How weird do people like their sexy aliens?

[PennyThompson]

Ok, so... Earlier this week some dumb spambot made a "Meet Local Ladies Tonight in Your Area" post in one of the other Lit forums. I joked about writing a story where someone actually responds to one of these spam messages, and it turns out to be from a horny alien who really speaks like that, weird grammar and vocabulary and Capitalizes Every Word For Some Reason.

And I thought that was pretty funny, so I spit out a few paragraphs:

These spam messages were getting out of control, who writes like that? And who would actually fall for one of these things, and think it would actually get them laid? Frank was home alone, bored on a Sunday night, dreading the start of the work week but helplessly watching his weekend slip through his fingers.

He shrugged and started typing. "Hello, yes, I would like to have fun with Womans from my city for night without strings attached!" Frank hit Send with a smirk.

Suddenly, his room flooded with an unnatural light, a green glow with the gritty texture of a laser beam. His brain was pierced with the overwhelming sensation of a thousand ice cream headaches at once, and everything went black.

He came to on the floor in a brightly lit room, like a modernist hotel lobby if it were designed by AI. The walls were curved and smooth, a glossy off-white, seeming to glow with a diffuse internal light. The floor was soft and spongy, feeling vaguely like a gym mat, but without the gross stickiness.

There were objects that appeared to be desks and chairs and sofas spread throughout the room, but the shapes were all wrong, like whoever designed and built them had a weird configuration of leg.

With a soft hiss, a strangely proportioned door slid open in the wall. Frank watched in alarm as a figure came through the door, and his fuzzy brain tried to make sense of what he was seeing. Too many legs. Too many feet. Not enough arms. Not enough... heads.

"He Is Woken," A startlingly sexy, feminine voice said from the creature. "Finds Womans for Night, No Strings Attached! Research Shows Mans Does Not Like Strings."

And I still thought that was pretty funny, and a few other people gave some positive reactions to it, and now I kinda want to actually write it. I would probably start with a 750-Word Challenge story, just to get it out of my head. If I enjoyed it, I might write more. But here's my question for Story Ideas...

I love space opera sci-fi. Star Wars, Star Trek, Mass Effect, Larry Niven's Ringworld books, Becky Chambers' Wayfarers books... I love reading about aliens that are extremely different from humans, different body shapes, different environments, different evolutionary paths...

So if I wrote this story, I don't want to just have a sexy human-looking lady with green skin. I think I want to get weird with it. But how weird can an alien be, and still be potentially sexy?

Some brief research into the Scifi and Non-Human genres turn up a lot of "Basically Human with minor differences," lots of "Basically furries, but in space," lots of "Tentacle Monsters Who Do What Tentacle Monsters Do," and... not a whole lot else! And that's cool and all, but I don't really want to write about any of those tropes.

I want to imagine something that evolved into sentient life that is not even remotely human, but that could still have its own standards of beauty and sexiness, ones that could still be recognizable and empathizable to humans, while still being distinctly alien. But I'm worried if I get too weird with it, nobody will want to read it

What do y'all think?

EDIT: For what it's worth, my 750-word story just published, Sexy Women In Your Area

I'd love to hear how it lands for people, or if there's interest in more!

 

[Brandnewbuddy]

I’m a poor barometer because while I like my sexy anthros or blue/green screened aliens I also like WEIRD stuff.

Like I remember I once pitched a POV script about an escort who catered to aliens so one time she goes to a big alien who wants to watch her masturbate with its spermatophore, another alien that actually crawled inside of her and harmlessly swum in her flesh and connected itself to her nerves and even took control of her body.

And even in my RPs I do things like living shadows.

So I like weird.

If you want to write weird but are worried about an audience, the big thing to remember is that first and foremost, you’re relating to your audience through a viewpoint character and how they respond to that alien. So make it as weird as you want just sell the relatable feelings your human character is experiencing when interacting with the alien

 

[zysmith]

Have you thought of the alien as a sentient computer (hence the spam on the internet) that uses interfaces with mfg robots to produce what it need to "interface" with other species?

 

[PennyThompson]

Have you thought of the alien as a sentient computer (hence the spam on the internet) that uses interfaces with mfg robots to produce what it need to "interface" with other species?

