Sick, old, and very young prey has basis in nature

[Miridium]

In nature, predators will target the sick, the old, and the very young when they can for the simple reasons that they are the most vulnerable to injury, least able to get away, and least able to fight back. Healthy mature adults are not optimal for the opposite reasons. Therefore it's curious to me that most vore scenarios involve healthy mature adults. If vore is a kind of domination, why not impose it on the most vulnerable? Surely such an imbalance of power is appealing to some.

Tell me what you think. Would scenarios involving what nature considers to be ideal prey be better suited as prey in vore?

[Achille]

People making content here are primarily doing so to fulfill their sexual fetish, so they mostly use characters that have sexual appeal in either the predator or prey roles. Most creators clearly value attractive prey according to their particular preferences, whether vulnerability is a factor in this is up to the individual.

Why are old and/or sick prey not the norm? Because for most people ""sick" is an attribute with at best neutral, and likely negative, sexual appeal. Most people feel disgusted by "oldness" in a sexual context (lest it need to be said, there are exceptions)

As for "very young", this is clearly a whole can of worms unto itself. Put simply, I expect most people have robust reasons to avoid making content focusing on very young characters in a fetish context. This should need no more explanation.

So to wrap up, why do most vore scenarios involve healthy mature adults? Because most consumers and creators of those scenarios are sexually interested in healthy mature adults. Content involving freaky creatures and such slightly complicate this view, but not enough to disturb the basic takeaway.

[IddlerItaler]

I mostly agree with Achilles' answers. Besides that, people can get plenty of kicks from domination and power imbalance by "just" seeing their favourite predator devour a full-size human or more. Making the prey(s) weaker serves mostly to make the pred seem more monstrous or vicious rather than domineering.

Seeing a character who can easily dispatch healthy adult people at once screams "Wow, you don't wanna mess with them" whereas watching them prey on the very weakest makes watchers go "Wow, what scum", "What a monster".

[BlackWidow552]

I know I'm going to get viciously attacked for saying this, but I prefer underage prey, but not for the reasons most will immediately jump to.

I grew up on kids stories where children were eaten by monsters, witches and snakes. Yes even our teachers used read us a story about a group of children that were visiting somewhere and a large snake swallowed each child one by one as they went walking through the jungle, there is even a picture on the front cover showing the snake with a couple of child shaped bulges and its mouth already swallowing another in a long line of children. Then there isthe little tune we used to sing in class "I'm being swallowed by a crocodile" each verse has you being swallowed up to each part, legs, hips, stomach, chest and finally head.

So I was conditioned to enjoy seeing children eat since I was five years old, but not for sexual reasons I didn't even know what sex was at that age.

For me it is all about the taste. Adults to me are contaminated. I despise smoking, absolutely hate it and I won't have any pred in my stories eat a prey that smokes, it is just disgusting to me. My parents used to smoke and I had to leave the house in order to be able to breathe and the smell, yeuck I really can't stand the smell even from a 200 yards away.

So, to me smoking contaminates the taste, along with the assorted party drugs and even sexual activity. Underage are rarely contaminated by such things so my perception of their taste is that of being pure and tender as well as being easier to actually swallow. Plus I go by the law of nature that as the OP stated the young are usually among the first to be targeted by predators. I don't use aged or injured for the same reasons I stated above.

Now I'm just as happy to see a non smoking adult female get eaten, and they don't even have to be a virgin. I really like seeing attractive adult women getting eaten but not if they are smokers. It is the smoking and drugs that are a real turn off for me and the main reason why I prefer underage prey and nothing to do with sexual attraction. I get it, most assume that by using underage prey it is motivated by sex, but not for me, it is simply the purity of the meat and the taste that are my main motivation, plus all those stories of boogeymen in closets and under the bed that would snatch up children to eat.

I once saw a picture of the tallest man to have ever lived standing with a little girl, and I thought to myself, if only the man wasn't so thin, if he had just been a little wider, he could have quite literally swallowed that little girl whole. That simple fact that it may have actually been possible for a human to swallow a child, made it more real.

