Female Characterizations

JackLuis

Literotica Guru
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Do you ever get tired of Blond Bimbos? How about Vivacious Redheads? (Well, not really but that is just me. :eek:)

How about a RL female lead? A strong woman on the side of right and truth, beauty?
One that tells the actual truth?
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Pretty, :cool: But she has a mouth on her too! :D She called out Mitch.
Actualy she was a little more reserved than Wonkette's Rebecca Schoenkopf. Below
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Rebecca is kind of Milf'y too, also.:D

And before the Pilot get all fluffy about politics on porn, My point is :
Why aren't there more strong women, and I don't mean Dominatrix types, but women of character used as characters?

I grew up in a sea of women, outnumbered six to three in my immediate family, and raised by a woman who was sweet as spice but an absolute terror if not reasoned with, and she knew how to use a razor strap, when she was adamant! I know about strong willed women.

I suppose that it is because it threatens the "Male Fantasy" of masculine supremacy?

Sub script
However compare Alison to HRHC, or Liz Warren and who do you think would win in 2016?
 
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I'm not a fan of giggling bimbos. But I'm not really a fan of tough girls, either. I guess I find neither very representative of... me?

Surely there has to be some middle ground. Like female characters who sometimes get shy and insecure and don't always know the right thing to say. They get scared. They make mistakes. They get angry and moody and sometimes act like a bitch for no good reason. They have real baggage, problems, doubts, insecurities, vulnerabilities, and pet peeves, and bonus points if none of the above have anything to do with men and if men aren't the magical solution.

But honestly, on Lit I'd settle for female characters who aren't automatically drop-dead gorgeous.
 
I'm not a fan of giggling bimbos. But I'm not really a fan of tough girls, either. I guess I find neither very representative of... me?

Surely there has to be some middle ground. Like female characters who sometimes get shy and insecure and don't always know the right thing to say. They get scared. They make mistakes. They get angry and moody and sometimes act like a bitch for no good reason. They have real baggage, problems, doubts, insecurities, vulnerabilities, and pet peeves, and bonus points if none of the above have anything to do with men and if men aren't the magical solution.

But honestly, on Lit I'd settle for female characters who aren't automatically drop-dead gorgeous.

Now this is a good point because while reading this it occurred to me there are not a lot of mid-way characters, either they are bimbo's or helpless ditzes or total "tough chick" ass kickers or crazy Domme's

I think its hard to capture your examples of human(not just female, but human frailty) and not end up with a weak needy character and on the other side show a core of steel without being the uber bitch.

Interesting.

I have done non "drop dead gorgeous", but that could be because I have always had a thing for those girl next door types myself.
 
Now this is a good point because while reading this it occurred to me there are not a lot of mid-way characters, either they are bimbo's or helpless ditzes or total "tough chick" ass kickers or crazy Domme's

I think its hard to capture your examples of human(not just female, but human frailty) and not end up with a weak needy character and on the other side show a core of steel without being the uber bitch.

Interesting.

I have done non "drop dead gorgeous", but that could be because I have always had a thing for those girl next door types myself.

Moments of weakness go a long way. The woman in charge of a large family, say, who keeps everything running smoothly, but then that one day she's fed up and lashes out at her kids and immediately regrets it. That's how real women act, isn't it?

So do your girls next door ever have too-big ears? Bad hair? Tits too small with hips too big? Gaps between their front teeth?

I guess, in general, flaws are what make a character real to me.
 
I'm not a fan of giggling bimbos. But I'm not really a fan of tough girls, either. I guess I find neither very representative of... me?

Surely there has to be some middle ground. Like female characters who sometimes get shy and insecure and don't always know the right thing to say. They get scared. They make mistakes. They get angry and moody and sometimes act like a bitch for no good reason. They have real baggage, problems, doubts, insecurities, vulnerabilities, and pet peeves, and bonus points if none of the above have anything to do with men and if men aren't the magical solution.

But honestly, on Lit I'd settle for female characters who aren't automatically drop-dead gorgeous.

I'm not a fan of the extremes either, and I think my female characters represent that. They're just ... people. People with issues, with happy times and sad times, who have problems and try to deal with them, not always successfully but as best they can. I like to think my female characters occupy the middle ground you mention.
 
Actually, none of my female characters are or would not be considered bimbos. In some cases I have portrayed them as kick ass kind of women, but the situation called for it. When the situation didn't call for it, they weren't.

I really don't care for the ditsy blond. I like my women to be smart and loving. First I want to have a conversation then a relationship.

None of the women in any of my current works on Lit portray women as airheads.
 
I'm not a fan of the extremes either, and I think my female characters represent that. They're just ... people. People with issues, with happy times and sad times, who have problems and try to deal with them, not always successfully but as best they can. I like to think my female characters occupy the middle ground you mention.

Most of my characters of all genders are based on, and (hopefully) behave like, actual people. All have strengths, weaknesses, quirks, and yes, issues. Most are somewhat competent in at least one mundane area. Few are deliberate heroes, villains, or victims. Few men are dominant assholes. Few women are fainting violets. (Most all tend to be fit and attractive -- but hey, this is erotica.) None are closely-measured freaks with outrageous anatomies and personalities, except in satire. I try to avoid cartoons -- unless it's a cartoon story. Real life is full of middle ground.
 
