A/B/O

See also: Appendix:Variations of "abo"

English

Etymology

Initialism of alpha, beta, and omega.

Noun

A/B/O (uncountable)

1. (fandom slang) A subgenre of erotic speculative fiction (originating in fan fiction) in which humanity has a dominance hierarchy based on stereotypical wolf pack dynamics, consisting of alphas (dominants), omegas (submissives), and betas (neutrals).
   • 2013, Kristina Busse, "Pon Farr, Mpreg, Bonds, and the Rise of the Omegaverse", in Fic: Why Fanfiction Is Taking Over the World (ed. Anne Jamison), page 317:

     Many A/B/O stories posit societies where biological imperatives divide people based on wolf pack hierarchies into sexual dominants (alphas), sexual submissives (omegas), and everyone else (betas).

   • 2017, Marianne Gunderson, "What is an omega? Rewriting sex and gender in omegaverse fanfiction", thesis submitted to the University of Oslo, page 103:

     It also harnesses the a/b/o trope to increase the stakes of intimacy and trust in the context of sexual encounters, and to intensify descriptions of desire and sexual pleasure.

   • 2018, Milena Popova, "‘Dogfuck rapeworld’: Omegaverse fanfiction as a critical tool in analyzing the impact of social power structures on intimate relationships and sexual consent", Porn Studies:

     What is interesting is how A/B/O stories explore these sexual scripts, and how the characters in them negotiate the disjunctures between the dominant scripts and their desires in their own lives and interpersonal relationships, […]

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:A/B/O.

Synonyms

• omegaverse

Anagrams

• bao, AOB, boa, oba, BAO, Boa, a.o.b., Oba., OAB, Bao, OBA