I think that's a great story idea that answers the question "Where do these spam messages come from," but not the direction I'm thinking of going

 

[PennyThompson]

If you want to write weird but are worried about an audience, the big thing to remember is that first and foremost, you’re relating to your audience through a viewpoint character and how they respond to that alien. So make it as weird as you want just sell the relatable feelings your human character is experiencing when interacting with the alien

That is such a great point, thank you! It's making me think that it would be best to go with a very vanilla, mundane POV character, rather than someone who is already a xenophile, so that the reader can explore and make sense of the alien along with the MC.

Don't take this the wrong way, but I don't think you would be my immediate target audience, so I can't have the MC immediately going "Hell yeah, spermatophores and symbiotes!"

 

[Nightscream89]

Well, I think for Male Aliens you can do pretty much anything you like since femalexmonster stories aren't that rare.

For female Aliens that is a bit more out of the box, especially since you want to avoid the typical woman with green skin sort of thing.

I would just think of a standard woman and then think of what you want to change.
Like she appears to have long hair, but actually it's just that the hair is also growing out of her neck and back.
Her eyes are ridiculously large that it seems like the hardly fit in her head, on the side of her head are another set of openings to her eyeballs so she has a 270 degree vision. The normal white in her eyes replaced by a deep blue that seems like you can drown in it.
In stead of a normal nose and mouth, she has a rabbit like snout, but that snout can dislodge like a snakes mouth, so she can swallow her food whole. Inside 2 long and thin tongues that look like snake tongues.
Her ears are large with allmost a weblike structure.

Like you change alot but you give yourself things to play around with, things you can use in a sexual story that wouldn't be possible with a human female. But I do think by using a human woman as a baseline it keeps it engaging. Also I would focus on making attractive features bigger and more extravagant. Doesn't have to be the standard boobs and butt. But like long legs can be sexy, so give her 4 extremely long and sexy legs. A stomach can be very sexy, so maybe you can do something with that to make it alluring.
I would say think about how you are going to describe her, can you describe it in a sexy way? Then go for it.

 

[PennyThompson]

Well, I think for Male Aliens you can do pretty much anything you like since femalexmonster stories aren't that rare.

For female Aliens that is a bit more out of the box, especially since you want to avoid the typical woman with green skin sort of thing.

I would just think of a standard woman and then think of what you want to change.
Like she appears to have long hair, but actually it's just that the hair is also growing out of her neck and back.
Her eyes are ridiculously large that it seems like the hardly fit in her head, on the side of her head are another set of openings to her eyeballs so she has a 270 degree vision. The normal white in her eyes replaced by a deep blue that seems like you can drown in it.
In stead of a normal nose and mouth, she has a rabbit like snout, but that snout can dislodge like a snakes mouth, so she can swallow her food whole. Inside 2 long and thin tongues that look like snake tongues.
Her ears are large with allmost a weblike structure.

Like you change alot but you give yourself things to play around with, things you can use in a sexual story that wouldn't be possible with a human female. But I do think by using a human woman as a baseline it keeps it engaging. Also I would focus on making attractive features bigger and more extravagant. Doesn't have to be the standard boobs and butt. But like long legs can be sexy, so give her 4 extremely long and sexy legs. A stomach can be very sexy, so maybe you can do something with that to make it alluring.
I would say think about how you are going to describe her, can you describe it in a sexy way? Then go for it.

Ooh that is extremely helpful food for thought!

I like that idea of anchoring the alien form to some physical attributes that humans find attractive. Eyes, legs, torsos, voices, tongues...

Not necessarily human in overall form, but certain parts and elements that are similar enough to ring the same bells in our brains.

Like a reverse Uncanny Valley! Almost-but-not-quite human makes us feel uneasy about subtle differences. But start on the other end of the valley, and you might latch onto things which are somewhat familiar!

 

[SmokingFap]

Ok, so... Earlier this week some dumb spambot made a "Meet Local Ladies Tonight in Your Area" post in one of the other Lit forums. I joked about writing a story where someone actually responds to one of these spam messages, and it turns out to be from a horny alien who really speaks like that, weird grammar and vocabulary and Capitalizes Every Word For Some Reason.

And I thought that was pretty funny, so I spit out a few paragraphs:



And I still thought that was pretty funny, and a few other people gave some positive reactions to it, and now I kinda want to actually write it. I would probably start with a 750-Word Challenge story, just to get it out of my head. If I enjoyed it, I might write more. But here's my question for Story Ideas...

I love space opera sci-fi. Star Wars, Star Trek, Mass Effect, Larry Niven's Ringworld books, Becky Chambers' Wayfarers books... I love reading about aliens that are extremely different from humans, different body shapes, different environments, different evolutionary paths...