Busty blonde bomb-shells are like ninjas and pirates - they can make any story better :)

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I worked with 1000s of women, have 5 sisters, and 3 daughters. I know their common traits and practices to a tee. True, some are black swans, and a few soar like eagles, but most are dodos and turkeys capable of every outrage imaginable.
 
I agree that there is often a lack of character description and I suspect it's not just for females. Partly this is because there is a trade-off between "getting to the point" and spending page after page to build up the character, something I struggle with myself.

That said, I really appreciate when an author has made an effort make the characters feel real. It makes it so much more sexy when that character does something outrageous and start acting slutty, submissive, dominating, exhibitionistic etc. Sure, it's all fantasies, but I like to imagine that the story could happen in real life.
 
I just gotta tell ya this guys - especially now that I actually took a look at the pics in the op's first entry here...

Most women you see who appear 'hot' or whatever on television or in movies or on that red carpet - do not look a whole lot different beneath all the make up, to the pics in the first entry. Make up artists are constantly on set or around the place and they make a lot of difference to what you finally end up seeing.

'Real women?' They're all real.

The only thing nowadays is that you nearly won't recognize a lot of them if you saw them in rl because of the amount of 'photoshop' work that goes into the pics.

If anything, in my view, it is the personalities that need the work-overs today more than anything else.

What you're really talking about when you say strong, real women - is to do with the presence of an identifiable personality.

I think there is a strong point the op has to do with trying to include indications of a real personality within the erotic story context. Why not? And frankly, it WOULD make the erotic parts, more EROTIC.
 
I once had an editor who reckoned that 'the majority of interesting characters - both male and female - are bad, sad, or mad. Just don't overdo it.'
 
Surely there has to be some middle ground. Like female characters who sometimes get shy and insecure and don't always know the right thing to say. They get scared. They make mistakes. They get angry and moody and sometimes act like a bitch for no good reason. They have real baggage, problems, doubts, insecurities, vulnerabilities, and pet peeves, and bonus points if none of the above have anything to do with men and if men aren't the magical solution.

Yep. One of the ones that really bugs me is when a writer talks a lot about how their female character is strong and independent and tough... just so they can get to "and then she forgets all that when she lays eyes on my hero, because that's how awesome he is!"
 
Yep. One of the ones that really bugs me is when a writer talks a lot about how their female character is strong and independent and tough... just so they can get to "and then she forgets all that when she lays eyes on my hero, because that's how awesome he is!"

I hate that cliché. :) One of my favorite scenes to write was in an Nonhuman story, where the alpha guy was expecting the heroine to just kind of fall for him and she shut him down.
 
So it may sound a bit presumptuous, but I'm really proud of the women in my stories. It's something I try hard with. There's always room for criticism, and in hindsight there are things I wish I'd done differently, but I work hard at gender balance. I listen to the critiques of movies and TV and books regarding gender, and I try to incorporate that. Every time I hear a woman say she likes my books -- erotic or non-erotic sci-fi -- I feel like I just won at writing. It's easy to categorize my stuff as "male fantasy," and I try hard to make it much more than that. I'm just well aware that sometimes the label is all anyone will see.

I put out the sequel to my sci-fi book just a couple of weeks ago. The novels have a young male lead, but the hands-down scariest and deadliest character is a woman named Gunnery Sergeant Janeka. I've generally had great reviews but one of the complaints stuck with me: it complained that I wrote her as a man, and claimed that I only labeled her as a woman (and another character as a homosexual male) as a "Token Diversity" move. It's frustrating, because one really shouldn't engage in any sort of dialogue there, but I wanted to tell that reviewer: No, I didn't write her as a man in a woman's body. I wrote her as a kick-ass Gunnery Sergeant. I'm sorry you can't tell the difference.

It's even more of a minefield in erotica, because you're dealing with intimacy and kinks that not everyone appreciates. My first series on Literotica, "Angels, Demons and Alex" was about a young guy involved with a world-weary succubus and a coarse, foul-mouthed lady angel. It did really well here, but in hindsight, there are things I wish I'd done differently. I put the succubus in a magically-enforced dom/sub relationship with the guy (who was morally uncomfortable with it) mostly because I wanted a good reason why she wouldn't just eat his face before she got to know him. Looking back, I wish I had come up with something else. Regardless, she has all her own agency even apart from that d/s thing and she does what she does for her own reasons. Their d/s relationship only goes as far as kinks and sex play, but it's really easy for someone to see that label in the first couple chapters and decide they know how the whole story (now a novel) is gonna go, and some readers probably never see how it's the succubus calling most of the shots all along...and how the power exchange is more about intimacy and trust than it is about any sort of Alpha Male fantasy bullshit.

I dunno. I could go on at length about this sort of thing, because I give it a lot of thought. Nor could I pretend to know all there is to know. Sooner or later someone will point out whatever the major gender failure is in my new book and I'll be shocked and feel awful for missing it.

