Attractive Bent Species

When a character shapeshifts into an animal, voluntarily or otherwise, there is a high likelihood that an actual animal will try to hit on them.

The character may regard their newfound animal admirers as anything from a Dogged Nice Creature to an Abhorrent Admirer, depending on their perceptions of the species in question; unlike Black Comedy Rape, the animal intends no real offense with their advances—the character probably just Smells Sexy, whether they realize it or not.

While it can be (and often is) Played for Laughs, it can also be played for all the Fetish Fuel it is worth, thanks in no small part to Rule 34: If the character starts viewing the animal as attractive in return, they might end up hitting on the animal themselves. The consequences of whether or not they can adequately restrain their amorous animal impulses can provide clues to the author's position on the Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: it could, for example, trap the character in animal form forever.

Contrast Shapeshifting Lover, Interspecies Romance.

Examples of Attractive Bent Species include:

Anime And Manga

• In the Darker than Black bonus episode, Mao (a human trapped in a cat's body) is chased by a female in heat. It's played for laughs a la Abhorrent Admirer, but that doesn't stop Fanfic writers from shipping it.
• Inverted in the Sailor Moon S movie, where talking cat Luna falls in love with a human man. At the end of the movie, Luna is transformed into a human herself, and she kisses him shortly before turning back into a cat.
• In Tokyo Mew Mew, when Ichigo accidentally turns into a cat, she gets hit on by a very fat Abhorrent Admirer cat whose lecherous meows are even translated for the reader/viewer. She gets rescued by another more Bishonen-looking cat, with whom she shares an Accidental Kiss.
  • Partially subverted, considering the cat is Ryou, who experimented the transformation ray on himself before turning the girls into Mew Mews.
• In Dragonball Z, Captain Ginyu accidentally does a body swap with a frog. One of the first thing that happens to him when left to his own devices is a female frog having the hots for him. She chases Ginyu for the rest of the series—interestingly enough, following Ginyu to different planets when needed.

Comic Books

• Timmain in Elf Quest changed into a wolf and deliberately courted a male wolf so she could have a hybrid wolf-elf cub IE, Timmorn, the first Wolfrider. It's implied that she did so in order to tie the elves in with the planet's "gaia" and ensure the elves' survival there.
• An issue of The Mighty Thor had Thor turned into a frog by Loki, and then discovered that the frogs of New York's central park are not only sentient, but have a secret kingdom of their own... and their "princess" was attracted to the transformed god!
• Comet the Super-Horse from Supergirl is a centaur turned horse. He's in love with Supergirl herself, and occasionally dated her while in human form.

Film

• In Disney's The Sword in the Stone, female squirrels show attraction to Arthur and Merlin while they are transformed. Which results in a Crowning Moment of Funny when Merlin reveals his true self, and a huge Tear Jerker when Arthur's admirer finds out he's really a human.
• In The Incredible Mr. Limpet, when the main live-action character turns into a cartoon fish, he ends up falling for another cartoon fish.
• In the Hungarian animated film Willy the Sparrow, there's a mild version: one of the female sparrows seems to be attracted to Willy.

Literature

• Interestingly used in the Discworld book The Fifth Elephant, as Angua the werewolf has Gavin, an actual wolf, as an ex-boyfriend. Since werewolves are a species on the Disc, rather than a curse, it's strongly implied that this shouldn't be considered any odder than having a "dwarf" as a current boyfriend.
• This is how Belgarath met Poledra in The Belgariad with both in wolf form- she was an actual wolf, who later learned to shapeshift into a human and other animals from him.
• In The Bartimaeus Trilogy, the titular djinni is hit-on at one point by a pigeon while in that form.
• An owl on Owl, in Owl in Love by Patrice Kindl.
• Deliberately used in the third of David Drake's Books of the Elements: a magician transforms Hedia into a female dog and has her distract a magical watchdog while he steals the magical book the watchdog was guarding. Hedia Really Gets Around, and when told what the magician wants, she laughs and says she's often been called a bitch in heat. Being one literally won't be that much of a change. She doesn't seem to have any regrets about the experience.

Mythology

• While it has some elements of Black Comedy Rape, to the extent he chose to do it, Loki is famous for changing into a mare to seduce a horse.
• The Childe Ballad The Two Magicians combines this trope with Shapeshifter Showdown as well as Victim Falls For Rapist. The male character basically makes sexual advances towards the female one in all of the forms they turn into, both animals and inanimate objects.

Tabletop Games

• Exalted, Exalted, Exalted. Especially Lunars, who are often chasing, not chased.

Video Games

• In Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, bats will get a crush on Alucard, complete with visible hearts, when he transforms into his bat form.

Webcomics

• There's an interesting 'turnabout' in Twokinds: a seer is using a stray cat as a medium for spying on the heroes (by 'borrowing' the cats eyes), and a friendly (female) dragon decides to lend the heroes a hand... by transforming herself into a cat and 'distracting' the cat long enough for them to get away by boat. The (young, male) seer is suitably flustered by the resulting sensory feedback.
• In Skin Horse, after Tip is bitten by a werewolf, he turns into a small wolf that Sweetheart and the other female talking dogs (and some of the males) find very attractive. Apparently his Pornomancy powers as a human transfer over.
• Marena from Keychain of Creation has a few instances of this in her past, being a lunar Exalted.
• In Housepets, a character involuntarily changed from a human to a Welsh Corgi is said, by another canine character, to have the potential to "be a real ladykiller". Later, said changed character is seen hitting on several female canine characters, albeit under the influence of orange soda.

Western Animation

• It doesn't involve a human, but Looney Tunes' Pepe le Pew's pursuit of a female cat who looks like a skunk following a run-in with some white paint has aspects of this.
  • At the end of one cartoon he had the tables turned on him when he got painted (making him look like a Russian Blue) while the female cat got soaked and lost her stripe—and her attractiveness to him.
  • And continued in Tiny Toon Adventures with Fifi Le Fume, who mistakes both Sylvester Expy Furball and Wile E. equivalent Calamity for skunks at some point and pursues them.
• A reverse example happens in an episode of Sheep in The Big City when Sheep wishes to be human only to end up attracting Lady Richington.

Real Life

• Fred Harrington, a Canadian psychologist, recounted an evening spent mimicking wolf howls in Minnesota. Whenever he howled, a lone wolf would howl back from nearby- a little closer each time. He had to call it a night before they came face-to-face, but the next day he found scent markings indicating that a lone adult female had been steadily zeroing in on him. This being February- close to breeding season for wolves- he concluded that he was being "checked out, or [possibly] even courted."