What do female writers think about males writing from a female POV?

[MillieDynamite]

Totally off the subject, our son, Jo, and mine, Donnie, just took his first three steps and then fell flat on his ass. Not bad. I was worried he's 14 months old, but my dad told me that's average.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Totally off the subject, our son, Jo, and mine, Donnie, just took his first three steps and then fell flat on his ass. Not bad. I was worried he's 14 months old, but my dad told me that's average.

Congrats. But quit on the "average" stuff, already, it means nothing. My kids both walked at eleven months, but I didn't talk till I wasn't three, and I'm perfectly normal...

EB notices the AH looking at him, and shrugs. You lot only know what I tell you, and it's the internet. You don't know what to believe.

As an aside, is there anything your dad knows nothing about?

 

[TheRedChamber]

Totally off the subject, our son, Jo, and mine, Donnie, just took his first three steps and then fell flat on his ass. Not bad. I was worried he's 14 months old, but my dad told me that's average.

Congrats to the little fella. As a parent, you're always worried when things don't happen at the earliest possible time and then more so when the average line goes past, but things happen when they happen. I was at work and on the phone to my wife when it happened to my daughter - "Oh my God, she's walking...she's walking...and she's down again."

 

[MillieDynamite]

Congrats. But quit on the "average" stuff, already, it means nothing. My kids both walked at eleven months, but I didn't talk till I wasn't three, and I'm perfectly normal...

EB notices the AH looking at him, and shrugs. You lot only know what I tell you, and it's the internet. You don't know what to believe.

As an aside, is there anything your dad knows nothing about?

There is much he knows nothing about. But what he knows, he shares with me. Except for how to ride horses, he's tried to share, but horses and I don't get along well.

 

[Bramblethorn]

There is much he knows nothing about. But what he knows, he shares with me. Except for how to ride horses, he's tried to share, but horses and I don't get along well.

I get along with horses very well. We have an arrangement where I don't try to sit on them, and they don't try to sit on me.

 

[Bramblethorn]

It landed, but I've never claimed not to be a bitch!

Millie's being nice here, but the thing about ironic sexism is that a lot of people have had a lifetime of dealing with the real version. Even when it's clear that it's meant as a friendly joke (and that's certainly how it read to me), it may not be the fun kind of joke for somebody with that experience.

(I knew a guy who used to take a boxing stance and throw mock-punches at people's faces, as a macho way of saying hello. Even knowing that he was friendly, and being very careful not to really hit anybody, it's really hard to suppress a defensive reaction seeing that.)

 

[ElectricBlue]

I get along with horses very well. We have an arrangement where I don't try to sit on them, and they don't try to sit on me.

That's much the same as me. I have ridden a horse, when I was twelve. I asked, "How to you make it go?" And the young sense to also ask, "how do tell it to stop?" Once those two fundamentals where resolved, we got on. Until I got off. Not a fan of your pony!

 

[MillieDynamite]

So, when I first lived with mum and dad, they have three horses. OK Bandit (called Bandit), Bandit Bob (Called bad Bob), and Bonnie Girl (called Bonnie). Bonnie as a small filly, 12 hands high, and dad rode her daily. She was gentile and he taught me the fundamentals on her. He wanted me to ride Bandit, so I could get use to a big horse. But Bandit, at 17 hands, was to big for me to get on by myself and his back was so broad my legs couldn't tuck into the stirrups.

Mum and dad were doing something away from home one day and I thought, I'll ride Bad Bob and show them I'm getting better.

When Pops rode Bad Bob, he saddled him a small stall. I did the same. Synched up the saddle, right tight. Now the thing about Bob was he was friendly and loved to be petted and fooled with, if you were on the ground. I got on his back in the stall, unhooked, and swung the gate open. Oh, my word, he went crazy, bucking, rearing up, I lasted about a 2 count and got dumped into the deeply plowed dirt of the round pen. about that time, they pulled in the drive and mum and pops bailed out and ran down to me. Only my pride was hurt.

