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Is it wrong for a man to write a story from the female perspective

electricblue66 said:
Yes, I know many straight women who find GM horny as hell for them. One explained that for her, it was reading (and writing) about otherwise macho men getting emotional about other men. And strangely, some mothering instinct kicking in, men being vulnerable. Surprised me too, at the time, but live and learn.
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From my perspective, I think straight women enjoy writing gay male erotica because we can often relate to the sexual/emotional urges and longing experienced by gay men in regards to their sexual partners. After all, gay men and woman often are attracted to the same physical aesthetic when it comes to men. So, it's not that far-fetched to find the MM sexual/emotional dynamic is an erotic draw for some straight women.

Further, writing from the perspective of a gay man frees women to explore a certain amount of sexual freedom that is often repressed due to the gender roles perpetuated by misogynistic social mores and/or the stigma applied to women who express overly assertive or atypical sexual behavior.
 
Voice

This would depend on whether it was good.

Readers wish to be entertained above all. If the character works, it works.
 
Beatrix_B said:
From my perspective, I think straight women enjoy writing gay male erotica because we can often relate to the sexual/emotional urges and longing experienced by gay men in regards to their sexual partners.
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Quite honestly, more often than not, female correspondents have told me that they just like the concept of fine male bodies engaged with each other for the pleasure of their imaginations rather than the men trying to make them and then walk off.

I've mentioned before that I see a divide in GM stories that emphasize nesting as opposed to those emphasizing getting off and moving on. I try to keep the balance fairly even in these in many of my stories (while also doing a lot of the athletic getting off stories). I think that might be why I seem to have as many female fans and correspondence as male.

Not all GM interests are the same; not all GM lifestyles and worlds are the same (I came from an athletic/adventuresome world, which is often reflected in my stories). The emphasis of all GM stories isn't the same either.
 
sr71plt said:
Quite honestly, more often than not, female correspondents have told me that they just like the concept of fine male bodies engaged with each other for the pleasure of their imaginations rather than the men trying to make them and then walk off.

I've mentioned before that I see a divide in GM stories that emphasize nesting as opposed to those emphasizing getting off and moving on. I try to keep the balance fairly even in these in many of my stories (while also doing a lot of the athletic getting off stories). I think that might be why I seem to have as many female fans and correspondence as male.

Not all GM interests are the same; not all GM lifestyles and worlds are the same (I came from an athletic/adventuresome world, which is often reflected in my stories). The emphasis of all GM stories isn't the same either.
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I agree whole-heartedly. Women's preferences and tastes range widely as I'm sure does that of gay men. I was stating my reasons for writing MM erotica and the type of audience I like to appeal to when I write in that genre.
 
Back to the original thrust of the OP, though, my most profitable series in the marketplace is about the adventures of a lesbian couple, told from the perspective of one of the women in third person. I'm neither female nor lesbian, but the books sell. I pocket the profits, with a smile.
 
I think writing from the perspective of a character of the opposite gender is a challenging endeavor. In my opinion, I think it can go either way. It depends on how well the author writes to be honest. I have written stories from the female perspective before. There are certain limitations I have, but all in all a good writer should be able to do it.
 
wastelandwriter said:
...also if it's first-person, don't do that thing where your female POV character is super conscious of her breasts and talks about them at great length. If it's a sex scene and something's happening to them, that's a little different obviously. But the first way to show the world you're a dude who really doesn't know how to write women is if your POV lady wakes up in the morning and her first thought is "MY BOOBS."

(Okay there are a million things dudes need to learn about writing women but damn.)
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^^This. If you're going to be super conscious of your breasts it should be about how much they get in the way and how often they accidentally get crumbs in their bras, spill things down their chest and can't wait to take their bras off at the end of the night.

TBH I rarely find a story written from the female first person that feels believable to me, no matter who writes it, so write the story you want and don't worry about it.
 
I have written several stories from the female perspective, first person, under this name and Elloelle and they have done as well as my stories from male perspective. In Fact Saturday's Child is my highest ranked story, while Agnes of God is actually my lowest. If the story achieves what the reader expects, I doubt any of them care whether it was written by man or woman.
 
Whether writing in first or third person, or from the perspective of a male or a female, the most important thing is to get inside the mind of your character and figure them out.

Most fictional works are by authors writing about things they have never actually experienced. For example, I wrote a story called 'Marissa the Mob Boss's Daughter', where the story for 95% of the time is from the perspective of the main male character a young Italian-American man named Danny, and it is set in New York in 1972. I am not an American. I wasn't born in 1972. I have never had a boss who was in the Mafia, but I did my research to work out Danny's character and bring him to life.

At the moment I'm working on a lesbian comedy-drama story set in North Carolina in the early 1960s, where the lead character is a young woman who feels left out due to a left leg damaged by polio when she was a child. Again, I'm not American, the story is set years before I was born and thankfully I have never had anything to do with polio, but I did my research to properly bring her to life and hopefully make her convincing and engaging.
 
