The female perspective.

[KeithD]

Was there an author that used to/does post here that was a straight male and wrote a gay male story? Or was I seeing things, it was when I joined these forums.

In a related realm, I've found that most writers of gay male stories are straight women. (And my best-selling pen name in the marketplace writes light lesbian.)

 

[Ginlover]

In a related realm, I've found that most writers of gay male stories are straight women. (And my best-selling pen name in the marketplace writes light lesbian.)

The main readers of female written gay erotica is straight women.

 

[KeithD]

The main readers of female written gay erotica is straight women.

From what I've observed in commenting, the main readers of gay and bi male-written gay erotica are also straight women.

 

[MColton84]

Was there an author that used to/does post here that was a straight male and wrote a gay male story? Or was I seeing things, it was when I joined these forums.

I see myself as a straight man in a loving marriage. I try to write a little something for everyone. Mostly for the sake of personal growth, but ultimately because I don't believe that gender should play a role in love, at least not idealistically.

 

[MColton84]

The main readers of female written gay erotica is straight women.

From what I've observed in commenting, the main readers of gay and bi male-written gay erotica is also straight women.

Fascinating. I wouldn't have guessed.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Was there an author that used to/does post here that was a straight male and wrote a gay male story? Or was I seeing things, it was when I joined these forums.

I've written a collaborative GM story with a bi guy. I'm straight, he's bi, we both pushed boundaries. Mostly women liked the result:
https://www.literotica.com/beta/s/the-floating-world-pt-04-1

 

[Ginlover]

Fascinating. I wouldn't have guessed.

It's such a big phenomena there are universities studying why women are reading that particular genre

 

[SimonDoom]

From what I've observed in commenting, the main readers of gay and bi male-written gay erotica is also straight women.

Why do you think this is so? Have you corresponded with readers about this? It's interesting.

 

[JJA122]

It's called Yaoi in Japan.

I see myself as a straight man in a loving marriage. I try to write a little something for everyone. Mostly for the sake of personal growth, but ultimately because I don't believe that gender should play a role in love, at least not idealistically.

That's me as well, apart from the marriage bit. I hope to maybe one day, year, decade, spin a story about a years long bromance I had with a bi friend.

 

[Ginlover]

Why do you think this is so? Have you corresponded with readers about this? It's interesting.

I’ll give this a go from what I’ve researched. I should probably start with I have a big issue with women writing MM romance but I’ll try and not be too one sided

Female readers don’t in the majority like strong powerful female characters. Male perspective films and books is supposed to be the cause. So to remove a character type (a strong woman) makes the genre more appealing.

Women hate the stereotypical weak female needing rescuing character. Again I’m talking generalisation, not every female reader. In a MM romance there is no stereotypical stumbling female, the strong man can catch as she falls. Lots of women don’t like that stereotype.

So MM erotica means they can enjoy two equal characters, who might take turns leading or being more powerful without suspending their disbelief of a female character they don’t like or think is real

Women love to know what a man is thinking — hell, I’ll admit to spending quality time trying to workout what a male partner wants, likes or needs. Cliche but men are from Mars stuff. Now the female reader gets inside the male characters heads because we have removed any women from the main story. So they read and feel they understand men, what they want and feel in sex, love and romance.

I know this is about readers but I can’t avoid adding when women write slash or MM erotica they usually make the male characters exceptionally stereotypical female in their emotions and actions. The male lead is consumed with their emotions, ideally they will cry at some point in the story. But the reader will love it as gay men are so much more in touch with their feelings than straight men so it is believable to the readers as the MM romance blossoms and there is lots of hugging and tears (remember I’m stereotyping this response).

We can also remove the Mary Sue perfect women as a character who could make the female reader feel challenged or not good enough.

Why I HATE female written gay erotica is for all those reasons, because men are emotional, feeling entities — sexuality doesn’t define it. Woman can be amazing, strong and powerful. And heterosexual partners can be equals with power shifting backwards and forwards. Female written slash doesn’t support any of that reality.