[nicktaken]

Yes, you are correct, rationally speaking. But appeal to realism is not an argument in fiction. Most vore is completely unrealistic from start to finish, physically and socially.
In nature there are few animals who swallow their prey whole, and they are all on the lower end of the evolution spectrum. Snakes literally have no limbs to help themselves, for example, but they do have venom. It is much easier to first kill (or nearly so) your prey, as it requires less effort and carries less risk. Internal injuries are very dangerous; remember how you're not supposed to give dogs chicken bones because they could swallow a shard?
For the social aspect, vore is killing someone. People have always gone out of their way to hunt down animals that attacked people before. Murder is not exactly welcome either. The only way it could be socially accepted at all was if it was used for the death penalty. Even then it'd be rather brutal.
Of course, if you have a preference for a scenario brought as close to realism as possible, there's nothing wrong with that. But I don't see much point in deliberating the realism of a fictional scenario, especially when it's about a fetish.

People making content here are primarily doing so to fulfill their sexual fetish, so they mostly use characters that have sexual appeal in either the predator or prey roles.

Yep.

I know I'm going to get viciously attacked for saying this

Not by anyone whose opinion is worth the oxygen.

[DevourerOfLolis]

Well, first and foremost, vore is a sexual fetish. And even though most people are turned on by the pred, they generally prefer the prey to be at least decent looking too. Even if it doesn't match their sexuality. The majority of people find heathy young adults sexy Which excludes the sick, elderly and young from being prey.
That all being said though, as someone who is quite fond of loli prey (as my username would imply) I am all for using this fact as a in universe justification for young girls to get eaten.

[Miridium]

Interesting perspectives here. Yeah, I guess I neglected the sexual aspect. Regardless thanks for the responses.

[T145]

In nature, predators will target the sick, the old, and the very young when they can for the simple reasons that they are the most vulnerable to injury, least able to get away, and least able to fight back. Healthy mature adults are not optimal for the opposite reasons. Therefore it's curious to me that most vore scenarios involve healthy mature adults. If vore is a kind of domination, why not impose it on the most vulnerable? Surely such an imbalance of power is appealing to some.

Tell me what you think. Would scenarios involving what nature considers to be ideal prey be better suited as prey in vore?

I'd argue no, for some, since at least some elements of vore are rooted more in fantasy than they are in reality.

In most fantasies, people tend to either picture themselves, or an ideal, rather than trying to match it up to a real person, so putting the sick and old might doesn't tend to come up too much. You see it more for utilitarian/healing stomach type scenarios, but otherwise, why add the extra complication when a healthy person is easier to work with? No point making the fantasy more difficult for yourself (and it's hard to imagine yourself with an injury/illness that you've never experienced).

Since vore also has a little bit of a sexual element for some, or something close to it, the very young wouldn't really come up, because it gets into uncomfortable territory, or at least, it's not a detail that would come up unless there was a specific reason for it to come into play.

[EnderDracolich]

There's also the fact that (for some folks) the thrill of domination comes from overpowering and humiliating a formidable opponent. It's the sportsman's principle.

[alockwood1]

Personally, I avoid using the very young, especially in Fatal scenarios. Now, if it's non-fatal, and being swallowed is treated akin to a wet hug-kiss thing, I can be okay with it, as long as nothing sexual is going on.

Now, the Sick and Injured, that I do make use of, especially if the Prey is already on Death's Door. In that case, I got no issues with a Willing Fatal scenario (alongside Heroic Sacrifices, but that's another topic). In fact, I have several stories about such cases. As it is, I do have some Reformation-based stuff where being Eaten is used as a means to Cure certain injuries/illnesses.

[JettCabino]

I prefer adult age pred and prey no exceptions, but I do understand the natural route of what is targeted in nature as it's own preference (a.e. dolphins eating sharks that can actually fit inside them). Sometimes it doesn't matter what the food is for some people because food is food, and isn't really considered a loss for a pred where the food comes from. At that basis I am neutral about it and just let people write the vore they like because I feel it is up to the law whether or not it's being broken. I am sexually attracted to adults, though, and elderly male preds are my jam. Get me an old fart that wants to eat me and I'm good as churned.

