Tips for Creating Stories Women Appreciate

[ShinyCrazyDi]

Hi babes!

I'm new here. Still trying to gauge the vibe, my apologies if I veer.

The statistics on mainstream romance are interesting - does anyone know the demographics of this particular site? From what I've seen, the more vocal members appear to be men, especially in comment sections. I wonder if there are a lot of women lurking & reading - or if I just haven't come across as many in my little reading-journeys?

I'm a cis bi woman, my advice to the OP would be not to treat women as a monolith. We're all different. We all have different kinks & preferences & types. So when you ask 'what do women find attractive' that's going to mean a huge variety of answers, & personally, what I like can change depending on the day, my mood, the specific way something's written. It's so subjective.

I've only published a few stories so far & I write for myself. I'm not exactly 'blowing up' (it's still real 'beginner shit'). But the feedback I've received so far has been mixed. As has my enjoyment of the stories I've read. Some of the most popular of them are (sorry, no offence) pretty basic. Definitely porn-heavy. I'm worried I might find myself drifting into pornography rather than erotica simply to get that 'hit' of validation. Some of them are wonderful, really well written & crafted & you can tell the author has a lot of skill & understanding. I'm surprised by how low some of the more expertly written works are rated.

But when I'm personally reading erotica - what I find really exciting is authenticity & character. Sometimes you don't even need a specific physical description of the characters for it to be titillating. After all, your mind can fill it in with whoever you like. But as long as the characters feel realistic, their motivations feel natural & their dialogue 'true', you can get away with a lot. What I enjoy WRITING about (complicated, flawed, sometimes horrible people) & what I enjoy READING are different as well. To read a story where the characters have a rich inner life, where we can explore & understand their innermost thoughts & desires, where they are finally put in a scenario where they can act out those desires, that's fucking hot in my opinion. I like to read about people who are giddy with the excitement of a new connection, new romance. But my writing's a bit 'uglier' (so far). Nice to meet all of you!

 

[Imakewetspots]

You are a very wise man.



It depends on why you want to change. Do you want to please the audience, or do you want to push yourself as a writer? There is a big difference.

On the second part, yes to both.

I’m a person that has always preferred change to stagnation. I just retired from law enforcement and I was ready to croak from the whole, ‘but this is the way we’ve always done it’ attitude. Change is vital, exciting and healthy.

I very much want to please the audience. I can kinda live with the idea that some creepy dude is nutting into his dirty Taco Bell napkin as he reads my stuff (though I’m shuddering a little as I type that). But I like to use my imagination as I write and I find it hugely inspirational to fantasize that some lovely lady is motivated to pleasure herself after reading something I created. There’s a better chance that could happen if I examine my work critically and make an effort to improve. Not that I’ll ever know for sure but I think it’s a fun goal to strive for. The writing is a hobby after all.

Lastly, I want to push myself as well just for a good challenge. I haven’t published them but I started writing first person stories based on my own experiences. I wrote police reports, search warrants and later, contracts for thirty years. Writing in the first person is very hard for me but I want to expand my writing talent and push myself. It feels good to step outside my comfort zone.

I started writing around the time I retired at 55. I watched peers retire to the couch and turn into fat slugs so I didn’t want that. I love staying busy and writing keeps my mind busy as well. But it would eventually get boring if I didn’t shake it up so wanting to improve can be tied to keeping my emotional state fit too.

 

[Imakewetspots]

In a lot of my reading here, a few things become evident and those things probably don't appeal to women. That's because the descriptions of the characters and their actions are fantasies and not reality.

About 99% of people are just OK looking. They're not extremely handsome, muscular studs nor are they gorgeous women with perfect figures. In my somewhat limited experience, men may think they're hot, but women will compare their attributes to those of the female character in the story, and most women see a different body in the mirror than a man sees when he looks at her.

I always chuckle when I read about a 12 inch cock that's 6 inches around. Not only are most men much smaller, but most women wouldn't want that cock because it would be at least uncomfortable if not painful.

I also chuckle when I read about a woman who wears a 44 DDD bra. Men probably fantasize about that. A woman reading that might look at it as minimizing her sexuality because she's only a 32B.

Anal sex required a lot of lube, preparation, and time for a woman. Just changing from slot b to hole c between strokes isn't likely something she's going to enjoy if she enjoys anal sex at all.

