and numerous career tracks, ranging from baker’s assistant to nun, you decide if Monica remains faithful or has sex. Yeah, working hard and fucking hard, nothing more wife material than that!

So, we have our three narrative POVs. You play as a cuck because you want to see your wife get fucked, you play as a bull to dominate a bunch of pretty anime women, or you play as a wife to see your player character get fucked. What do these all have in common other than chicks getting railed? Because it’s a video game, and because of its interactive properties, it turns NTR into a power fantasy.

“Now wait,” you might say, “obviously the harem manager sim is a power fantasy, but how’s that apply to being a cuck?” It’s simple: a cuck chooses, a bull obeys. NTR Office will put a warning sign on choices that lead to NTR. You can beat that game without your girlfriend ever having to have sex with the tan, blond CEO. None of those horny men get to lay a finger on your wife, unless you, the player, give them a metaphorical thumbs up. The player-as-cuck gets to choose if the NTRing happens. There’s almost always an alternate way forward where the relationship is saved, like Inn my Wife, where a struggling innkeeping couple are having money issues. Despite the player character being turned on by another man fucking his wife, in the good end he proclaims his love to her and not wanting her to leave him, which she reciprocates.

The power fantasy becomes more obvious when you play as the wife in NTR games. You, the player, decide, “I want to see this woman get railed in a tavern wench outfit” and make choices no sane person in her shoes would ever make on purpose. Paladin Lias gives you the choice to remain faithful. But you probably didn’t boot up the game about the hot blonde paladin to not see her have group sex with random men. You can’t be that torn up about her relationship with her boyfriend if you’re the one choosing to have sex. In this instance the player is living the power fantasy of controlling who and when the wife/girlfriend gets to fuck.

If it’s all a power fantasy, what makes NTR different? Power fantasies in porn games are extremely common, why is it this genre that’s taken hold? You can’t swing a cat without hitting a porn game with NTR in the title. A quick glance at any porn site’s front page brings us closer to the answer. Thumbnails for ‘Hot step-mom gives biology lesson’ or ‘Step-sister invites the step-plumber over’ are all over the place. The reason it’s everywhere is simple: it’s easy.

Incest gets to enjoy the benefits of being an immediately recognizable taboo, and instant access to a plot. Games about NTR get to have these benefits too, with the addition of a tried and tested gameplay framework borrowed from other genres. Stolen Newlywed Monica ~Tsundere Wife’s Titillating Task~ and Liz ~The Tower and the Grimoire~ are a good comparison. Both are games where the eroticism primarily comes from seeing a hot anime babe get into hornier and more explicit situations as the story goes on. In fact, the gameplay is exactly the same, except you get to make a choice not to have sex in the former. Plot wise, the conflict is just lacking a partner to be cheating on in the latter. Other than that, do a daily work grind, get sex scenes.

With Stolen Newlywed Monica ~Tsundere Wife’s Titillating Task~, one has to wonder if the NTR is actually important. It gives the character thrust and a reason to get into these wild and sexual situations, yes, but what does doing part time work as a nun or a waitress or a legally-distinct playboy bunny have to do with infidelity? Dressing up as a maid doesn’t have anything to actually do with NTR. But the player gets to make a hot elf chick have sex with paying customers, and the developer found an easy narrative to get there. Without it, it’s labeled as a “corruption” game instead.

NTR’s prominence comes from its versatility to game devs. It comes prepackaged with a gameplay framework, plot, and even marketing! Those that want taboo can have taboo. Those that don’t can still buy it and see a husband and wife love each other. Alternatively you can just ignore boyfriend/husband and watch an anime babe fuck. If you were going to make a corruption game, you were going to do the same amount of work, assets-wise. But unlike corruption, NTR is a keyword. You see those big bold letters in the title of a game and you know exactly what you’re geting into. The difference now is having that template for a plot sorted out, one that your audience is familiar with, and doesn’t actually limit your ideas.

Anyway, shut up and get the fuck out. I’m gonna fuck your wife now.

Leo G. is a programmer and writer that has been in tech for a decade running. As one half of Clown Control, they write the Field Report series chronicling the sexy misadventures of space-faring scientist Del Doppler. They’re also making a game! Joker’s Trip puts you in the shoes of a crooked dealer at a casino where the patrons can bet anything, even themselves. You can find them on bsky @leognyc.bsky.social, and on tumblr @leog4u.

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