[Avereth]

The main one I can think of involves a civilization where there's a sort of social contract maintaining balance and peace between predator species and prey species where there's no more random predation, but every prey knows the date their life expires as food at an older age. These stories where people just get eaten all the time all over the place don't make any sense whatsoever because you can't have a modern day civilization in a world like that.

Then of course there's literal 'ideal prey'. For example, one of my predator characters is a thylacine. He considers things like kangaroos and wallabies to be nearly irresistible to prey upon because nature built his body and instincts specifically to pursue, overpower, and devour them and get just the right nutrients from their bodies as they digest.

I don't tend to see taking advantage of young prey as being a smart idea if a predator wants to keep their meals sustainable though. If you're literally starving, then sure, sorry little guy. But otherwise, you're just cutting off your food at the source. That young prey can convert time and energy and other food into more of themself, and eventually more of their kind, so any predator with any self control and long term outlook isn't going to set themselves up for starvation and conflict with other predators in the future.

[alockwood1]

The main one I can think of involves a civilization where there's a sort of social contract maintaining balance and peace between predator species and prey species where there's no more random predation, but every prey knows the date their life expires as food at an older age. These stories where people just get eaten all the time all over the place don't make any sense whatsoever because you can't have a modern day civilization in a world like that.

Then of course there's literal 'ideal prey'. For example, one of my predator characters is a thylacine. He considers things like kangaroos and wallabies to be nearly irresistible to prey upon because nature built his body and instincts specifically to pursue, overpower, and devour them and get just the right nutrients from their bodies as they digest.

I don't tend to see taking advantage of young prey as being a smart idea if a predator wants to keep their meals sustainable though. If you're literally starving, then sure, sorry little guy. But otherwise, you're just cutting off your food at the source. That young prey can convert time and energy and other food into more of themself, and eventually more of their kind, so any predator with any self control and long term outlook isn't going to set themselves up for starvation and conflict with other predators in the future.

I actually did some math once, involving 1,000 human-like Prey per Predator - one prey a day causes the initial population to last under three years, 1 a week just around 20 years, and one a month causes them to last 80 years. Mind you, that doesn't take into account sickness/injury, or if the Predator wanted Pork or Mutton or Beef, or Venison instead. In any case, I like treating Sentient Meat as a Special Treat that could be eaten once in a while.

[Avereth]

I actually did some math once, involving 1,000 human-like Prey per Predator - one prey a day causes the initial population to last under three years, 1 a week just around 20 years, and one a month causes them to last 80 years. Mind you, that doesn't take into account sickness/injury, or if the Predator wanted Pork or Mutton or Beef, or Venison instead. In any case, I like treating Sentient Meat as a Special Treat that could be eaten once in a while.

Yeah the numbers are actually pretty heavily one sided for a predator to regularly feed, though the replenish rate would need to be considered too in terms of average time to produce young and how many of them on average. I generally assumed a predator would be eating someone sizable every ten days to two weeks or so. One every week just seemed like too many calories, but it's harder to plan for digestive efficiency and how well the predator can store excess calories as fat and then burn them off once their belly is empty.

[alockwood1]

I actually did some math once, involving 1,000 human-like Prey per Predator - one prey a day causes the initial population to last under three years, 1 a week just around 20 years, and one a month causes them to last 80 years. Mind you, that doesn't take into account sickness/injury, or if the Predator wanted Pork or Mutton or Beef, or Venison instead. In any case, I like treating Sentient Meat as a Special Treat that could be eaten once in a while.

Yeah the numbers are actually pretty heavily one sided for a predator to regularly feed, though the replenish rate would need to be considered too in terms of average time to produce young and how many of them on average. I generally assumed a predator would be eating someone sizable every ten days to two weeks or so. One every week just seemed like too many calories, but it's harder to plan for digestive efficiency and how well the predator can store excess calories as fat and then burn them off once their belly is empty.