So it turns out that Bad Bob was named Bad Bob for a reason. He was a rescue horse, he'd been badly mistreated by the people who he'd been taken from. Dad had never been able to tame him down enough for anyone who wasn't a skilled rider. To be fair, I had been told not ride Bob. I didn't ever bother to find out why. I stuck to Bonnie until dad had to sell the horses. But I wouldn't ride any horse but Bonnie every again. I don't ride horse now that there is no Bonnie Girl to ride.

 

[ShittyVoyagerEpisode]

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with writing from the perspective of a different gender, but obviously it can be hard to get right. (For what it's worth, I read one of the OP's stories (Wanting to be Wanted), and I would never have guessed a man wrote it, so you were successful!)

As a woman, I personally struggle with the man's side of the dialogue, and I've had to get extensive notes from the men in my life. Mostly, my dialogue is waaaay too wordy, especially during sex scenes.

I just today published a story told from a man's perspective, telling his version of the lady chapter. It was harder to get started, and it required way more editing, but it was ultimately a lot more satisfying. And, in this case, I was happier with the man's version of the story.

Interestingly, I also found it a lot more enjoyable to re-read this version, which might be why I like it better. (Plus, it was subjected to more editing, ha.) In real-life sex and relationships, I really enjoy knowing what my partners are thinking and feeling, so it was really fun to explore the fantasy from that perspective. I have a pretty good idea what I would experience in a given situation, so the exercise forced me to extrapolate further.

Speaking of stories told from the perspective of two characters -- this style doesn't seem to common on here (at least, not in the categories I read), whereas I've seen it a lot in published erotica. I personally like reading stories of this form, but it's definitely harder to write. And a better fit for books vs. short stories. Thoughts on this?

 

[ElectricBlue]

Speaking of stories told from the perspective of two characters -- this style doesn't seem to common on here (at least, not in the categories I read), whereas I've seen it a lot in published erotica. I personally like reading stories like that, but it's definitely harder to write. And a better fit for books vs. short stories. Thoughts on this?

Shameless self promotion - someone else wrote this about one of my stories, where I wrote both points of view (I do this a lot in my erotica):

This story wonderfully shows how third person narration can be used to convey the inner activity of two characters, even during the intricate steps of their dance. We see the evening not as we would see it in real life---where we know our own feelings but can only guess at our partner's---but privy to both sides, able to see the uncertainty and hopefulness and playfulness and arousal on both sides as flirtation turns to courtship and courtship turns to foreplay. It's two intimate stories, really, interwoven at every scene. A tour-de-force of patient, loving, doubly imagined detail.

The Floating World

 

[Voboy]

Speaking of stories told from the perspective of two characters -- this style doesn't seem to common on here (at least, not in the categories I read), whereas I've seen it a lot in published erotica. I personally like reading stories of this form, but it's definitely harder to write. And a better fit for books vs. short stories. Thoughts on this?

I'm not into that. The moment I get a hint of it, I abandon ship. It's just a personal preference thing, but if there are enough readers like me, it might help explain why it's not as common on Lit.

 

[jehoram]

Duleigh ​

If men are so in tune with women, their feelings, and the way their mind works, why do their eyes glaze over and go blank when a woman tries to talk about something that bothers her?

There's some truth to that. But it goes both ways. I wish my first two lovers had been more insistent on communicating with me about why the relationship wasn't working. And, believe me, I was listening. Now that I look back on it, both of them came from cultures where women were discouraged from communicating their feelings, and I wonder now if that was what made them attractive to me, since I had come from a home where most of the communication was detrimental to relationships.

 

[TheRedChamber]

If men are so in tune with women, their feelings, and the way their mind works, why do their eyes glaze over and go blank when a woman tries to talk about something that bothers her?

It's a self-defense mechanism. If we really start listening to what they're saying, we'll mentally start to try and solve whatever the problem is and that's rarely what is required (See here for further information). I've frequently found myself saying things like "You should quit your job, retrain as a potter and open your own craft shop in the Cotswolds. It won't be easy but I'd fully support you and we can find the money from somewhere" three subsequent nights in a week when all I needed to say was "Wow, you are so right, your job sucks"

 

[Bramblethorn]

It's a self-defense mechanism. If we really start listening to what they're saying, we'll mentally start to try and solve whatever the problem is and that's rarely what is required (See here for further information).

