Can men write lesbian stories?

[Icingsugar]

When I have written about lesbians, it have not been about girl-on-girl porn. That is, as noted and agreed upon my some posters above, not really lesbian most of the time. It's just a way to make porn for men, porn that exposes the maximum amount of female flesh. Many guys don't want to see dicks, they want to see tits. In a lesbo scene they get the double amount.

What I have written have not even been erotic, but romance dramas and relationship comedies. And as far as I can tell, there is no real difference between straight or gay relationships, until you start involving the pure technicalities of sex, or the social aspect of intolerant outsiders as well as the self proclaimed, imo redundant queer/dyke culture, that chosen exclusiveness. Take that away and you have the same issues and feelings between lovers that any straight couple are bantering on a daily basis.

Or am I completely in the blue here?

 

[Couture]

I'm just teasing with Uther. Have you read various descriptions of orgasms from men and women writers. They are pretty much standard fare. It's your characters that make the difference. If as Uther says, you can hold your character in your head and they do things and say things the way that character would and with their own motivations. Well, that's writing and man or woman, people will want to read about them.

 

[English Lady]

you make a good point weird Harold...maybe i should have specified WELL WRITTEN lesbian stories....that would probably be better!

 

[DarkrSide]

I think men can quite possibly write good lesbian stories. I have written 2, working on a third. I'm not saying they are good. I am basing my opinion on the fact that I have written stories from the female point of view (keep in mind, I am completely straight) and I've gotten reaction back from guys who think just because it's written in a woman's POV, it must be a written by a woman.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

One of the things that makes writing worth reading is the understanding the author brings to whatever it is he/she's writing about. A stright male author has a very good chance of writing a more interesting and compelling lesbian scene simply because he comes at it from a different angle and has to make some serious effort to understand and communicate his take on the experience of lesbian sex, something a practicing lesbian might just take for granted.

Also, no matter what characteristic you examine, I think you'll find as much variation within either sex as you'll fine between the sexes. No one sex has a monopoly on understanding or sensitivity or on anything really.


---dr.M.

 

[steve w]

I would make two points -

Firstly, I think it can depend on your intended audience. If you are predominantly writing for a male audience, you may focus on the physical, and try to make it a porno-film-on-the-page kind of scene. That's not to say it won't have appeal for female readers, just a likely kind of feel if you're pursuing that audience. However, the joy of Lit is that we can't choose the authors, it's whoever wants to delve in. Does it matter if your own view of lesbianism is not "realistic" to a lesbian reader? That needn't stop it being entertaining or erotic, it just means at least one reader may not like it. Hell - we all piss off hundreds of readers with every piece we write.

Secondly, on a more general note, I think it's entirely possible to write entertainingly and realistically about something you haven't directly done or experienced. 99% of thriller writers have never killed anyone, but that doesn't stop them writing great books about murder. I think this "research" thing can get overblown - it's about touching someone's emotions, whether you do that with the realism of what you portray, the brilliant elegance of your prose, the eroticism of the images you conjure for them, or simply admiration for the way the story was put together. As long as you connect with the reader, you've hit the mark.

 

[Dirty Slut]

Actually, that's not entirely true, boys...

That's exactly right Uther. Lesbians are just men without dicks.

Not True, especially with the state of the art strap-ons now available in every adult book store these days. And remember, a strap-on dick doesn't go soft 5 seconds after entering a woman either, and is thus much more reliable than the real thing.

DS

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Or you could look at it this way: do you have to be a murderer to write good mysteries, or a cowboy to write good Westerns?

If we all only wrote about what we really knew, all we'd have is a bunch of stories about people sitting at computers writing stories.

---dr.M.

 

[wildsweetone]

How can you tell from the words within the narrative of the story, whether the author is male or female?

 

[Dirty Slut]

Good question...

How can you tell from the words within the narrative of the story, whether the author is male or female?

I've been wondering the same thing after reading a few, and I still don't know since I don't know if the authors were men, or women as a pen name means nothing to the reader.

DS