As has been often said, men tend toward unidirectional and logical thinking about themselves and what they're doing. Women tend toward an expansive and emotional view of themselves and what's going on around them. Maybe today's generation is different, but women are also taught from birth that sex is something special between a man and a woman. A woman has a lot more physical and emotional involvement in sex than a man does because they're only a virgin once and because of the risk of pregnancy. They'll be more reserved about sex until they at least know the guy well.

In short, write your characters as three-dimensional people with the thoughts, hopes, fears, and other personality traits all humans have to one degree or another. Write their physical descriptions as something that would fit the people you're around every day. Save the stereotypes for secondary characters. Stereotypes are a good way to describe one of those secondary characters without using a lot of words, but they won't reach a reader like a description of someone who is "normal".

Great stuff! Thank you!

Glad I made this post.

 

[Imakewetspots]

I don't mean to be a bitch about it, honestly. Like I said, I intended to put it VERY bluntly, to whack you over the head with it, because two or three times per year this topic comes up and I make this point and a couple of male writers go "hrmm, interesting," and kinda ignore it.

Yes, there are other factors that help engage with female readers, such as emotional focus and a little more drama instead of just straight up smut, but even when those things are included and we feel some excitement in the buildup, it's a huge letdown when we get to the sex scene and the female lead ends up just using the boring guy as a dildo. Her own dildo doesn't need food and water, thanks. Like srsly.

And I will say that there are some pretty darn good writers here in the AH that disappointingly STILL use this tired sorry dynamic - unicorn woman makes boring guy's day - which proves in the end that the story is barley more than the same old male fantasy of guy getting laid with little to no effort on his part. Despite their skills, their stories just never elevate. Again, there's nothing wrong with that fantasy, but if you want to connect with female readers, it's a big fat fail.

You asked the question and I applaud that question, and this is this the honest answer which that question deserves.

I loved your first response but your other responses are equally as insightful. There was nothing rude in your remark and I didn’t take it as ‘bitchy’ at all. If anything, I feel like there’s a huge, unfilled demand for the kind of story I hope to someday start creating. I could feel your frustration!


I’m a pretty straightforward guy so I actually like it when folks say what they mean instead of ‘nibbling around the edges.’

Don’t change!

 

[BellaBestia]

A personal request to male authors trying to write either for a female audience or from a female POV, consider occasionally the age and experience of your female audience and incorporate the shifting changes in desire and sexuality that occurs with the different phases of a woman’s life. Limiting your writing to the ever-young, nubile, flexible, and voracious appetite of a younger range of female characters will also limit your potential female readership.

 

[Imakewetspots]

Hi babes!

I'm new here. Still trying to gauge the vibe, my apologies if I veer.

The statistics on mainstream romance are interesting - does anyone know the demographics of this particular site? From what I've seen, the more vocal members appear to be men, especially in comment sections. I wonder if there are a lot of women lurking & reading - or if I just haven't come across as many in my little reading-journeys?

I'm a cis bi woman, my advice to the OP would be not to treat women as a monolith. We're all different. We all have different kinks & preferences & types. So when you ask 'what do women find attractive' that's going to mean a huge variety of answers, & personally, what I like can change depending on the day, my mood, the specific way something's written. It's so subjective.

I've only published a few stories so far & I write for myself. I'm not exactly 'blowing up' (it's still real 'beginner shit'). But the feedback I've received so far has been mixed. As has my enjoyment of the stories I've read. Some of the most popular of them are (sorry, no offence) pretty basic. Definitely porn-heavy. I'm worried I might find myself drifting into pornography rather than erotica simply to get that 'hit' of validation. Some of them are wonderful, really well written & crafted & you can tell the author has a lot of skill & understanding. I'm surprised by how low some of the more expertly written works are rated.

But when I'm personally reading erotica - what I find really exciting is authenticity & character. Sometimes you don't even need a specific physical description of the characters for it to be titillating. After all, your mind can fill it in with whoever you like. But as long as the characters feel realistic, their motivations feel natural & their dialogue 'true', you can get away with a lot. What I enjoy WRITING about (complicated, flawed, sometimes horrible people) & what I enjoy READING are different as well. To read a story where the characters have a rich inner life, where we can explore & understand their innermost thoughts & desires, where they are finally put in a scenario where they can act out those desires, that's fucking hot in my opinion. I like to read about people who are giddy with the excitement of a new connection, new romance. But my writing's a bit 'uglier' (so far). Nice to meet all of you!