Even keeping in mind that the video is written by a guy, exaggerating for comedic effect in a way that makes the woman look unreasonable... AFAICT, what it's saying is that women just want a guy to listen, not to offer solutions.

That seems like the opposite of an argument for not listening! Surely the appropriate answer there is to listen, using one's powers of discernment to figure out whether this is a "solutions" conversation or a "sympathy" conversation, and then to pick the appropriate response accordingly.

I've frequently found myself saying things like "You should quit your job, retrain as a potter and open your own craft shop in the Cotswolds. It won't be easy but I'd fully support you and we can find the money from somewhere" three subsequent nights in a week when all I needed to say was "Wow, you are so right, your job sucks"

Everybody, of any gender, has times when they need solutions and times when they want sympathy. One can generalise about which gender does which more often, but those generalisations aren't terribly useful when making decisions about individual people and conversations. Trying to apply a single rule to every conversation is a non-starter; one has to read the room.

I understand that this can be challenging. I'm autistic, that kind of "read the room" skill does not come to me naturally; I've had to put in a lot of work to learn it, and I don't always get it right.

But, having put in that work, I must admit I tend to roll my eyes when I see dudes just throwing up their hands and saying "it's hard so I won't try".

(It's also a recipe for miserable relationships. Nodding one's head and saying "uh huh" and "wow that sucks" every so often can get by for a little while but sooner or later it falls apart if you weren't actually listening.)

 

[AlinaX]

Sometimes it's a problem that can't (or deliberately won't) be solved and the conversation is understood in its entirety from the first word uttered. Sometimes one's partner is the one person in the world whose advice will not be heeded, despite the compulsive need to ask them repeatedly.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Even keeping in mind that the video is written by a guy, exaggerating for comedic effect in a way that makes the woman look unreasonable... AFAICT, what it's saying is that women just want a guy to listen, not to offer solutions.

That seems like the opposite of an argument for not listening! Surely the appropriate answer there is to listen, using one's powers of discernment to figure out whether this is a "solutions" conversation or a "sympathy" conversation, and then to pick the appropriate response accordingly.

Everybody, of any gender, has times when they need solutions and times when they want sympathy. One can generalise about which gender does which more often, but those generalisations aren't terribly useful when making decisions about individual people and conversations. Trying to apply a single rule to every conversation is a non-starter; one has to read the room.

I understand that this can be challenging. I'm autistic, that kind of "read the room" skill does not come to me naturally; I've had to put in a lot of work to learn it, and I don't always get it right.

But, having put in that work, I must admit I tend to roll my eyes when I see dudes just throwing up their hands and saying "it's hard so I won't try".

(It's also a recipe for miserable relationships. Nodding one's head and saying "uh huh" and "wow that sucks" every so often can get by for a little while but sooner or later it falls apart if you weren't actually listening.

Okay, Imma just going to keep digging here, to see how low I can go.

Healthy communication is obviously very important in any relationship. There's a scale of people from the completely uncommunicative person who won't even tell their partner they got fired today, to those who overshare every little detail and annoyance in life and talk incessantly. Part of a good relationship involves figuring out a balance somewhere in the middle. Assuming a stereotypical relationship where the woman is the oversharer and the man is the undersharer, there does however often seem to be an assumption that it's the woman who is the better communicator and the man who isn't holding up their end of the relationship, and, I'd argue, that's not always the case.

With regards to the nail video, taken literally, my view of it would be that my main job as a husband would be to get the wife to an A&E as soon as possible. I'll hold her hand in the ambulance and during the operation (assuming the doctor recommends removing the nail) and give her all the sympathy she needs afterwards, but I won't just stand there and listen to her complain when she has a genuine medical issue. There's multiple examples of both myself and my wife doing the real life equivalent of this for each other all the way through our marriage, both for medical issues and other less tangible life issues.

There are also times when sympathy is the only option. Obviously if a relative has died, there's no 'solution' except to listen to your parters feelings and recollections. There are also other examples, such as a job interview gone badly, where just sympathizing they didn't get their dream job is better than anaylzing in detail what went wrong.

