Role-playing of authors

[gxnn]

I don't mean some of you guys in the US will find a day to have fun together.

What I mean is the authors like British writer Emily Bronte writes the story "Wuthering Heights" from the male perspective and her sister does the same when doing "Professor". Knowing their identity, it is often weird to read their stories not without some salt. I understand some of you writer of Literotica also write stories like that, giving detailed description of the feeling of a female in her orgasm or things like that but the authors themselves are males who can only experience the joy that males can have, so it is unreal.

 

[Handley_Page]

I don't mean some of you guys in the US will find a day to have fun together.

What I mean is the authors like British writer Emily Bronte writes the story "Wuthering Heights" from the male perspective and her sister does the same when doing "Professor". Knowing their identity, it is often weird to read their stories not without some salt. I understand some of you writer of Literotica also write stories like that, giving detailed description of the feeling of a female in her orgasm or things like that but the authors themselves are males who can only experience the joy that males can have, so it is unreal.

Sorry, but I have to wonder who is recommending these books to you.
There's also the problem of the translator and in which language you read it.
Good Luck

 

[oggbashan]

The original post makes the mistake that authors can't gain knowledge from talking to people of the other sex.

Authors learn from experience and from other people's experiences, and, of course, by reading.

Most pre-modern authors would have read widely particularly in the classics of Greek and Roman literature but also in other languages. Many would have read those books in the original language. The poet Keats was an exception. He had never appreciated Homer until it was published in a translation by Chapman.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2010/jan/22/chapman-s-homer-john-keats

If an author doesn't know? The answer is research. With the internet it is much easier to find information than it was in the 19th or early 20th Century.

 

[ElectricBlue]

It might be a challenge for men to write convincing women and vice versa, but it can be done, and done well.

But as Handley Page notes, you're trying to understand English literature by studying nineteenth century novels - and one assumes you're trying to understand the erotic elements. But your examples were written 150 - 200 years ago, which is going to give you a very odd perception.

Perhaps you should find some literature from the twentieth or twenty-first century, if it's erotica you're interested in?

 

[MelissaBaby]

I write from both male and female perspectives. My default assumption is that people are people. When I am unsure about something specific, I ask my husband. Sometimes, that entails some very interesting research. (How does THAT feel?

 

[MelissaBaby]

It might be a challenge for men to write convincing women and vice versa, but it can be done, and done well.

Here's a thought. Create well rounded, believable characters. You'll know what they think and feel, regardless of gender.

 

[sweettalk4u]

what a coincidence. I just wrote a story from the female perspective and I don't think I've done that before

 

[SimonDoom]

Anytime you write a story from the perspective of someone different from yourself, whether male/female, black/white, rich/poor, urban/rural, educated/ignorant there is the risk that you will miss something in properly rendering their perspective. It's not a reason not to try. Authors have been doing it forever, with success.

I enjoy writing stories from a woman's perspective. I've gotten some good feedback to some of those stories as well.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Here's a thought. Create well rounded, believable characters. You'll know what they think and feel, regardless of gender.

Exactly. And when they start writing themselves, it's the writer's job to keep up.

 

[gxnn]

Sorry, but I have to wonder who is recommending these books to you.
There's also the problem of the translator and in which language you read it.
Good Luck

I read the novels in their original language, that is, English, but as I told earlier in other posts, that is a foreign language to me.

It might be a challenge for men to write convincing women and vice versa, but it can be done, and done well.

But as Handley Page notes, you're trying to understand English literature by studying nineteenth century novels - and one assumes you're trying to understand the erotic elements. But your examples were written 150 - 200 years ago, which is going to give you a very odd perception.

Perhaps you should find some literature from the twentieth or twenty-first century, if it's erotica you're interested in?

I much appreciate your replies in my threads, which are very helpful. I like to have exchanges with you and others about the skills of writing, and the questions I ask are the true feeling of myself. I have also read quite a lot of erotic works at this website and have learned a lot that cannot be taught in the classrooms of English language back in China.We do not have the same resources of erotic literature or contents in this respect because our government has set up a firewall to stop our access to many good stuffs online. So please tolerate my schoolboy level opinions that sound like a joke to you all.

 

[sweettalk4u]

so very true and then all you have to do as a writer is write what they do. Actors enjoy playing different roles in the same way writers like writing from different perspectives. Sexually it's just as hot for me.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Female perspective? I've done that and my main source was my wife of 46 years. When you're together that long you kind of get to know what is going on in her head and with her body as she experiences things you do to her. If you don't, ask questions. Lots of questions.

I have also talked to other women in our lives. I am also well read and well traveled. My travels to other places started when I was 22, shortly after I was married, and continued right up until present day.

 

[sweettalk4u]

Can’t wait to read them

 

[sweettalk4u]

Can’t wait to read yours!

 

[Handley_Page]

I write from both male and female perspectives. My default assumption is that people are people. When I am unsure about something specific, I ask my husband. Sometimes, that entails some very interesting research. (How does THAT feel?

You can almost here the smile with that line.
Welcome back Mel.

 

[ElectricBlue]

We do not have the same resources of erotic literature or contents in this respect because our government has set up a firewall to stop our access to many good stuffs online. So please tolerate my schoolboy level opinions that sound like a joke to you all.

I don't think anybody is mocking your views or questions, we're just suggesting that classical nineteenth century literature might not be the best choice when it comes down to understanding erotica.