I’ll look up your stuff and give it a read. Thank you.

On one of your final points, I too love the thrill of a slow boil before the main characters act out their passions. When I think on my personal experiences in life, I have to say the most exciting were often the new relationships or even the thrill of the chase. Sex is wonderful but all the preparation can be delightful.

 

[Imakewetspots]

A personal request to male authors trying to write either for a female audience or from a female POV, consider occasionally the age and experience of your female audience and incorporate the shifting changes in desire and sexuality that occurs with the different phases of a woman’s life. Limiting your writing to the ever-young, nubile, flexible, and voracious appetite of a younger range of female characters will also limit your potential female readership.

Funny you should say. Some of my early writings were the young man with mature woman. I suppose that’s vanilla to most. More recently, I wrote a story of a middle aged couple who connected and it was soooo much fun to write. It included both perspectives and it had a great romantic vibe, in my opinion.

Sadly, it didn’t get the best reviews but looking back, I added elements of BDSM that didn’t fit well with the overarching storyline and I probably stuck it in the wrong category. So I basically sabotaged what I think could have been one of my better works.

I’ve been very tempted to redo it and resubmit but I sort of have the mindset that you only get one shot at a new story. Plenty of other ideas in my mind to write about.

 

[SimonDoom]

This is an interesting thread to observe. I'm especially struck by PSG's comments. I think this is an easy error for a male author to make. It's pretty common--I've done this myself--for a male author to write a story based on the point of view of a male character who is attracted to a female character. There's a good chance that the woman is attractive for physical reasons--reasons that have little to do with intelligence, accomplishment, or interesting personality. The male POV character is underdeveloped because there's no need in a story like this to develop him. The more generic the character is, the easier it is for a reader to put himself in the character's shoes. In a story model like this, there's no incentive to develop the male character much. The male author's response to the question, "Why would the female character be interested in the male POV character?" boils down to, "Because it's me."

I like the question, "Why would the woman character be interested in/attracted to the male character?" as a guiding principle for the story because it makes it much more interesting. It's a challenge for the male author but it's likely to make the story better.

Romance stories are best, IMO, when you have two interesting characters each of whom is drawn to the other because of something interesting and positive in the other character. They can be flawed people, but if there's something genuinely interesting and appealing about each of them the story is likely to have a lot more genuine sizzle.

 

[AG31]

Yes, you said that the first time. And that conventional wisdom does support the idea that more women than men read commercial romance novels.

As long as we're repeating what we already said: That conventional wisdom doesn't contradict that there are other conventional wisdoms too. That conventional wisdom doesn't contradict that Literotica is, on the whole, very different from that.

There are at least three conventional wisdoms which make me think that this author might not see any difference in his comments if he manages to write differently.

I already named one of them: More (many more) Lit readers are men.
Also: Men are more likely to draw attention to themselves by leaving comments.
And: The proportion of readers to commenters is already too small to use them to measure women's appreciation.

That's the thing about "conventional wisdom:" None of it is 100% true. Not my three, but not your one either.

I'm trying to distinguish between porn/erotica and romance novels, so the number of either sex reading romance novels is irrelevant.

"I already named one of them: More (many more) Lit readers are men."

And I'm saying that I hadn't heard this before. It's not "conventional" in my experience.

 

[AG31]

Also, stroke stories may be words but they are visual in nature. They lean on physical descriptions of the female lead

Just to point out, not all stroke stories have a female lead. Check out mine. (Although I prefer to call them simple erotica, since I spend a lot of time on the language used to express them.)

 

[NotWise]

I like the question, "Why would the woman character be interested in/attracted to the male character?" as a guiding principle for the story because it makes it much more interesting. It's a challenge for the male author but it's likely to make the story better.

I agree with the post, and it is a challenge. If a story is written from the man's point of view in first person or close third, then it's difficult to understand/communicate what the woman finds attractive or interesting.

I've tried different approaches, but the one that probably worked the best is to devote a lot of my writing time and space to developing the relationship. That can cause some of my readers' eyes to roll to the back of their heads.

Pick your poison.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

I agree with the post, and it is a challenge. If a story is written from the man's point of view in first person or close third, then it's difficult to understand/communicate what the woman finds attractive or interesting.

