And by gay, I mean lesbian. In almost every reverse harem you spot, among the countless suitors the M.C. has, a sole girl staring intensely at the M.C. from the sidelines. Huffing in her scent like huffing gold paint, picking up used tissues that she carelessly threw away, smiling from ear to ear at her every "Good morning." Yes, she is the designated lesbian harem member. Stuck to the M.C. like glue from day to night, always observing her. She may come in many forms, the popular girl who happens to really like her best friend, the quiet nerd who the M.C. saved from bullies, the cold senior sister who took a particular liking to her cute junior, and it's basically in the yuri category by now. You'd expect a reverse harem authors to really like men for them to write reverse harem and yet, in more than half of the novels, there ends up a lesbian love interest. And they aren't subtle, no. Their love ends up being even more blazing than the male interest's. Their gayness just slaps you in the face (not that I mind it). I wonder why that is so. Is that a gag thing? Is it just a popular parody trope? Are girls just that gay? Why am I not seeing them in my real life then?
I suppose for the same reasons there's sometimes a guy that looks like a girl in harems. It's either the author's/desired audiences fetish or they're using it as an easy way to inject comedy into situations.
I really don't know. Homosexual love is so prevalent in novels these days I don't know where to look.
The thing is, the these characters are so girly and gay that it makes me wanna think that all reverse harem authors are collectively having their sexual awakening. They're definitely reaching their intended demographic then.
for the same reason there is always an obligatory male friend/bromance thing going on in harem stories, though admittedly the obligatory male friend doesn't seem to be as obsessive as the obligatory female friend in reverse harems.
That's the common problem with novels that are built around catering to a fetish— they never stop at just that one fetish. And that also incidentally happens to be the reason I generally avoid the whole lot of them.
Oh I was sharing what I noticed in harem novels, not reverse harem. They both deal with one person with a lot of love interests so I figured you could use my opinion as reference.
Shoujo has a history of including LGBT+ characters and themes. The very influential "Sailor Moon" not only has an openly lesbian couple, but heavily implies that many of its main cast members are attracted to women as well as men. Usagi even ends up torn between her then ex-boyfriend and a woman later on. Tokyo Mew Mew has the emotionally charged Mint x Zakuro on the main team. Cardcaptor Sakura has Sakura's best friend in an unrequited love with her, and her older brother in a relationship with another man. Fruits Basket has both a bisexual man and a man who enjoys wearing women's kimonos. Going further back, you also have "The Rose of Versailles", which is supposed to have been responsible for helping shoujo transform from something for young children to adolescents, and features a gender non-conforming MC with a lot of non-straight romance options (the first of which is a woman). It's also worth remembering that yuri was invented by women for women. Why is queerness such an inherent part of shoujo? Hard to say - likely to be a combination of reasons. I do wonder if the Japanese idea that relationships between schoolgirls are normal as "practice" for a hetereosexual relationship opens a gateway to exploration beyond that. But, overall, the beloved lesbian who pines over the MC isn't new by any means. The recent trend to give her an actual shot as a member of the reverse harem seems to be a natural development to keep things new and refreshing.
Harem stories explores different types of attraction, it's like a coming of age only for sexuality. That's why the harem members are so different from each other and there are many of them (usually!), bc the author/reader is trying to find out what flavor is the best. By exploring the author/reader sexuality, it makes sense that there is often that one character of the same gender who might be part of the harem or always close by, sometimes in a very intimate bromance situation. Why the same gender harem member is most of the times a perv? My own personal opinion is that it makes it easier to accept them there. Kind of "I'm not the gay one in this relationship, this person is" mentality. It's like the author/reader has the desire but not the courage to be completely open about it. Also, women like to be considered beautiful and sexy by other women.