So if I wrote this story, I don't want to just have a sexy human-looking lady with green skin. I think I want to get weird with it. But how weird can an alien be, and still be potentially sexy?

Some brief research into the Scifi and Non-Human genres turn up a lot of "Basically Human with minor differences," lots of "Basically furries, but in space," lots of "Tentacle Monsters Who Do What Tentacle Monsters Do," and... not a whole lot else! And that's cool and all, but I don't really want to write about any of those tropes.

I want to imagine something that evolved into sentient life that is not even remotely human, but that could still have its own standards of beauty and sexiness, ones that could still be recognizable and empathizable to humans, while still being distinctly alien. But I'm worried if I get too weird with it, nobody will want to read it

What do y'all think?

I personally would recommend going as bizarre as you can imagine while leaving quite a bit undetailed to leave up to the readers imagination, in a Lovecraftian way. I know anything Lovecraft is cliché and passé these days, but I'm not referring to repurposing Cthulhu. I just mean his way of describing creatures that can be envisioned and interpreted in many different ways, but with the same basic gist. I also don't think the alien's form would have to be alluring or even... stomachable? I think the alien could make itself attractive to humans through mind control or pheromones or something completely different. To the point where the human "victim" is repulsed by the alien's appearance, but is incapable of resisting it.

Just my one cent.

And I thought your sarcastic short story about the Womens in Your Town for Night ad was hilarious and well done.

 

[PennyThompson]

I personally would recommend going as bizarre as you can imagine while leaving quite a bit undetailed to leave up to the readers imagination, in a Lovecraftian way. I know anything Lovecraft is cliché and passé these days, but I'm not referring to repurposing Cthulhu. I just mean his way of describing creatures that can be envisioned and interpreted in many different ways, but with the same basic gist. I also don't think the alien's form would have to be alluring or even... stomachable? I think the alien could make itself attractive to humans through mind control or pheromones or something completely different. To the point where the human "victim" is repulsed by the alien's appearance, but is incapable of resisting it.

Just my one cent.

And I thought your sarcastic short story about the Womens in Your Town for Night ad was hilarious and well done.

Hmm, that's a very interesting direction to take too!

I'm not sure how good I would be at that style, though...

I tend to think very visually when I write, I need to be able to see the characters, the spaces they inhabit, the clothes they wear, the ways they interact with each other, or I struggle to write anything down

Some of the best compliments I've gotten on my stories have been a long the lines of, "this genre isn't usually my preference, but I kind of get it now," I think I'd like to try and do the same for aliens

 

[SmokingFap]

Hmm, that's a very interesting direction to take too!

I'm not sure how good I would be at that style, though...

I tend to think very visually when I write, I need to be able to see the characters, the spaces they inhabit, the clothes they wear, the ways they interact with each other, or I struggle to write anything down

Some of the best compliments I've gotten on my stories have been a long the lines of, "this genre isn't usually my preference, but I kind of get it now," I think I'd like to try and do the same for aliens

I'm not one of the serious writers on here. But what I tell everyone asking for advice on how to write a story is, write it exactly the way you'd want to read it. If you think the alien looks and acts a certain way, and the story goes a certain way in your mind, just write it that way. If you just write it in a way that you think will gain the largest audience, it won't have your soul in it, just your words.

Another cent for you. And I do hope you write it, one way or the other.

 

[ElliottEden]

There's a story I've got the beginning to, and a lot of the background figured out but... in any event the initial alien the reader is introduced to is a manufactured construct. No arms (not sentient so why bother, and besides adds a sense of weirdness) but still beautiful. Dumber than a screwdriver, all they're good for is sex. Which due to the pheromones they exude humans can't resist.
Which makes them great bio-probes, and a lot more fun than Small Gray's...

 

[StillStunned]

I got a comment from a fellow author on one of my sci-fi stories that the six-breasted cat-woman was too much for them.

 

[Rob_Royale]

It's an interesting question. My only sci-fi story features aliens that are rather amorphous and wisplike, with tentacles of course. It's hard to imagine an alien being sexually attractive, to a human, because what we consider attractive is rather fixed. Unless your making them into Rick & Morty sexpots, who understand human sexuality.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I have an alien that is essentially sexual water, a creature entirely fluid on a strange planet, who encounters a human astronaut. She (the creature eventually becomes more tangible, and I know a simple pronoun will be easier - the story is far from finished) was inspired by a hot oil nuru massage. The inspiration wasn't the masseuse, but the hot oil itself.