You could have the characters talk, and have her say that she likes him for some particular reason. "Larry, it was your self-deprecating sense of humor that first got me interested. I only noticed your broad shoulders and beautiful eyes after that."

You just made me think: do any Literotica stories pass the Bechdel Test? It might not be fair to ask about a smut site, of course.

-Annie

 

[ShinyCrazyDi]

I agree with the post, and it is a challenge. If a story is written from the man's point of view in first person or close third, then it's difficult to understand/communicate what the woman finds attractive or interesting.

I've tried different approaches, but the one that probably worked the best is to devote a lot of my writing time and space to developing the relationship. That can cause some of my readers' eyes to roll to the back of their heads.

Pick your poison.

I think communicating what THAT woman finds attractive is key. You start off with a well-rounded character. If the story's for a woman, the female character needs to be fully formed, needs to be complex & authentic. If you do a good enough job making that character seem like a real flesh & blood person, you can make the reader believe that what you SAY she's attracted to, is what she's attracted to.

For example: if you write a woman believably enough who feels trapped in her life, she might be attracted to a woman who lives life outside of society's expectations, a woman who doesn't care about what she looks like, or who she offends. That might be the person who attracts your character.

Or you could be writing about a woman who has spent her whole life seeking physical pleasures, only to meet someone who challenges her mentally. She may find that person MORE erotic, because their conversations are not centred around sex. It could mean MORE to her that she has intellectual discourse than dirty talk. She might find herself being turned on by love letters, or a game of chess, before finally meeting & having sex with the person she's been interacting with.

Or you could write a character who has been a devoted housewife, but secretly dreams of her brother-in-law. & she struggles with the guilt & also sexual attraction to someone who's so close to her, but so forbidden.

Basically, you create a character - you illustrate them well enough - & then you find a way to describe what it is about the character (or characters) they're attracted to & if you describe the POV/protagonist well enough - you can incorporate their sexual desires into that personality in a way that feels real & natural. Hope that helps?

 

[NotWise]

You could have the characters talk, and have her say that she likes him for some particular reason. "Larry, it was your self-deprecating sense of humor that first got me interested. I only noticed your broad shoulders and beautiful eyes after that."

You just made me think: do any Literotica stories pass the Bechdel Test? It might not be fair to ask about a smut site, of course.

-Annie

The Bechdel test has been a topic here before. There are probably a lot of stories in Lesbian Sex that will pass the test. Outside of that, not so many.

There's a scene in No Brand on My Pony that a female beta reader called "the reverse Bechdel scene." I thought that was funny. It was the male protagonist and antagonist talking over dinner about the female protagonist.

 

[NotWise]

The statistics on mainstream romance are interesting - does anyone know the demographics of this particular site? From what I've seen, the more vocal members appear to be men, especially in comment sections. I wonder if there are a lot of women lurking & reading - or if I just haven't come across as many in my little reading-journeys?

I only have three stories in Romance, but my impression is consistent with yours. If I were to guess, then I'd guess the reading population in the Romance category might be 50-50 men and women. If the story is not in a contest, then the ratio might be different. I also have the feeling that men and women commenting on Romance stories tend to comment on different topics.

 

[LoneMilf]

Interesting topic

I don't think you should try too hard to tailor stories to any particular demographic - if it's good, there will be people who appreciate it.

That said, there is one thing I would love to see more of in the stories on here.. flirting! Too often, I see stories that spend a long time on descriptions/backstory and then move way too quickly to actual sex scenes. Descriptions are boring (to me) and sex scenes can easily get somewhat repetitive. But the dialogue and scenes that bring us from that first meeting of characters and to the point where they get to enjoy each other - that's what sets a story apart for me.

Whether this is a particularly female thing or more general (or just me), I don't know

 

[Imakewetspots]

Interesting topic

I don't think you should try too hard to tailor stories to any particular demographic - if it's good, there will be people who appreciate it.

That said, there is one thing I would love to see more of in the stories on here.. flirting! Too often, I see stories that spend a long time on descriptions/backstory and then move way too quickly to actual sex scenes. Descriptions are boring (to me) and sex scenes can easily get somewhat repetitive. But the dialogue and scenes that bring us from that first meeting of characters and to the point where they get to enjoy each other - that's what sets a story apart for me.

Whether this is a particularly female thing or more general (or just me), I don't know

I include lots of flirting in my stories. Most of them anyway. Getting a story just right is quite a moving target for me. On my long stories, I like lots of build up and flirting if the story lends itself to that.