But the thing I find most offences is the logistics. Positions that would require extreme flexibility or are impossible. A male orgasm is different from a female one. (As an aside I loath male written lesbian sex too as they often try and make the women experience a male orgasm, let women enjoy their own orgasm without suggesting they need a penis to enjoy sex).

A friend of mine is now a gay porn star and I got him to read some slash. He was far better humoured than me and just thought it was hilarious rather than offensive. But he agreed the actual sex scenes were not even close to reality or possibility.

My views aside it’s a massive and profitable genre in fiction.

 

[KeithD]

Why do you think this is so? Have you corresponded with readers about this? It's interesting.

I haven't pursued it much. My target audience (for my gay stories--I write most the way across the board in various names) is the actively gay (or bi; I'm bi, but the market for bi is limited and virtually nonexistent here at Literotica) man, but it's fine with me if women readers read my stories. From what I gather, their interest separates largely in two directions--stories with men who have the sensitivities they wished they encountered more in real life, and the physical--men with beautiful bodies, using them, with two of them using them together being double the pleasure to contemplate in some women's minds. It would be the latter who would follow my stories, I think.

The only time I get ticked with this is when a female writer of gay stories tries to tell me what I should put into my stories, in which case my response is that "this is my world, baby, not yours. Back off."

 

[SimonDoom]

I’ll give this a go from what I’ve researched. I should probably start with I have a big issue with women writing MM romance but I’ll try and not be too one sided

.

I don't understand this point of view. Shouldn't anyone be free to write anything? I'm a straight man. Is it wrong for me to write a story about a gay man? About a woman?

If we take this principle seriously then don't we forbid anyone from writing anything about anyone different from oneself? That isn't an acceptable principle, is it?

I have ideas for stories about gay male sex and lesbian sex and look forward to writing them at some point. I don't understand the point of view that it's wrong for me to do so.

 

[Ginlover]

I don't understand this point of view. Shouldn't anyone be free to write anything? I'm a straight man. Is it wrong for me to write a story about a gay man? About a woman?

If we take this principle seriously then don't we forbid anyone from writing anything about anyone different from oneself? That isn't an acceptable principle, is it?

I have ideas for stories about gay male sex and lesbian sex and look forward to writing them at some point. I don't understand the point of view that it's wrong for me to do so.

That’s not what I’ve said. I did go on to explain the details.
I write male first person and take a lot of time to try and make sure my character is believable and realistic. If a woman writes gay erotica as if it is two women fucking but puts them in male bodies with penises but then doesn’t call it gender swap erotica then I think it is derogatory to men. The reverse is true if I see badly written women by men. Which is where this thread started. The male author writing about a women spending ten minutes looking in the mirror looking at her tits and narrating about them as if she was a man.

I’m fully in support of anyone writing any sexuality or sex but if it is not a fantasy and the characters are meant to be believable human beings I do think it’s important to do the research and write genuinely.

 

[KeithD]

(As an aside I loath male written lesbian sex too as they often try and make the women experience a male orgasm, let women enjoy their own orgasm without suggesting they need a penis to enjoy sex).

Since my best-selling genre in the marketplace is light lesbian, I probably should comment on this. Mine are "light" lesbian because they make no effort to capture what goes on between the sheets. The characters in my lesbian stories have sex, but I don't depict it--largely for the reason Ginlover covers. I don't try to depict what I haven't experienced. My lesbian stories, which are mysteries, have female couples operating together with high competence and respect in the larger society. To the extent the lesbian angle comes into the story, it's on the emotional and issues of relationship level, not the physical--while making clear that the physical connection is strong.

I might note that among my Amazon comments on this series of mystery novellas are a few "I wish the sex was covered in more detail" comments.

