Work Text:
So, firstly, I strongly prefer my Alpha females capable of both insemination and pregnancy (and same with Omega males). But to be able to inseminate a partner with internal fertilization (sperm meets egg inside the egg-producer), you need a way to deliver sperm into the vaginal (or anovaginal) cavity of your partner. Which means having a penis of some form.
A common option I see mentioned is having Alpha females born with a visible penis, much like males are. Which, firstly, bothers me that we can’t have the same kind of guesswork about presentation with an Alpha female, but on second thought raises the question—how do you know an Alpha girl baby is female?
Which presents an interesting possibility. What if Alpha females before puberty are indistinguishable from males of any presentation? Only during puberty, when she starts developing breasts and menstruating (maybe? Do Alpha females menstruate? That’s a whole other question!) does it become obvious that she’s a female. Maybe Alpha females might even be mistaken for Omega males, because they both have a smaller penis and more feminine frame, especially once puberty hits. It may be that menstruation, or the first rut, is the only sign that a developing Alpha female is not an Omega male.
Or, alternatively, we could have infant Alpha females look mostly the same as infant females of other presentations, and only have her penis show up at puberty. In which case, we have two options I can think of.
In real life, 5α reductase deficiency is an autosomal recessive intersexing condition. It has no effect on XX individuals, but XY individuals with the condition are born with female or ambiguous-looking external genitalia (although most have a male gender identity). However, even if they appear female, puberty brings more male-type changes, including hair growth, descending of the testes, deepening of the voice, and enlargement of the clitoris, to the point where it may be classified as a penis. A similar developmental process could result in Alpha females growing a penis in response to presentation.
Alternately, like many male animals, Alpha females may have a penile sheath, a protective pouch that the penis can be retracted into. In some animals, such as cats, the penis is virtually invisible when sheathed. In Alpha females, perhaps only the tip protrudes at rest, looking similar to a clitoris on casual observation. However, when aroused, the penis extends outward, allowing for penetration and insemination. Prior to puberty, the Alpha female penis may extend infrequently, similar to how real-life prepubertal boys occasionally get erections, or else it could be locked within the penile sheath, only extendable with force (which may even carry the potential for damage to the penis if done roughly--that could be an interesting, if dark, direction to go if you’d like to explore childhood sexual trauma in an Alpha female).
And while we’re modeling Alpha females’ genitals after tomcats, might I suggest penile spines as an interesting quirk, instead of a knot like Alpha males? In cats and many other species, these keratinized spines scrape the inside of the vaginal wall during mating, triggering ovulation, while also cleaning out semen from competing males. The stimulation of mating also helps heat pass quicker. Alpha females with penile spines may be particularly good at mate-poaching or being the one to sire a child in a promiscuous Omega. Maybe they engage in a sneaker mating strategy, disguising as a Beta female to gain access to male Alphas’ Omega mates. (For that matter, Omega males may use a sneaker strategy too in harem-type situations.) In addition, a heat spent with an Alpha female might be more painful but last significantly less long than a heat spent with an Alpha male.