Female centric stories

[SmilingLez]

But who can say "how a woman would feel" in a given situation? There is no absolute right or wrong answer to that.

And things like mistakes about things like adjusting clothing aren't gender specific. It shouldn't surprise anyone if a female author with a small bust got something wrong when trying to describe a more generously endowed character adjusting something.
That has nothing to do with "female perspective" it's just a case of you don't know what you don't know.

I suspect there are things male authors get wrong and other guys are like "every guy knows how to adjust the carburetor on a 57 Buick, I bet this was written by a chick!"

On the flip side, females who menstruate and cramp can describe uterine cramps whereas a male can only compare it to a belly ache from eating too much food. Same thing with menstrual bloating. Males can only compare it to abdominal bloating.

On the male side - Same when it comes to blue balls, how an erection feels internally, how a prostate orgasm feels etc. ad nauseam. Females have no idea.

 

[Voboy]

And things like mistakes about things like adjusting clothing aren't gender specific. It shouldn't surprise anyone if a female author with a small bust got something wrong when trying to describe a more generously endowed character adjusting something.
That has nothing to do with "female perspective" it's just a case of you don't know what you don't know.

I was doing a WWII piece awhile ago, and I was curious about how women wore underwear back then. There are a lot of videos and such that can help, which was nice because there's no woman in the US born since about 1960 that would have any idea how to wear 1940s womens' underwear unless they'd studied it for some reason.

So it's not just about gender; it's about the passage of time, too. Once, every man of a certain social class would have known how to attach a celluloid collar to a dress shirt. I bet there are only a couple dozen people in the US who could do it now. The ability to tie a proper necktie knot is probably going to be almost as rare within the next two or three decades. When I was born, any man would have been able to do it.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

On the flip side, females who menstruate and cramp can describe uterine cramps whereas a male can only compare it to a belly ache from eating too much food. Same thing with menstrual bloating. Males can only compare it to abdominal bloating.

On the male side - Same when it comes to blue balls, how an erection feels internally, how a prostate orgasm feels etc. ad nauseam. Females have no idea.

Sure, but what about the females that don't cramp? We wouldn't challenge their ability to write a female character.
We aren't writing ourselves, we are writing characters with entirely different lives, experiences, and beliefs than our own.

Even if people have had the same experience, we have know way of knowing the sameness of it.
Does voboy experience an erection the same way as lovecraft68? Would it be legitimate for one to read the description the other had written and say, "you got it wrong! That's how it feels to me, clearly you aren't a man!"

 

[SmilingLez]

Sure, but what about the females that don't cramp? We wouldn't challenge their ability to write a female character.
We aren't writing ourselves, we are writing characters with entirely different lives, experiences, and beliefs than our own.

Now you are putting words into my mouth, which I never uttered. I made a statement and it was clear (females who menstruate and cramp), You assumed I purposely left out females who don't menstruate and females who don't cramp comparing them to men, and we all know what assume means. And if we follow your string of thought, not all people bloat, not all men experience blue balls, etc ad nauseam.

One thing for sure no AMAB has ever experienced menstrual cramps and no AFAB has ever experienced blue balls. And based on those two facts, no male even fathom menstruation/cramps and no female can even fathom blue balls, so writing about those, takes the story out of the female perspective(males creating female main characters based on male gaze) they are creating because it is not based on fact. If you want to base it on silly fiction have it your way not going to rain on your parade. As always YMMV

 

[Kelliezgirl]

I was doing a WWII piece awhile ago, and I was curious about how women wore underwear back then. There are a lot of videos and such that can help, which was nice because there's no woman in the US born since about 1960 that would have any idea how to wear 1940s womens' underwear unless they'd studied it for some reason.

So it's not just about gender; it's about the passage of time, too. Once, every man of a certain social class would have known how to attach a celluloid collar to a dress shirt. I bet there are only a couple dozen people in the US who could do it now. The ability to tie a proper necktie knot is probably going to be almost as rare within the next two or three decades. When I was born, any man would have been able to do it.

You'd be surprised at how many women are into vintage clothing and all the Rockabilly girls out there certainly know.
But it's a fair point. The past is another country, they do things differently there.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Now you are putting words into my mouth, which I never uttered. I made a statement and it was clear (females who menstruate and cramp), You assumed I purposely left out females who don't menstruate and females who don't cramp but men straight) and we all know what assume means. And if we follow your string of thought, not all people bloat, not all men experience blue balls, etc ad nauseam

I didnt put any words into your mouth, I simply asked a question.

 

[SmilingLez]

I didnt put any words into your mouth, I simply asked a question.