I know some guys get impatient and want the meat and I get that. On a couple stories, I even put a note at the beginning warning readers that the heavy stuff didn’t start until a third of the way in. Seems weird but maybe male readers appreciated that info. Lol

 

[gunhilltrain]

I include lots of flirting in my stories. Most of them anyway. Getting a story just right is quite a moving target for me. On my long stories, I like lots of build up and flirting if the story lends itself to that.

I know some guys get impatient and want the meat and I get that. On a couple stories, I even put a note at the beginning warning readers that the heavy stuff didn’t start until a third of the way in. Seems weird but maybe male readers appreciated that info. Lol

This thread as gone on for longer than I expected. May I suggest that you are overthinking this? One thing that I noticed is that disclaimers of the type you mentioned here may not be necessary. Just write what you wish and see how it goes. We have seen here that predicting the results of any one story is very difficult if not impossible. What the readers may or may not want and what other writers are doing may be marginally useful at best.

 

[Britva415]

I'm trying to distinguish between porn/erotica and romance novels, so the number of either sex reading romance novels is irrelevant.

Great, we're on the same page about that, because that's pretty much my own point, too.

You cited a conventional-wisdom which supports the observation that more women than men read commercial romance fiction. What I was saying is that it doesn't support the idea that there are somehow more or even equal women readers on Lit than men. Partly because they are separate and conclusions about one shouldn't lead to conclusions about the other, and partly because there are other factors (I named three) which make clear that the "men don't read for sexual thrills" trope isn't applicable on Literotica, even if it might be applicable in other forms of media.

I don't have a way to estimate the genders of Lit story readers, other than to use forum representation as a proxy. And the forums are clearly dominated by men. I'm not saying there aren't women here, and in AH the proportion of women to men is greater than the proportion of women to men in other parts of the forums, but I still don't perceive anything approaching equal. My perception is that there are more men than women in AH in particular and on the forums in general, and from that I extrapolate to Lit story readership.

And what I conclude from that matches the other three conventional-wisdom stories I referenced.

I also have lived experience. I'm a cis man and I use written material more than I use visual porn. I know men who do use lots and lots and lots of visual porn, but it doesn't stop them from using written material too.

 

[Otto26]

First, I love this topic and I love the great discussion. Thank you Imakewetspots for starting it and a huge thank you to all of you who have provided blunt and excellent expert opinions. I will absolutely be making use of this advice to improve my writing.

Because, second, I don't much care about the red H. Because of my particular kinks (me, not my characters) I really like the idea of women enjoying my stories. Best comment I've ever received is "You write great heroines." Still so much to improve in my writing and this will help.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Hi babes!

I'm new here. Still trying to gauge the vibe, my apologies if I veer.

The statistics on mainstream romance are interesting - does anyone know the demographics of this particular site? From what I've seen, the more vocal members appear to be men, especially in comment sections. I wonder if there are a lot of women lurking & reading - or if I just haven't come across as many in my little reading-journeys?

There's this: http://markallenthornton.com/blog/sexual-demographics/

The author scraped Literotica author profiles with story data and compiled the results. Caveats:

• It's about ten years old, and demographics may have shifted since then.
• The profile options for gender have changed since then, although this probably won't affect the male/female breakdowns much.
• It's based on authors, not readers; I would expect reader demographics to be similar to author demographics but that's a matter of opinion.
• It relies on gender as indicated in profile, which of course may not always be truthful.
• Some of the data is reported as "% of authors" but other data is "% of stories" which might not be quite the same (e.g. if male authors tended to write more stories than female authors, or vice versa).

According to that data, 44% of authors here were listed as male vs. 33% female (and another 23% assorted other answers/no answer/couples, which are mostly excluded from the rest of the analysis).

In Romance, authorship was roughly equal male/female.

There are also various market research websites which offer estimates of site visitor demographics, e.g. https://www.similarweb.com/website/literotica.com/#demographics which claims Literotica visitors are approximately 75% male/25% female. I would take these figures with a large grain of salt since their calculations are going to depend on a lot of assumptions that may not be valid for Lit, and in any case they don't offer a breakdown by story category.

 

[gunhilltrain]

You could have the characters talk, and have her say that she likes him for some particular reason. "Larry, it was your self-deprecating sense of humor that first got me interested. I only noticed your broad shoulders and beautiful eyes after that."