For some "classic" twentieth century erotica, you could read Anais Nin (Delta of Venus and Little Birds are two collections of her short stories), Pauline Reage (Story of O). D.H.Lawrence has novels drenched in symbolism, and also deep insight into English class between the wars - Lady Chatterley's Lover was ground-breaking in its day. Post WW2, Erica Jong's Fear of Flying was an important woman's voice in erotica, Hubert Selby's Last Exit to Brooklyn is graphic and brutal, but has one of the first credible depictions of a transvestite character that I can think of.

I suppose it depends what you're looking for, in terms of studying erotica in literature - the twentieth century might be a better place to start, though.

I'm a bit confused - you can access Literotica, but you can't access some twentieth century novels? But be careful how you reply to that, for goodness sake .

 

[Bramblethorn]

I don't mean some of you guys in the US will find a day to have fun together.

What I mean is the authors like British writer Emily Bronte writes the story "Wuthering Heights" from the male perspective and her sister does the same when doing "Professor". Knowing their identity, it is often weird to read their stories not without some salt. I understand some of you writer of Literotica also write stories like that, giving detailed description of the feeling of a female in her orgasm or things like that but the authors themselves are males who can only experience the joy that males can have, so it is unreal.

Pretty much all fiction is roleplaying, though. Rich people write about poor people, White people write about Black people, able-bodied people write about people with disabilities, insurance brokers write about submarine commanders, and so on.

Sometimes they do their research and listen to advice from the kind of people they're writing about, and do a good job. Sometimes they do it badly. But I don't think a woman writing male perspectives, or vice versa, is inherently more of a stretch than these other things that happen all the time in fiction.

 

[KeithD]

Anytime you write a story from the perspective of someone different from yourself, whether male/female, black/white, rich/poor, urban/rural, educated/ignorant there is the risk that you will miss something in properly rendering their perspective. It's not a reason not to try. Authors have been doing it forever, with success.

I enjoy writing stories from a woman's perspective. I've gotten some good feedback to some of those stories as well.

But then the folks in those categories don't all have one, uniform, category-specific perspective.

 

[LupusDei]

I will go even further and claim that any fiction is role play, and even autobiography to an extend: if I was to write now about my high school years, it will be inevitably my 40+ self reflecting about a teenager experiences. I very much know that even my diary of that time isn't honest to the letter, because I would never write down a world without thinking that basically anyone may read it at some point (well, that's what growing up during collapse of soviet union does to political teen).

 

[KeithD]

I will go even further and claim that any fiction is role play,

My own mental approach to writing it certainly involves a form of role-playing in my mind.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Pretty much all fiction is roleplaying, though. Rich people write about poor people, White people write about Black people, able-bodied people write about people with disabilities, insurance brokers write about submarine commanders, and so on.

(and somehow I missed that SimonDoom had already made this point, apologies!)

 

[gxnn]

I'm a bit confused - you can access Literotica, but you can't access some twentieth century novels? But be careful how you reply to that, for goodness sake .

As a rule, it looks contradictory, but it is true, and I think the firewall set up by our government use sensitive words to screen erotic things, Literotica is a word that the machine cannot read, perhaps, I can even access to other erotic sites too, but other good sites like BBC, New York Times, Economist, etc, have been out of our reach. Many people in China use VPN to access to Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, but it is illegal.

I will go even further and claim that any fiction is role play, and even autobiography to an extend: if I was to write now about my high school years, it will be inevitably my 40+ self reflecting about a teenager experiences. I very much know that even my diary of that time isn't honest to the letter, because I would never write down a world without thinking that basically anyone may read it at some point (well, that's what growing up during collapse of soviet union does to political teen).

Yeah, I agree with you, the diary I wrote in high school time are made up, that means, most of the contents are true, but the details have something added or deleted because I have to consider the potential reader, who might be my children or friends, it is necessary to leave a good impression on them, so something like masturbation cannot be recorded in black and white, but the thinking in my head of how to do good deeds for the public is well illustrated with my poor writing skill and bad choice of words.

 

[ElectricBlue]

As a rule, it looks contradictory, but it is true, and I think the firewall set up by our government use sensitive words to screen erotic things, Literotica is a word that the machine cannot read, perhaps, I can even access to other erotic sites too, but other good sites like BBC, New York Times, Economist, etc, have been out of our reach. Many people in China use VPN to access to Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, but it is illegal.

Wow! That's extraordinary. I would never have guessed that. Thanks for clarifying.

Perhaps Literotica, being such old school technology, gets through because of the vast amount of content - it just swamps those firewalls! Subversion by a thousand strokes, a thousand orgasms - George Orwell never thought of that.

 

[Oblimo]

Difference in the experience of orgasm between the sexes is more a trope of fiction than fact.

There’s a pretty famous study, conducted in 1976, that found that women and men describe the experience of orgasm using essential the same language and metaphors:

It has generally been assumed that a male's experience of orgasm is different from a female's experience of orgasm. In this study, a questionnaire consisting of 48 descriptions of orgasm (24 male and 24 female) was submitted to 70 judges. These professionals (obstetrician-gynecologists, psychologists, and medical students) were to sex-identify the descriptions to discover whether sex differences could be detected. The judges could not correctly identify the sex of the person describing an orgasm. Furthermore, none of the three professional groups represented in the sample of judges did better than any of the other groups. Male judges did no better than female judges and vice versa.These findings suggest that the experience of orgasm for males and females is essentially the same.

Vance, E.B. & Wagner, N.N. Arch Sex Behav (1976) 5: 87. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01542242

 

[Oblimo]

I don't think anybody is mocking your views or questions, we're just suggesting that classical nineteenth century literature might not be the best choice when it comes down to understanding erotica.

Did you just diss The Memoirs of Fanny Hill?!

Oh wait, that’s 18th Century.