I stand by what I said a AFAB cannot write about blue balls and AMAB cannot write about menstruation/cramps because there is no first hand experience or even understanding (and I am referring to AFAB who either does not menstruate, doesn't have cramps, or anything else)

So yes a male writer can create a female character but he is not telling his tale from a female perspective, it is from his male brain. Same for a female

Edit - in case you didn't know, an XY (a Y chromosome must be present) brain is drenched in testosterone as early as 7 weeks gestation. XX brains are not drenched in testosterone in utero. Biology 101

 

[PennyThompson]

I stand by what I said a AFAB cannot write about blue balls and AMAB cannot write about menstruation/cramps because there is no first hand experience or even understanding (and I am referring to AFAB who either does not menstruate, doesn't have cramps, or anything else)

So yes a male writer can create a female character but he is not telling his tale from a female perspective, it is from his male brain. Same for a female

Edit - in case you didn't know, an XY (a Y chromosome must be present) brain is drenched in testosterone as early as 7 weeks gestation. XX brains are not drenched in testosterone in utero. Biology 101

TERF discourse inevitably gets extremely silly...

 

[SmilingLez]

TERF discourse inevitably gets extremely silly...

There you go assuming. I was talking about biology. You seem to have a chip on your shoulder. Currently anyone with a Y chromosome is classified as male, everyone else female. You are confusing gender identity with bio-sex. Everyone has the right to identify however they want. Trans women are women. So get off your effinng high horse, you are only making yourself look uneducated and trollish


Edit - it's so sad that you had to go down the rabbit hole of hate speech in attempting to prove your point

 

[PennyThompson]

There you go assuming. I was talking about biology. You seem to have a chip on your shoulder. Currently anyone with a Y chromosome is classified as male, everyone else female. You are confusing gender identity with bio-sex. Everyone has the right to identify however they want. Trans women are women. So get off your effinng high horse, you are only making yourself look uneducated and trollish


Edit - it's so sad that you had to go down the rabbit hole of hate speech in attempting to prove your point

Well, it's strange to say "an XY brain is drenched in testosterone," and therefore is incapable of having or understanding a woman's perspective, and then turn around and say that trans women are women...

But it's also very silly that the "men can't write women and women can't write men" argument has devolved specifically into the ability to describe menstrual cramps, which is not a common topic of most erotic fiction by writers of any sex or gender

 

[SmilingLez]

Well, it's strange to say "an XY brain is drenched in testosterone," and therefore is incapable of having or understanding a woman's perspective, and then turn around and say that trans women are women...

But it's also very silly that the "men can't write women and women can't write men" argument has devolved specifically into the ability to describe menstrual cramps, which is not a common topic of most erotic fiction by writers of any sex or gender

Stop bothering me

 

[dirk2024]

But it's also very silly that the "men can't write women and women can't write men" argument has devolved specifically into the ability to describe menstrual cramps, which is not a common topic of most erotic fiction by writers of any sex or gender

Well if it does, I hope the author tags the story appropriately.

 

[anthrodisiac]

I stand by what I said a AFAB cannot write about blue balls and AMAB cannot write about menstruation/cramps because there is no first hand experience or even understanding (and I am referring to AFAB who either does not menstruate, doesn't have cramps, or anything else)

I know you probably didn't mean it this way. I think maybe you mean they can't write "accurately" about something they have no first-hand experience of, not that they can't write about it at all and they shouldn't even try. After all, you've written from experiences you don't have first-hand knowledge of, as have literally almost every single one of us at some time or another. Just want to make sure it's understood you're not telling people what they're allowed to do with their writing, based on your previous comments about this.

But that's where doing stuff like research, reading first-hand accounts, descriptions of these things come in handy. All we can do is our best to try to portray our characters with the accuracy and respect they deserve. We're offering the readers a picture of the character, and oftentimes, that's more a well-done sketch than a 2GB high-fidelity image. Best part about writing is that we're giving the readers the tools to build their own world, their own versions of the characters. The reader is the one creating our worlds from their imaginations, for their imaginations.

Sometimes, we don't do as good a job as we would like, and miss out on things that we wouldn't think of because we aren't whatever group that is. We aren't that race, that gender, that orientation, that disability, but we can do our damnedest to create as accurate an impression as possible, because that's what writers deal in — impressions. But it's also good to remember that there is a high degree of variability among experiences even within those categories of people. And because people belong to a bunch of categories, how they mix, the interplay, each creates a unique person, a unique fingerprint and way of thinking.

I really don't think there's any one "female perspective" or "male pespective." Maybe "average" but then you have to account for every female or male alive together, take the aggregate, and given the high degree of variability between cultures and experiences, I'm not sure how useful it is to even really say "this is how X people think" or "this is how Y people think."

 

[PennyThompson]

Well if it does, I hope the author tags the story appropriately.