How did I come to write light lesbian? When the e-book revolution was beginning, I was (in my semiretirement career) a professional publishing consultant in addition to my own writing, with a business and a Writer's Digest Web site. I had seen the e-book revolution as an opportunity to serve genres the print industry wasn't fully serving, and to be able to write and consult about that, I looked for a genre to write in and study the results. I picked light lesbian mystery novellas. It turned out to be a good pick.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I’m fully in support of anyone writing any sexuality or sex but if it is not a fantasy and the characters are meant to be believable human beings I do think it’s important to do the research and write genuinely.

In a way, all erotica is fantasy. I don't find unrealistic characters problematic in themselves and the men in women's emotional hurt/comfort reassuring acceptance stories are no more or less related to reality than the 'lesbians' in porn videos for straight men, fulfilling their fantasies.

That said, as soon as you have characters interacting with the real world it provides scope for cocking up and resulting in an implausible story. One reason to read fanfic is that at least you know the character so there is characterisation even if the author didn't include it, but it's also where many teenagers and young adults start writing, which means it's often terrible, both from a literary POV and because they know little of relationships and sex.

Having read a lot of terrible erotica over the last 25 years, the worse it is the more obvious it is whether it was a man or woman who wrote it.

Women's bad m/m stories end up on AO3, have a man falling for another man for the first time, and have men obsessing out loud whether they are in a relationship yet and fretting to their male partner about how they don't deserve him.

'Are we dating,' said James Bond never... and don't get me started on how Q would never 'fix blueberry scones' for breakfast for him!

Mens' bad m/m stories end up on Lit if they are remotely consensual or otherwise alt.sex.stories, have a guy sucking cock for the first time, starting out a bit homophobic but is unexpectedly confronted with a large penis ordered to suck and instantly realises this is wonderful, there is forcing it down the throat, cum everywhere, and generally a dismissive tone and power differential.

Once a story climbs out of either of these worst-case pits, it's harder to tell for sure whether a man or woman wrote it - men have emotions after all, just don't generally share them so easily and their fears are around different things. Male novelists write 'analyses of the human condition' which I'm sure other men claim is tedious emotional crap that gets in the way of the action.

I posted my first m/m story on Lit this year and would guess the main clue the author is female is there's a woman who narrates a large part of the story - some guys didnt like it and said women shouldn't write gay porn and u suck at it, but people who got beyond the first chapter (which I'd started as an experiment writing Irish dialect, so I knew it would put loads of readers off) seemed to really like it.

I don't know the sex of any of the commenters but I would guess that "I love these guys! Thank you for writing!" is female and "Hot. needs another scene where Dan begs Ade to fuck him" is male. If anyone wants to give polite feedback on any of the sex scenes, please do.

 

[AlexBailey]

Reading through this thread leaves me feeling more queer than ever.

It makes me think back to high school, before I was willing to acknowledge that I was anything other than cis/straight. I was very attracted to tomboys and I was the gushy emotional one in the relationships. The girlfriend I went to the prom with was captain of the cheerleading squad and was a total alpha. I was her cute femme boyfriend that didn't pressure her into sex and treated her like a queen. She and her friends used to openly say how I was the perfect boyfriend because I didn't mind going shopping with them or hanging out doing girl-stuff... She eventually dumped me shortly before graduation by putting a cassette tape of 'Freebird' in the stereo deck of my classic car and asked me to 'listen to the words'. Lol. I cried.

 

[ElectricBlue]

She eventually dumped me shortly before graduation by putting a cassette tape of 'Freebird' in the stereo deck of my classic car and asked me to 'listen to the words'. Lol. I cried.

Brutal technique, good taste in music .

 

[KeithD]

Let me just note that the purpose of erotica is to sexually arouse. That doesn't mean it has to be totally or clinically realistic. Arousal quickly moves into the fantasy realm to get its kicks.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I don't understand this point of view. Shouldn't anyone be free to write anything? I'm a straight man. Is it wrong for me to write a story about a gay man? About a woman?

It's not wrong (and Ginlover didn't say it was), but there are certain well-known failure modes that quite understandably result in lower expectations.