It gets interesting when folks actually do some thinking. Math is a hard mistress - to use my earlier experiment as a base - in the first case, there'd be no replenishment readily available. In the second, Replenishment might be available, though careful management is needed to prevent inbreeding. Then, in the final case, you're on like the 4th, maybe 5th, generation born.

[IddlerItaler]

The main one I can think of involves a civilization where there's a sort of social contract maintaining balance and peace between predator species and prey species where there's no more random predation, but every prey knows the date their life expires as food at an older age. These stories where people just get eaten all the time all over the place don't make any sense whatsoever because you can't have a modern day civilization in a world like that.

I know I'd much rather read stories with predation happening seemingly at random to ones that try to explain it in manners that feel unsatisfactory or (to me) a turn-off. "How does society keep standing when people are eating each other left and right?" is probably a nagging question at the back of every vore writer's mind at some point, but "There's a systemic speciesist scheduled predation" just raises more questions.

Though I could see some fun in a story featuring "predation quotas" where only so many people can be preyed upon before a limit is hit and either vore is banned or the specific predator is banned from predding any more for the remainder of the month. Still would require a big dose of disbelief, what with the whole "society being cool with vore" and it being even possible, but be fun.

[nicktaken]

"There's a systemic speciesist scheduled predation" just raises more questions.

Actually, when you put it like that, it seems more realistic than I had previously considered. See: war.

[T145]

Actually, when you put it like that, it seems more realistic than I had previously considered. See: war.

I doubt that it would be war. The injury risk would make it unsuitable, especially for something like modern warfare.

It's quite difficult to armour someone's insides without doing more damage than any potential injury, or having other undesirable aftereffects. Assuming that they're living, and not a mechanoid or cyborg of some form, anyway.

[alockwood1]

The main one I can think of involves a civilization where there's a sort of social contract maintaining balance and peace between predator species and prey species where there's no more random predation, but every prey knows the date their life expires as food at an older age. These stories where people just get eaten all the time all over the place don't make any sense whatsoever because you can't have a modern day civilization in a world like that.

I know I'd much rather read stories with predation happening seemingly at random to ones that try to explain it in manners that feel unsatisfactory or (to me) a turn-off. "How does society keep standing when people are eating each other left and right?" is probably a nagging question at the back of every vore writer's mind at some point, but "There's a systemic speciesist scheduled predation" just raises more questions.

Though I could see some fun in a story featuring "predation quotas" where only so many people can be preyed upon before a limit is hit and either vore is banned or the specific predator is banned from predding any more for the remainder of the month. Still would require a big dose of disbelief, what with the whole "society being cool with vore" and it being even possible, but be fun.

I actually have an interactive over on WdC that has a Quota thing, Reptilian Chronicles, of which this story is set in - https://aryion.com/g4/view/802614 - the lizardfolk are allowed to consume 12 Eligible Prey humans a year, though there's ways around that - Hospital Food (those with something like Stage 4 Brain Cancer or similar fatal conditions) don't count towards this total, same with Criminal Prey (if you're the one that committed murder and got slapped with a Death Sentence, best to say on Death Row and not try to escape).

Of course, to prevent over-consumption, and the like, for Eligible Prey and Hospital Food, a Predator must get the Prey's permission, and furthermore, the Predator ends up inheriting, among other things, the Prey's Debts. Heck, if the Prey owes too much money, the Predator's going to go, "Actually, I want pork/ beef/ mutton/ venison/ tuna instead." This is because Unreported Predation could get the Predator in Legal trouble akin to manslaughter, or even murder.

[IddlerItaler]

"There's a systemic speciesist scheduled predation" just raises more questions.

Actually, when you put it like that, it seems more realistic than I had previously considered. See: war.

...Okay, now I'm imagining a 100 Years War scenario where opposing armies are ignoring each other so they can loot, exploit and devour the opposing faction's cities, Magdeburg-style.

I still want to say that's more "grimdark / grimderp" territory than realistic for it to happen all the time, though, especially if it's against unwilling members of your own society.