 

[NuclearFairy]

I think the alien in that example would appeal very well to foot fetishes everywhere.

Hmm, I'm not sure I'm entirely the right person to be asking, since if it were possible to be a heterosexual pansexual I'd be that. If its personality is masculine enough I'd find it attractive.

But this question does remind me of a short story I read as a kid. It was about a kid and his math teacher who got abducted by aliens so that they could see if they were scary enough to get earth to surrender without a fight. They figured that humans are the most frightened by the unknown so they picked a form that was completely unfamiliar to any human on earth. The kid was genuinely freaking out but his teacher had a big grin on his face and asked the boy what they reminded him of. After a moments thought the kid answered, "Waffles." Then the teacher asked, "And what do we do with waffles?" To which the kid with a big grin answered, "We eat them for breakfast." Que dramatic no's and the aliens dropping them off unharmed because this was a story written for preteens. And yes I would find the waffle men attractive.

Anyways my point is anything can be scary or sexy, just depends on context. Something totally alien that hasn't been done to death though is a bit hard. I love math though so I'd go there. Three is a very popular number, you can find the rule of three throughout myth and history, three legged stools are the most stable, and a triangle is the hardest to break. So square the three and get nine.

Okay so nine's my theme but I still need to know what it looks like, if it's a space faring species then it needs some way to manipulate tools, we could go with telekinesis, limbs, or shape shifting. Shape shifting makes it too easy for them to take on a human appearance, so let's scratch that. I think if I'm making the alien female I'd go with telekinesis tool using, if male limb tool using.

So a female alien, she has telekinesis, she might not even have gender as we understand it, but she's gotta have some sort of receptacle for the sperm. Oh I know, this species evolved in the water and used their telekinesis to take their bodies to the safer landmasses back in their evolutionary history. They're shaped like one of those curvy twisty Christmas ornaments with a tear drop shape at the bottom and nine different orifices that serve different purposes.

Now what I have in mind for the males is something like the tentacle monster, just a wee bit more contained. I really like the visual of the long twisty Christmas ornament and the evolved from something that obviously used to live in the ocean, but instead of using telekinesis to get around and manipulate things they have three pseudopods that emerge from their lower most area to give them a very stable movement base, and three more that can emerge from their middle most section for manipulating objects, and the last three have all of their sensory organs and come out of the top most area of the alien. And of course any and all of these pseudopods could be used as a penis.

 

[TruthSeeker12345]

Ok, so... Earlier this week some dumb spambot made a "Meet Local Ladies Tonight in Your Area" post in one of the other Lit forums. I joked about writing a story where someone actually responds to one of these spam messages, and it turns out to be from a horny alien who really speaks like that, weird grammar and vocabulary and Capitalizes Every Word For Some Reason.

And I thought that was pretty funny, so I spit out a few paragraphs:



And I still thought that was pretty funny, and a few other people gave some positive reactions to it, and now I kinda want to actually write it. I would probably start with a 750-Word Challenge story, just to get it out of my head. If I enjoyed it, I might write more. But here's my question for Story Ideas...

I love space opera sci-fi. Star Wars, Star Trek, Mass Effect, Larry Niven's Ringworld books, Becky Chambers' Wayfarers books... I love reading about aliens that are extremely different from humans, different body shapes, different environments, different evolutionary paths...

So if I wrote this story, I don't want to just have a sexy human-looking lady with green skin. I think I want to get weird with it. But how weird can an alien be, and still be potentially sexy?

Some brief research into the Scifi and Non-Human genres turn up a lot of "Basically Human with minor differences," lots of "Basically furries, but in space," lots of "Tentacle Monsters Who Do What Tentacle Monsters Do," and... not a whole lot else! And that's cool and all, but I don't really want to write about any of those tropes.

I want to imagine something that evolved into sentient life that is not even remotely human, but that could still have its own standards of beauty and sexiness, ones that could still be recognizable and empathizable to humans, while still being distinctly alien. But I'm worried if I get too weird with it, nobody will want to read it

What do y'all think?