If we take this principle seriously then don't we forbid anyone from writing anything about anyone different from oneself? That isn't an acceptable principle, is it?

Where do you see "forbidding" mentioned in the discussion?

 

[AlexBailey]

Brutal technique, good taste in music .

Lol. Dumped by a playlist.

 

[MColton84]

Lol. Dumped by a playlist.

True story, My wife and I briefly separated (for about 3 days) after the birth of our first child. She left " These boots are made for walking(Nancy Sinatra)" playing in a voice-mail. To this day I can't allow the song to play through.

 

[ImiGirrst]

From what I've observed in commenting, the main readers of gay and bi male-written gay erotica are also straight women.

I believe there have been a number of theses written on this topic. Slash and the readers thereof have been studied quite extensively.

Fanfiction has become a folk art in its own right. In many ways, it is supplanting for profit publishing especially when you consider the horror stories that so many authors tell about how their words are compromised and distorted by editors who think they have the right to do whatever they want to a work because they have paid for it in order to get it to sell. Many writers feel they don't get paid nearly enough to have their work changed. They don't get enough financial compensation out of the publishing process to have their art mangled FUBAR. They would rather not take a dime than have to compromise their artistic integrity or waste precious time fighting when they could be creating (that would be me).

I see myself as a straight man in a loving marriage. I try to write a little something for everyone. Mostly for the sake of personal growth, but ultimately because I don't believe that gender should play a role in love, at least not idealistically.

A gay classmate of mine made one of the single most insightful observations I ever heard: You don't fall in love with a gender - you fall in love with a person.

 

[KeithD]

I believe there have been a number of theses written on this topic. Slash and the readers thereof have been studied quite extensively.

Fanfiction has become a folk art in its own right. In many ways, it is supplanting for profit publishing especially when you consider the horror stories that so many authors tell about how their words are compromised and distorted by editors who think they have the right to do whatever they want to a work because they have paid for it in order to get it to sell. Many writers feel they don't get paid nearly enough to have their work changed. They don't get enough financial compensation out of the publishing process to have their art mangled FUBAR. They would rather not take a dime than have to compromise their artistic integrity or waste precious time fighting when they could be creating (that would be me).

Sorry, I don't understand what any of this has to do with the straight women enjoying reading gay or male-perspective bi stories.

And having been a publishing house book editor (as well as a book author), I think your comments on that are highly subjective. Such horror stories from authors I have encountered in mainstream publishing houses invariably were coming from people who thought book publishing was all about the author.

 

[ImiGirrst]

Sorry, I don't understand what any of this has to do with the straight women enjoying reading gay or male-perspective bi stories.

And having been a publishing house book editor (as well as a book author), I think your comments on that are highly subjective. Such horror stories from authors I have encountered in mainstream publishing houses invariably were coming from people who thought book publishing was all about the author.

Well, Keith, it means that there are a whole bunch of academics who mine the 6 million stories on AO3 among other places that I won't list out because it's 2 am where I am right now because you are lazy to go do a google search to find the theses that I'm talking about to say that there are a whole bunch of people that are too cheap as shit to buy product from you

Ergo you have no idea how much market share you are losing for your publishing house. But buried somewhere in those thesis there might be answer. And given the fact that during Covid, AO3 went from 5 million stories to 6 million stories, and at least 300,000 of them were by straight women writing M/M slash fiction, I would think a publishing house would want to know how it was cutting into their profit margin given it was done in the course of a 3 month period.

That's why it's Germane.

But I really don't think my best at 2 am, so this is only off the top of my head, I would encourage you to do your own research into this, specifically. Mine was done 6 months ago into the topic and i'm sure there is more data on this by now

 

[KeithD]

The topics I was discussing here didn't have anything to do with slash fiction. You're being nasty as well as irrelevant to the topics on this thread I've posted to, so sayonara. Why should I research topics that are irrelevant to anything I am posting here? I'm not the least bit interested in anything you have been posting and I didn't post anything to you here before you started chewing on me so abrasively.