You just made me think: do any Literotica stories pass the Bechdel Test? It might not be fair to ask about a smut site, of course.

-Annie

Okay, I can't control myself any longer. I mentioned the story that came out of @StillStunned's snippet suggestion last spring. And I had to look up "Bechdel Test" again. Okay, so this only has one female character. I have one with two such characters, but that is 11,000 words while this is only about 6,200. That's enough to impose on people today.

https://classic.literotica.com/s/ellie-and-joshs-kinky-adventure

By the way, I guess I have a self-deprecating sense of humor and okay eyes, but narrow shoulders. I'm also almost seventy-years-old, which makes everything else kind of moot, wouldn't you say?

 

[Bramblethorn]

You could have the characters talk, and have her say that she likes him for some particular reason. "Larry, it was your self-deprecating sense of humor that first got me interested. I only noticed your broad shoulders and beautiful eyes after that."

You just made me think: do any Literotica stories pass the Bechdel Test? It might not be fair to ask about a smut site, of course.

Plenty. Obviously there are lots of them in Lesbian, but even excluding "woman talks to her past/present/future sexual partner" scenes, I could point to quite a few qualifying scenes in my stories and others'.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

You could have the characters talk, and have her say that she likes him for some particular reason. "Larry, it was your self-deprecating sense of humor that first got me interested. I only noticed your broad shoulders and beautiful eyes after that."

You just made me think: do any Literotica stories pass the Bechdel Test? It might not be fair to ask about a smut site, of course.

-Annie

To me that would feel forced, and it brings us back to show not tell. If your character is saying I was attracted because of your self depreciating sense of humor then just write the character to make those kinds of jokes/comments. Then the need to comment on it disappears. If you don't establish that through dialogue then it comes off as hollow.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

In a lot of my reading here, a few things become evident and those things probably don't appeal to women. That's because the descriptions of the characters and their actions are fantasies and not reality.

About 99% of people are just OK looking. They're not extremely handsome, muscular studs nor are they gorgeous women with perfect figures. In my somewhat limited experience, men may think they're hot, but women will compare their attributes to those of the female character in the story, and most women see a different body in the mirror than a man sees when he looks at her.

I always chuckle when I read about a 12 inch cock that's 6 inches around. Not only are most men much smaller, but most women wouldn't want that cock because it would be at least uncomfortable if not painful.

I also chuckle when I read about a woman who wears a 44 DDD bra. Men probably fantasize about that. A woman reading that might look at it as minimizing her sexuality because she's only a 32B.

Anal sex required a lot of lube, preparation, and time for a woman. Just changing from slot b to hole c between strokes isn't likely something she's going to enjoy if she enjoys anal sex at all.

As has been often said, men tend toward unidirectional and logical thinking about themselves and what they're doing. Women tend toward an expansive and emotional view of themselves and what's going on around them. Maybe today's generation is different, but women are also taught from birth that sex is something special between a man and a woman. A woman has a lot more physical and emotional involvement in sex than a man does because they're only a virgin once and because of the risk of pregnancy. They'll be more reserved about sex until they at least know the guy well.

In short, write your characters as three-dimensional people with the thoughts, hopes, fears, and other personality traits all humans have to one degree or another. Write their physical descriptions as something that would fit the people you're around every day. Save the stereotypes for secondary characters. Stereotypes are a good way to describe one of those secondary characters without using a lot of words, but they won't reach a reader like a description of someone who is "normal".

A few things with this... you seem to he saying that women aren't interested if the FMC is beautiful.
All those Hallmark movies are populated by beautiful actresses and women are 99% of their market.
Similarly, if you write a FMC with 42EEE breasts my first thought is "that poor girl's back..." but it definitely doesn't diminish my femininity.

You are spot on about the 12in cock thing. Ironically, the one detail about the MMC that male writers insist on providing is one detail that's virtually irrelevant.

As for anal... that's another thing that exists on a spectrum. There absolutely are women (and I'm talking normal women, not people in the porn industry) who can go from slot a to slot b with no additional lubricant. The range goes from those ladies all the way to "It's not happening regardless".
Not having a lot of prep for it doesn't take me out of a story because I know it isn't always necessary and it's a fantasy. We hand wave STDs, the risk of pregnancy and lots of other issues, it isn't any different.