A big favorite sci-fi writer of mine is Robert Heinlein. His book "Friday" has a main character who is an AP (Artificial Person). She has many added skills, but from the original cover art from Michael Whelan, she definitely has a human, but rather exaggerated, attractiveness. She does not have the "alien" qualities that you mentioned (think green Orion slave girl from "The Cage" in Star Trek), but her exploits might be a good example for your story. The Books Reading Order website describes her as:

"Friday is a secret courier and ardent lover. Employed by a man she only knows of as “Boss”, she is given the most awkward and dangerous cases, which take her from New Zealand to Canada, and through the new States of America’s disunion, all the way out into the stars and the new colony of Botany Bay.
Thrust into one calamity after another, she uses her enhanced wits and very many skills to evade, seduce or even kill her way out of any sticky situation she finds herself in. For she is both superior and inferior to the average human. As an AP - artificial person - the best humanity has to offer has been written into Friday’s DNA. Yet she is often treated like a second-class citizen—if she were ever able to claim citizenship. Her mother was the test tube and her father the knife, as the saying goes, so she has fewer rights than the biologically-born human, and no soul, according to the church."

 

[TruthSeeker12345]

Actually, one of my favorite slightly "non-human" aliens is the alien Lyra-a with two belly buttons (they are both "innys") from Gene Roddenberry's Genesis II. The DVD of this was released in 2009. According to IMDb, "The science fiction justification for Lyra-a (Mariette Hartley) and other Tyranians having two navels is that they have redundant circulatory systems."

 

[PennyThompson]

Actually, one of my favorite slightly "non-human" aliens is the alien Lyra-a with two belly buttons (they are both "innys") from Gene Roddenberry's Genesis II. The DVD of this was released in 2009. According to IMDb, "The science fiction justification for Lyra-a (Mariette Hartley) and other Tyranians having two navels is that they have redundant circulatory systems."

I'm definitely thinking about an alien that is a lot more different than having an extra bellybutton

 

[TruthSeeker12345]

I guess a female alien with 3 breasts, curvy hips and legs, and exotic hair might qualify. You could also add a belly button for good measure . . .

 

[TheWritingGroup]

I want to imagine something that evolved into sentient life that is not even remotely human, but that could still have its own standards of beauty and sexiness, ones that could still be recognizable and empathizable to humans, while still being distinctly alien. But I'm worried if I get too weird with it, nobody will want to read it

What do y'all think?

This is Literotica, which has many popular stories about slime girls and plant/human sex. So ... quite alien.

As a biology nerd: consider how beautiful we find many flowers. They're literally sex organs, surrounded by secondary sexual characteristics meant to attract pollinators to help the plant have sex.

-Annie

 

[PennyThompson]

consider how beautiful we find many flowers. They're literally sex organs, surrounded by secondary sexual characteristics meant to attract pollinators to help the plant have sex.

Ohh I love that! Maybe alien secondary sex characteristics could be significantly different from human ones, but still clearly evolved to attract and arouse, in ways that we would still consider beautiful...

 

[LisaMayTurner]

I've always fancied aliens who have a sense of humour and who don't look like a bus crash victim. And no tentacles. And no cocks (or cock like objects) that are longer than 7 inches or fatter then my wrist.

 

[TruthSeeker12345]

I've always fancied aliens who have a sense of humour and who don't look like a bus crash victim. And no tentacles. And no cocks (or cock like objects) that are longer than 7 inches or fatter then my wrist.

The female alien could have a vagina with lips like a Venus flytrap that would open and close around the male alien's penis. Her clitoris would be on the outside of the Venus flytrap lips, and the male would move up and down until he ejaculated. The male would also have a protrusion that would rub on the clitoris on the outside of the Venus when he moved up and down. The female flytrap lips would look like the bright lips on the FTS Flaming Lips Venus flytrap, which would add to her beauty. The lips would also get brighter when she was aroused, and they would be the brightest when she orgasmed.

 

[LisaMayTurner]

The female alien could have a vagina with lips like a Venus flytrap that would open and close around the male alien's penis. Her clitoris would be on the outside of the Venus flytrap lips, and the male would move up and down until he ejaculated. The male would also have a protrusion that would rub on the clitoris on the outside of the Venus when he moved up and down. The female flytrap lips would look like the bright lips on the FTS Flaming Lips Venus flytrap, which would add to her beauty. The lips would also be the brightest when she was aroused.

I'd not be interested in a threesome with them! Not even if the nutella was free from a hole in the wall machine!

 

[TruthSeeker12345]

I'd not be interested in a threesome with them! Not even if the nutella was free from a hole in the wall machine!

Since the alien female being penetrated by the alien male could be in the missionary position, the other female in the FFM threesome could still straddle the head of the alien female being penetrated; and the alien female being penetrated could lick the external clitoris of the other female. This could happen even if the other female was a regular female from Earth. The Venus flytrap vagina also eliminates any pain from penetration!