Japanese culture
What does Netorare mean?
The story where a partner is taken by someone else, and the camera stays with the one who loses. The tag is NTR.
Definition
Netorare is the scene where someone takes your person. The focus is on the one who loses: the jealousy, the discovery, the horns. In hentai, eroge and Japanese adult video, the tag NTR warns that the plot is going there.
The verb is netoru: to sleep with someone who already belongs to someone else. Netorare is the side of the person who suffers the theft. On the other side of the same family, netori is the one who takes. Netorase is when the couple agrees to it. In English the neighboring shelf is cuckold; the Japanese cut often stays with the discomfort of the one left behind.
Origin
寝取られ is the passive of 寝取る. Ne (寝) is to sleep, to go to bed; toru (取る) is to take. Daijisen reads the verb as taking another person's spouse or lover. The Nihon Kokugo Daijiten points to an example around 1693, in the jōruri Semimaru: 「夫をねとられ口惜しうは思はぬか」. NTR shortens the romaji of netorare, and sometimes of netori too.
History
The verb is old. The genre tag is new. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, forums, dōjin and eroge started marking NTR on the story where the lead loses a partner. Netori and netorase grew up to split the point of view: the one who takes, and the one who hands the partner over on purpose. The acronym leaked into English fandom and into Portuguese tags.
How it emerged
Cheating already had a name. A short noun was missing for the story told from the loser's side, and a three-letter label for the folder. Netorare and NTR took that cut.
Usage examples
The title said NTR, I already knew the turn.
That's netorare, not soap-opera infidelity.
Translations
- pt netorare / NTR
- en netorare / NTR
- es netorare / NTR
Synonyms
- NTR
- 寝取られ
- netori
- cuckold
Acronyms
- NTR