If a harem is a group of women sharing a single man, then a reverse harem is, quite simply, the opposite – a group of men sharing a single female.
But as to when and where this term originated, that’s up for discussion.
If you Google reverse harem, you’ll often find sites which suggest it derives from the Japanese “ハーレムもの or harumumono”. The direct translation is more like “harem stuff”, and really, doesn’t imply whether it’s a male or a female at the center of the attention.
There’s also the suggestion that reverse harem takes its origins from the Arabic “حَرِيمٌ” or harim, which can mean “a sacred inviolable place”, or “female members of the family”.
Seeing as none of these sites and sources lead back to a source that I’d be happy quoting, I’m going to leave that researching to you and focus on the what…
Only, even the “what” isn’t quite so cut and dry!
For a book to be considered reverse harem, it needs three things:
- There needs to be a female at the heart of the group
- There needs to be three or love interests (two is ménage)
- She absolutely cannot choose just one person at the end of the story.
But, as with most things, here comes a caveat.
When it comes to the harem members, over the last couple of years, it has become more and more common to see some of the guys either in established relationships with one (or more) of the other guys, and even a female in there too.
We get it – some of you like books with MM or FF in them, and some of you don’t. That’s why there are four tag options to help you with your searching (this is, of course, dependent on whether a book has been tagged correctly):
- MM within the harem
- MM outside of the harem
- FF in the harem
- FF outside of the harem
If you want it, include it, and if you don’t, have the search exclude it for you.*
Ultimately, what I can say with certainty, is that about five or six years ago reverse harem was considered a “trope”. A theme within the romance genre, that so many people said would die off into obscurity.
Nearly 15,000 books later, I think we can all agree that reverse harem has firmly rooted itself as a sub-genre of romance!
*Please note, regardless of your opinion on this content, we will not be moving any of these tags to be listed under kink or trigger – these are people’s sexual preferences.
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