Mechsploitation

Mechsploitation is a microgrenre of queer sci-fi horror and erotica. The genre is a subset of fiction that typically focuses on interpersonal stories with mechs serving as an element of the story instead of the primary focus as would be seen in classic mecha stories.

History

Pilot Posting

Pilot posting was short stories that would be written across one or more posts on microblogging platforms such as twitter. Pilot stories also appeared on tumblr and other blog platforms. Pilot stories evolved out of witch and combat doll stories on the same platforms.

Armored Core 6

The Armored Core 6 trailer released on April 2023 and was met by the pilot and mech communities above with a belief of sexual subtext to the game.

WARHOUND

WARHOUND released in 2023 around the time of the Armored Core trailer. WARHOUND served to lay the groundwork for what is now typical of the genre. The most notable genre convention created by WARHOUND is the Handler/hound dynamic.

Post-WARHOUND

WARHOUND created the conventions and served to create the genre of mechsploitation as it currently exists. There are still many writers and works that are classified as mechsploitation that dispense with one or more of the conventions.

Characteristics

Mechsploitation tends to reflect themes of abuse or trauma, often in the context of a form of Dominant/submissive relationship. Genre conventions include transfemme character(s), the use of Handler/hound to describe characters, the existence of mechs (typically named). The majority of the authors as of 2025 are transfemme individuals with many of the stories reflecting horror elements that specifically target a transfemme audience. Some analyses of the genre has identified one of the elements often used as transfemme-specific horror is feminization but at the cost of having to exist in an extremely masculine social role through force or coercion.

Stub-one analysis done by Kalliedora Rho to locate, one analysis of WARHOUND as queer erotica to locate.