But then there are those times in the middle where sympathy/solution divide isn't so clear and the problem starts to come up when one partner starts to expect unlimited and unconditional sympathy even for relatively minor matters. The problem with sympathy is that it largely requires the other person to unthinkingly agree (or pretend to agree) with the other partner. You're simply not allowed to say things like:

- "I'm afraid, even from only hearing your side of the story, I think 'that bitch Mindy from HR' has the moral highground here"
- "So, let's get this straight, everything about your shitty day today stemmed from you not telling your boss 'no' in the morning? You decided, in principle, that you needed to be more assertive."
- "You appear to be assigning motives and malice to people in this conversation that you couldn't possibly know. The finance department is probably just too busy with its own concerns and are not actively trying to screw you"

Thinking about things can be draining, so often, once you've realized that this is a 'same shit, different day' conversation, I'd argue it's perfectly normal to switch off a bit. Sure a good listener may chip in with a clever or helpful question, such as "Has this even happened before?" or "Which part of the story particularly upset you?" but then that's extending the conversation further. And the key thing about these conversations is that you're not a professional psychologists, you can't just say, "Well, that's the hour up. I think we've made real progress today, see you next week." And I think every undersharer in a relationship with an oversharer has played the game in particularly egregeous conversations where they see how little they can contribute to the discussion before the other person actually notices.

The key difference between oversharers and undersharers is that, for undersharers at least, hearing about your shitty day makes us feel worse. And for a loved one, that's a trade we're often more than willing to make. If we've had a good day, then we can spend that time listening to your bad day and things balance out nicely. On the other hand, I've also had relationships where, having had an objectively far worse day than my partner, I've also been expected to give sympathy for an hour+ without having been asked how my day was. But even at times when the sympathy has been reasonably well deserved and I've been a good attentive listener, I often find myself feeling like the hour could have been better spent doing a happy activity together and bonding in a mutually positive way rather than just being talked at for a good portion of the evening, especially when it became clear that no solutions were sought.

The thing is, if I take the effort to tell my partner something about my day in detail, 9 times out of 10 it's because I think she will find it interesting or funny and make her happier (or occassionally make me look good). The 1 out of 10 time it's because I fucked up so badly that its going to affect us or I need her help. (i.e I'm now going to need to work the weekend to fix the mess I made). In those cases, sure we might have a long conversation. Taking about any problems is just going to make me feel worse. If I've had a really shitty day, then the worst I'm going to say, "I fucked up. I spend the morning fixing my fuck up. Then I got chewed out by the boss in the afternoon for my fuck up. Talking about my fuck up further will only make me feel worse. I would like to play video games for X minutes while you do something else that makes you happy." [*where X is the implied amount of time she'd talk to me about a similar issue]

To sum up, if an undersharer's eye's glaze over, think to yourself this. Is a natural response to what I've been saying a) "God, that's terrible", or b) "God, not this again." If it's A, then they really don't care for you and you should break up with them. If it's B then the communication problem might be on your side.

And halfway through typing that sentence, I heard the ting of my shovel hitting rock bottom, so I'm going to leave it there.

 

[Bramblethorn]

With regards to the nail video, taken literally, my view of it would be that my main job as a husband would be to get the wife to an A&E as soon as possible. I'll hold her hand in the ambulance and during the operation (assuming the doctor recommends removing the nail) and give her all the sympathy she needs afterwards, but I won't just stand there and listen to her complain when she has a genuine medical issue. There's multiple examples of both myself and my wife doing the real life equivalent of this for each other all the way through our marriage, both for medical issues and other less tangible life issues.

There are times like that, sure - the times when we most need help are often also the times when we're not thinking clearly and don't recognise that we need help. Sometimes being a good partner does involve making that call. As your own relationship shows, that goes in both directions; no gender has a monopoly on "stubbornly refusing to get the help they obviously need".

(I will note as an aside that when women are reluctant to seek help for a serious medical issue, that's often not about stubbornness and communication styles at all, but about previous bad experiences.)

There are also times when sympathy is the only option. Obviously if a relative has died, there's no 'solution' except to listen to your parters feelings and recollections. There are also other examples, such as a job interview gone badly, where just sympathizing they didn't get their dream job is better than anaylzing in detail what went wrong.

Not necessarily, for either of those cases.