But for what it's worth: that giggling, busty blonde with the high-pitched voice and perfect nails is a "real" woman, too, just like all the rest. She probably doesn't see herself as ditzy. There's every chance that a given person who gets to know her wouldn't see her that way, either. And she's probably really tired of people assuming she's a tramp just because of her chest, just like less spectacular women are probably tired of people assuming they can't get dates. Turns out it's a very wide world out there.
 
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Yep. One of the ones that really bugs me is when a writer talks a lot about how their female character is strong and independent and tough... just so they can get to "and then she forgets all that when she lays eyes on my hero, because that's how awesome he is!"

I've never met a female who wont crash and burn if her support system collapses. Scarlett O'Hara is a myth.
 
I awoke this morning to start my sixty-ninth year of existence. As my father said, "Every day I wake up is a good day."

When I was reminded of this by my wife of forty years, with a card and a kiss, my mood improved. enough so that I felt eager to see what the news had to offer.

While losing my initial optimism reading about the Ukraine crisis, I was pleasantly surprised by a click-bait headline.


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Now I generally give about 0.00437 Fucks about what Faux has to say, but Beyonce without pants!

now the story isn't much, Douchy looses his shit about derp, What's new? but I thought I check out the video of Beyonce at the MTV Awards. It was research, no really!

I have been plotting a Mesopotamian romance, that needed a scene of a just elevated concubine dancing for her new Lord. So since I know fuck all about music or dance in Akkad, circa 2330 BCE, I thought I'd see if Beyonce could give me some ideas?

The clip says it's HD and is about six minutes, enough she works up a 'glow.' I liked her sparkly suit and some of the other dancers were exotic enough to pass for Mesopotamian Concubines, I'll have to watch it a few more times.:)

Anyway, I wasn't able to really understand the lyrics, I can't hear shit anymore, the result of a misspent youth so will try to get more, but I was able to read the screen behind her. "Something, something... FEMINIST!"

How can a woman be a feminist with out pants?

Just the plot foil I was looking for!:D
 
In Blood of the Clans, one of my lead characters, Arabella MacDonald, is a 5'4", 38DD, 30, 38 redhead and is considered one of the most attractive and desirable women. She is a Chieftess of her Clan and has run her land and people with a fierceness of pride in them. She has sat as an equal with other chiefs in political and trade issues and wielded her sword like any other warrior and beheaded men without thought or remorse.
She has a strong love of cock and pleasuring a man with her body in ways most women would never imagine. She cheats on her fiancé and becomes pregnant with her lover's child and keeps it secret.
For all her 'unpleasant traits', she is well loved by readers and forgiven for her transgressions, just because of the way I portrayed her and set up the events with the emotional impact of the feelings involved.
Even your 'good' characters have bad traits and that's what makes them real to people.
 
In Blood of the Clans, one of my lead characters, Arabella MacDonald, is a 5'4", 38DD, 30, 38 redhead and is considered one of the most attractive and desirable women. She is a Chieftess of her Clan and has run her land and people with a fierceness of pride in them. She has sat as an equal with other chiefs in political and trade issues and wielded her sword like any other warrior and beheaded men without thought or remorse.
She has a strong love of cock and pleasuring a man with her body in ways most women would never imagine. She cheats on her fiancé and becomes pregnant with her lover's child and keeps it secret.
For all her 'unpleasant traits', she is well loved by readers and forgiven for her transgressions, just because of the way I portrayed her and set up the events with the emotional impact of the feelings involved.
Even your 'good' characters have bad traits and that's what makes them real to people.

Your description of her reminds me a little of Hallgerd Hoskuldsdottir from Njals Saga. She does awful things--steals, gets people killed--but in spite of (or maybe because of) that, she's the sexiest and most desirable woman in all of Iceland. She has no trouble finding a new husband after getting the last one killed. It would be fun to do a pornographic version of her.
 
Busty blonde bomb-shells are like ninjas and pirates - they can make any story better :)

The last story I did had both pirates and a non-standard female protag. :) I didn't want to make her giggles and tits. She's more of a book nerd and a priss to begin with, but by the end she gets to kick ass.

And the short one I'm working on now (a spin-off from that pirate one above), the female lead has a face covered in small-pox scars, and the male love interest is bald and missing a leg.

So some people are out here doing something different! Which I can also clearly see from many others posting in this thread: authors wanting to buck the stereotypes. :)
 
How about a real life fem fatal?


What? In a nut shell:

Got that? China identifies grifty American security contractor whose CEO is best buddies with Joe Arpaio’s #2. China plants glamourous female agent Grace Li to seduce CEO who is best buddies with Joe Arpaio’s #2. Glamorous female agent Grace Li completes her honey pot mission, then suggests that this Fan guy would be a really great hire. CEO trusts Super Spy Grace Li and hires this Fan guy, who turns out to be Super Hacker Lizhong Fan. And when Fan runs back to China with all the secrets, Joe Arpaio’s #2 tries to sweep it all under the rug.

Sexy Chinese Spy, now there's a Dragon-bunny! :D
 
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