Dandelion and the Sarsen Stones has "2 tbsp non-graphic menstruation talk," in the ingredients list, but I assure you it's important to the plot

 

[SmilingLez]

I know you probably didn't mean it this way. I think maybe you mean they can't write "accurately" about something they have no first-hand experience of, not that they can't write about it at all and they shouldn't even try. After all, you've written from experiences you don't have first-hand knowledge of, as have literally almost every single one of us at some time or another. Just want to make sure it's understood you're not telling people what they're allowed to do with their writing, based on your previous comments about this.

But that's where doing stuff like research, reading first-hand accounts, descriptions of these things come in handy. All we can do is our best to try to portray our characters with the accuracy and respect they deserve. We're offering the readers a picture of the character, and oftentimes, that's more a well-done sketch than a 2GB high-fidelity image. Best part about writing is that we're giving the readers the tools to build their own world, their own versions of the characters. The reader is the one creating our worlds from their imaginations, for their imaginations.

Sometimes, we don't do as good a job as we would like, and miss out on things that we wouldn't think of because we aren't whatever group that is. We aren't that race, that gender, that orientation, that disability, but we can do our damnedest to create as accurate an impression as possible, because that's what writers deal in — impressions. But it's also good to remember that there is a high degree of variability among experiences even within those categories of people. And because people belong to a bunch of categories, how they mix, the interplay, each creates a unique person, a unique fingerprint and way of thinking.

I really don't think there's any one "female perspective" or "male pespective." Maybe "average" but then you have to account for every female or male alive together, take the aggregate, and given the high degree of variability between cultures and experiences, I'm not sure how useful it is to even really say "this is how X people think" or "this is how Y people think."

I have never told anyone they can't write what they want to write. Not my monkey not my circus.

My point is a female character created by a male will be totally different than a female character created by a female. Same applies to a male character created by a female and a male character created by a male.

I figured most people already understood that a female figure created by one female would be different than a female figure created by another female author. But I guess I expected too much.

 

[liliput1]

"2 tbsp non-graphic menstruation talk,"

phrasing

 

[EmilyMiller]

But it's also very silly that the "men can't write women and women can't write men" argument has devolved specifically into the ability to describe menstrual cramps

I have a PMS / menstruation scene in Caputpedes. Then I also have a horse sex scene in Caputpedes (sort of).

 

[PennyThompson]

I have a PMS / menstruation scene in Caputpedes. Then I also have a horse sex scene in Caputpedes (sort of).

do not the horse!

 

[EmilyMiller]

Women produce testosterone too.

Premenopausal women have between 15 and 70 ng/dL of testosterone. Whereas adult men have much more at between 450 and 600 ng/dL.

If we didn’t have any testosterone, then we’d have drastically lower sex drives and problems with bone density.

Men produce estrogen and progesterone as well. We aren’t as different as some claim.

 

[Statius]

Dandelion and the Sarsen Stones has "2 tbsp non-graphic menstruation talk," in the ingredients list, but I assure you it's important to the plot

I hope that story went in the Taboo category? Talking about menstruation is not acceptable, especially to a mostly male audience; it's dirty and icky. Now off to the red tent with you!

 

[PennyThompson]

I hope that story went in the Taboo category? Talking about menstruation is not acceptable, especially to a mostly male audience; it's dirty and icky. Now off to the red tent with you!

it's also about weird occult football/rugby, so I figured it would balance out

 

[anthrodisiac]

I hope that story went in the Taboo category? Talking about menstruation is not acceptable, especially to a mostly male audience; it's dirty and icky. Now off to the red tent with you!

It's so funny to me that a lot of men are so freaked out by menstration. Especially the macho types all "yeah, I could kill a man" or who hunt animals, but the second you even say the word tampon they look like you gutted their firstborn in front of them

It's blood. Like... really? Why's it so freaky?

 

[Statius]

it's also about weird occult football/rugby, so I figured it would balance o

it's also about weird occult football/rugby, so I figured it would balance out

So let me get this straight. You had the audacity to talk about menstruation AND sports in the same story?! Hopefully not on the same page at least? And did the sports come after or before? Last impressions matter

 

[Statius]

It's so funny to me that a lot of men are so freaked out by menstration. Especially the macho types all "yeah, I could kill a man" or who hunt animals, but the second you even say the word tampon they look like you gutted their firstborn in front of them

It's blood. Like... really? Why's it so freaky?

Try putting tampons in their grocery cart

 

[Stanfield2025]

On the flip side, females who menstruate and cramp can describe uterine cramps whereas a male can only compare it to a belly ache from eating too much food. Same thing with menstrual bloating. Males can only compare it to abdominal bloating.

On the male side - Same when it comes to blue balls, how an erection feels internally, how a prostate orgasm feels etc. ad nauseam. Females have no idea.

Not all women menstruate. So the women who don't wouldn't know how it feels.