I have more than once sat with my partner, analysing a job rejection, because that's how she needs to handle that kind of thing. She can deal with a lot of hurt if she can make sense of what happened, and understand how to prevent it from happening again. (Obviously one can't always know for sure, but she needs to at least try to understand.)

Death calls for sympathy, but there's also a ton of banal practical stuff that needs to be organised, much of it in the first few days. Having somebody step up to take care of that can be tremendously helpful.

But then there are those times in the middle where sympathy/solution divide isn't so clear and the problem starts to come up when one partner starts to expect unlimited and unconditional sympathy even for relatively minor matters. The problem with sympathy is that it largely requires the other person to unthinkingly agree (or pretend to agree) with the other partner. You're simply not allowed to say things like:

- "I'm afraid, even from only hearing your side of the story, I think 'that bitch Mindy from HR' has the moral highground here"
- "So, let's get this straight, everything about your shitty day today stemmed from you not telling your boss 'no' in the morning? You decided, in principle, that you needed to be more assertive."
- "You appear to be assigning motives and malice to people in this converstation that you couldn't possibly know. The finance department is probably just too busy with its own concerns and are not actively trying to screw you"

It really doesn't, though.

Picking out your second example here, because this is one that comes up very often in my own relationship. My partner finds it very hard to say "no" to people, which ends up being bad for her directly and then bad for me indirectly.

On a day when she's overcommitted and worn herself out, and is now exhausted and fragile, I can hug her and do some of her chores and say things like "oh no, that sounds like a lot, no wonder you're exhausted". I can acknowledge that she's feeling bad, and work to alleviate that, without getting into the post-mortem then and there.

Then later when she's in a better place to talk about things, we can have that tougher conversation about the need to set boundaries - although even then, there are far more tactful ways to bring it up than that example wording.

Those conversations aren't particularly easy or comfortable, but if I'm planning on being with somebody for several decades, papering over problems isn't a workable strategy. In the long run being able to have those conversations more than pays for the short-term discomfort.

(The other, REALLY important part, is taking every opportunity to tell her "You said no to a thing! I am so proud of you!" Positive reinforcement works far better than negative.)

But if you're tuned out and just mmm-hmming, it's really easy to miss important information like "she doesn't get along with Mindy" that leads to putting one's foot in it at a later moment.

 

[Lovecraft_Lore]

I wonder how much the plot impacts how people feel about whether the story is written by a male or female.

I wrote a story of a group of women running after a man, catching him, then having non-con sex with him.

Then I re-posted that story, almost word for word, just switching the sex of the characters.


The tone of the two stories was very different just by switching the sex of the characters. The comments werw also different with people posting that it didn't make sense for the guy to run and that the woman needed to get raped more.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I wonder how much the plot impacts how people feel about whether the story is written by a male or female.

I wrote a story of a group of women running after a man, catching him, then having non-con sex with him.

Then I re-posted that story, almost word for word, just switching the sex of the characters.


The tone of the two stories was very different just by switching the sex of the characters. The comments werw also different with people posting that it didn't make sense for the guy to run and that the woman needed to get raped more.

Sheee-it, you just can't please some folks.

 

[R. Richard]

I write my sex scenes from each of the male or female POV. Does anyone else di that?

 

[ElectricBlue]

I write my sex scenes from each of the male or female POV. Does anyone else di that?

The same scene twice, or alternating pov within the scene?

I assume the latter, but that would get awfully close to head hopping for me. I'll nearly always portray sex scenes from one character's point of view, or, if it's a long scene, go to the other character with a very clearly defined shift, and stay with them for a decent length of time.

There's nothing worse than head-hopping for me, especially if it's sentences within the same paragraph. That's pretty much a bail out for me, if I wasn't gone already.

 

[jehoram]

I write my sex scenes from each of the male or female POV. Does anyone else di that?

I did that with "Bigfoot and the Wood Nymph" and it seemed to work. As has been noted elsewhere, the two stories don't describe the encounter in exactly the same way, because people's memories differ. I thought that added a bit of verisimilitude to the narratives. (And that, friends, will be my $20 word of the day.)

 

[MillieDynamite]

Question. I have written a 750-word story. I don't believe there is a challenge for this right now, is there? That notwithstanding, one can post one and use 750 words as a tag, right?

 

[AlinaX]

Go for it.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I did!