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Basic Trope: Women are used (often, though not always) against their will for the purpose of reproduction.

  • Straight: After Alice's marriage to Bob (which takes place as soon as she has her first period), she is kept constantly pregnant or nursing, until she reaches menopause or dies (whichever comes first), whether that's what she wants or not, because it's what Bob (and their culture) wants.
  • Exaggerated: Alice is kidnapped and knocked into a coma, and she is impregnated (whether through natural means or artificial insemination), and gives birth. This is done several times over, and when she wakes up, Alice may not be aware that she has ever been pregnant or given birth. Finally, when she reaches menopause (or fails to conceive within a year), Alice is ritually killed off.
  • Downplayed:
    • Alice reaches 18 and is allowed to let her lust loose for reproduction. She is discouraged from using birth control and abortion, but any baby she's not prepared to take care of herself will be sent to an orphanage to be properly raised.
    • Having and caring for many babies as possible is a possible and respectable full time occupation paid for by society. Some may go with it for lack of other options but it isn't a universal mandate. Post menopause they usually become midwives or babysitters before they retire.
  • Justified:
    • Alice is a member of a Breeding Cult.
    • It's After the End, or the aftermath of a Depopulation Bomb, Gendercide, or a Sterility Plague. Anyone who is still fertile is encouraged or required to reproduce, in order to build society again.
    • Alice lives in a No Woman's Land where the culture sees women as only good for making babies and taking care of the house, and assumes that they are incapable of controlling themselves, so men have to do that by giving them something that will keep them chained to the house and restrict mobility.
    • Alice has some internalized misogyny.
    • Alice is a Hive Queen or Mook Maker, perhaps in a society of Bee People.
    • In a society where marriage is primarily for producing heirs, Bob's wife Carol is unable to conceive...but she is required to. So, as per the law of the land, she gives her Lady-In-Waiting Alice to Bob to hopefully conceive on her behalf. The resulting child is legally Carol's.
    • Alice may be the queen, but her only purpose is to produce an heir for King Bob the Nth. She may not even be the queen, but a "lesser" queen (that is, a "lesser" wife or concubine in the Royal Harem.)
    • Alice is the Last of Her Kind, and is expected to have a lot of children to ensure her bloodline doesn't die out.
    • Alice is part of a nation or species that is taking part in a war against what they view as an enemy so dangerous that every able bodied male is drafted for the war effort and every able bodied female is drafted to make replacements for the males who die.
    • Alice has a fetish for being impregnated and being pregnant, but also feels iffy about abortions and wouldn't be able to take care of the children herself. She realizes that since she wants to keep getting knocked up and there are many couples who want kids but cannot conceive, she may as well become a "professional" surrogate mother.
  • Inverted: Children Are a Waste
  • Gender Inverted: Bob is kept prisoner in a Lady Land, and either milked of sperm periodically or used as a Sex Slave by the women until he dies or can't reproduce anymore. He is seen and treated as nothing more than a walking sperm bank.
  • Subverted: Alice divorces Bob
  • Double Subverted: Only to get back together with him and rejoin the Breeding Cult, or to marry someone else like that.
  • Parodied: An outsider discovers Alice's society and is appalled by how oppressive it is... towards men. Having to put up with the wild mood swings and Wacky Cravings of pregnant women every single day of your life, from every woman you know? A Fate Worse than Death as far as this individual is concerned.
  • Zig Zagged: Some women in Alice's society are used for breeding, some are used for non-reproductive sex, and some actually get to do what they want to do.
  • Averted: Alice has no children, and no one makes any comments about that.
  • Enforced: The story is set in a No Woman's Land.
  • Lampshaded: "The only things a woman must do are look pretty and bear sons."
  • Invoked: A war decimates the population of Tropestan, and the survivors form a Breeding Cult.
  • Exploited: Bob keeps Alice constantly pregnant, so that he can better exert control over her.
  • Defied:
  • Discussed: ???
  • Conversed: ???
  • Implied: Every captured enemy soldier when asked about their family size either says they don't know or gives a very high number. They could be just screwing with their captors though.

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