Sexy writing for men vs. women?

[8letters]

There are times when I'm reading LitE stories when I think "This is obviously a male writer". Typically, it's when the stories are so obviously a male fantasy, where women one after another throw themselves at the MMC, and the other women are fine with each new addition to the harem. I haven't noticed an equivalent "tell" for women.

 

[Abbafan]

Hello everyone. In case you recognize me from my last forum post I'm about 6k words into my first short story, which I hope to post soon

I had my boyfriend look over what I've written so far and he said, "It's very obvious you're a woman." He didn't mean it in a bad way, but apparently it was very easy to notice. I asked why and he said it's because I "focus a lot on the relationships," and I replied saying that dialogue and characters' thoughts/feelings make stories hotter, at least for me. So naturally I asked what would make a story hot for a man to read -- after all, I'm writing an M/M story and I know that category is read by lots of actual gay men, and I want them to like it too. He said something like, "Men will have something random that will get them off but they don't know what it is yet. Try and include lots of little details that someone might find hot." I'm confused as to how this is different from just pandering, and also as to...what this means in general?

Is there a discernible difference between the way men and women write in the same genre? What do men find hot in a story other than just its contents? Me confuse. Pls help. Bleh.

I'm not interested in novel length stories but I do like there to be some characterization and back and forth between the characters. I lose interest if it gets too romantic or heavy, though. I'm kind of particular, I guess. Male here, by the way.

I'm not actually that interested in the sorts of stories that fixate a lot on the measurements and characters with oversized parts, and the characters just start going at it at the drop of a hat like they do in porn films. I can get that in, well, those porn films. I do find that most of the time that kind of story tends to be written by a man, but those aren't the only ones men write or read.

 

[AWhoopsieDaisy]

Men like action and plots that have a primarily external conflict. They enjoy a vouyeristic sense of power and tend to be turned off by narratives that challenge the fantasy they want to see themselves in.

Meanwhile women tend to enjoy exploring dynamics and the characters relationships with eachother. Often finding action boring if it doesn't further develop a character.

My girlfriend once said "Skip the punching and the technobabble bullshit and give me something to goddamn CHEW on." And as a woman I've never heard a statement that resonated with me more.

Sex for the sake of spectacle is boring. If it's not exploring a power dynamic or the human condition... what's the point of writing it? This is as much art as it is porn. If it's not saying something can you really call it literature?

 

[LexxRuthless]

The axiom "you can't please everyone, so you've just got to please yourself" applies here on Literotica as much as anywhere. If your voice as an author is clearly that of a woman, then that's great. Your stories will likely resonate with readers of both sexes here as long as the writing and the story are good. There are themes you can get away with writing that a male author would likely get grief for even attempting. Also, there are a lot of really hot stories told from the female perspective that really strike a chord with male readers. We're always wondering what women are really thinking, so it hits that fantasy "spot" for a guy to read that a woman genuinely gets aroused from something he's said or done. Then again, it's probably a public service when women let guys know that some of the crap they pull really, truly isn't EVER going to work...

 

[davion2308]

There are two things working here, from where I'm standing:

1. A majority of men would prefer action-drive fiction and direct conflict. A majority of women prefer relationship dynamics and development of characters.

2. Saying that, men and women aren't two separate, distinct groups. We're all here because we like reading, we probably want more of a slow-burn compared to simply dialing up visual porn, and there's a difference between individual people and 'men/women.' Some women want action, some men want romance, we're all different so it's tough to group by simply dividing everyone into two camps and asking either/or questions.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I had my boyfriend look over what I've written so far and he said, "It's very obvious you're a woman."

Is there a discernible difference between the way men and women write in the same genre?

You might want to take a look at this site: https://www.hackerfactor.com/GenderGuesser.php#Analyze.

The claim is that the two sexes do indeed write differently and that text can be analyze to determine the sex of the writer. I found it interesting, but not conclusive.

In any case, it's your story and you should write whatever you want in whatever way you want. Have fun.

 

[SimonDoom]

You might want to take a look at this site: https://www.hackerfactor.com/GenderGuesser.php#Analyze.

The claim is that the two sexes do indeed write differently and that text can be analyze to determine the sex of the writer. I found it interesting, but not conclusive.

In any case, it's your story and you should write whatever you want in whatever way you want. Have fun.

I just plugged in a sample of my writing from one of my stories and it guessed that I was female. Since the main character in the story is female, it made me feel like I must be doing something right.

But I'm skeptical of these things.

 

[NotWise]

I just plugged in a sample of my writing from one of my stories and it guessed that I was female. Since the main character in the story is female, it made me feel like I must be doing something right.

But I'm skeptical of these things.

I've plugged a lot of text into that thing with male pov characters, female pov characters, and any other variations I could think of. I found it about as good as flipping a three-sided coin.

 

[NC_Coastal]

I often write from the female perspective. I do take on a different awareness, but I think both men and women have similar influences and urges when it comes to sex. All the dynamics surrounding that are where the differences are.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Same. I keep getting "weak male" "weak female" "maybe European?" lol.

I love playing around with things like this. I tried plugging in a few work e-mails and it identified me as 80% male (correctly) in each case, except for one mail where I was passing on negative feedback why trying to downplay its importance where it thought I was definitely female.

All my recent stories have been written in third person from either a male or female perspective and all of them came out at around 52-55% weak male informal and 45% weak female formal regardless. There were two exceptions. One where it identified me as 49% female - not a huge difference, but it was possibly relevant that in that story I had two female characters who had sections with strong angry and negative emotions. The other was a long-form joke I wrote in cod-Tolkieneque language which it identified as definitely male.

The two stories I wrote from a male first-person perspective about eight years ago both came back as male, so I don't know if my style has changes or if there is something about the perspective that skews the results.

Confused about the 'maybe European' comment as my spelling should tell it that I'm definitely British