Nothing’s wrong as long as you write it well. But a tell for a male writer is mocking up model-bodied women with enormous boobs and then giving them the emotions and logic of angry toddlers. I’m sure it reflects the average male’s ingrained misogyny, but it is a tell. When the reader starts thinking more about “what kind of writer is this?” than the story, it’s bad lit.
 
Charmolypi said:
Nothing’s wrong as long as you write it well. But a tell for a male writer is mocking up model-bodied women with enormous boobs and then giving them the emotions and logic of angry toddlers. I’m sure it reflects the average male’s ingrained misogyny, but it is a tell. When the reader starts thinking more about “what kind of writer is this?” than the story, it’s bad lit.
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Another tell is "lesbian" stories that feel like somebody wrote every sex scene as vanilla M-F and then changed the man into a woman with a strap-on. Yes, it's one of the options. No, it's not the only possibility!
 
Charmolypi said:
I’m sure it reflects the average male’s ingrained misogyny, but it is a tell.
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Wow, that's a singularly broad swathed brush... just as well for me that I'm above average or below average, depending on your point of view ;)
 
Use a name like Pat, Caroll, Leslie, etc. If you write well enough, no one will know.
 
An important target for me when writing female pov is to try an achieve as story that people would guess is written by a female author, hopefully one with 38DD tits.
 
My publisher, a woman, refused to believe I was a man based entirely on a passage I wrote about the narrator griping to herself about what kinds of underwear to pack for a weekend. I based it on the 50,436 times I’ve watched my wife decide which underwear to pack.

Hint: none of them was “frilly.”

That’s a story that worked. Small moments and details matter. For example, I’ve never met a real woman who calls her underwear anything but “underwear.” So my female narrators don’t; my male narrators feel no qualms about using words like “panties.”
 
Voboy said:
, I’ve never met a real woman who calls her underwear anything but “underwear.” So my female narrators don’t; my male narrators feel no qualms about using words like “panties.”
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I wonder if that's some sort of regional variation, because I've known a few women who refer to their undergarments as "panties." Of course, if your character is British, you'd use "knickers" which is a word you very, very seldom hear in the US.
 
jehoram said:
I wonder if that's some sort of regional variation, because I've known a few women who refer to their undergarments as "panties." Of course, if your character is British, you'd use "knickers" which is a word you very, very seldom hear in the US.
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British women might use the term knickers. But British men find the use of 'pants' for trousers slightly startling.
 
mattchat33 said:
I have been writing a new story and it is evolving into a story focusing on the female protagonist. Would it be silly to publish under my normal (obviously male) username?

Do you think having a story from the female perspective should be from a female username? Or don't you think it matters.


Matt.
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Personally I'd think it stranger if you dishonestly represented yourself as a female by creating a new account with a feminine username in order to submit a story.

Writers get to choose what voice they want to write with. That is their prerogative.
 
jehoram said:
I wonder if that's some sort of regional variation, because I've known a few women who refer to their undergarments as "panties." Of course, if your character is British, you'd use "knickers" which is a word you very, very seldom hear in the US.
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Could be an age thing, too.

I dunno.
 
oggbashan said:
British women might use the term knickers. But British men find the use of 'pants' for trousers slightly startling.
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LOL My brother found that out the hard way. He was helping his future wife in her parent's garden when they were called in for tea. He told them he would be right there but needed to change his pants first. Teresa's mother asked her, "Did he shit himself?" :D
 
SimonDoom said:
Is this true? I would never have guessed that. So there's a big audience of women (straight women, I assume) who want to read (or write) about hot gay guys getting it on with one another? I didn't know that.

I learn something new every day.
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Oh yes, you better believe there is lol. (Pilot is very much correct on this too.) I'm a straight female who writes M/M paranormal and scifi. Most of my readers are female, but I do have a few gay men who read me. One of my betas is gay. He keeps me honest lol. I started here on Lit and moved into publishing with a gay publisher (Dreamspinner Press) about seven years ago. All I read is M/M now.

Put it like this... I make more now than I did with my degree. :)
 
oggbashan said:
British women might use the term knickers. But British men find the use of 'pants' for trousers slightly startling.
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When I lived in England in the early 1970s, "knickers" was what women I knew always called them. Has the phrase gone out of vogue now? What has replaced it?

I remember a friend telling me that he'd just gotten back from a visit to Sydney, Australia. One of the sites that struck him was a factory building in the garment district with the word "knickers" prominently displayed along with the other undergarments the company made. It reminded him that he wasn't in Kansas anymore.
 
wastelandwriter said:
...also if it's first-person, don't do that thing where your female POV character is super conscious of her breasts and talks about them at great length. If it's a sex scene and something's happening to them, that's a little different obviously. But the first way to show the world you're a dude who really doesn't know how to write women is if your POV lady wakes up in the morning and her first thought is "MY BOOBS."
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LOL! That is a bit of a "tell," isn't it? I guess it would be the same if I wrote about a male character who "went down the stairs, feeling his balls swing back and forth."

(Okay there are a million things dudes need to learn about writing women but damn.)
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Ain't that the truth. But I expect it cuts both ways. I don't often write with a male first-person character, but when I do, I'm always wondering if I've got it right.
 
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