LW Has Turned Into a Misogynist Wasteland

[gunhilltrain]

That's his trademark windmill chording.

His advice, when smashing a guitar, was, "Keep your back straight."

Yes, I saw a clip in which he was doing it at a show in 2019. He was a bit more restrained than he was in 1978.

 

[Thorlol]

Do people actually forget what most stories are about in LW? 95% of the stories are about 'a' women fucking around. No matter if its a simple adultery story, cuckold story or swinger story. The women in most cases is the acting one.

Of course it feels like misogyny is rampant there. But its almost everytime focused on the character in the story. The one women who cheated or fucked around. If the reader dislikes/hates the woman for that reason its not called misogyny. The character receives the dislike not for being a woman but for being a shitty person. Nothing wrong with that in my opinion. Its allowed to dislike shitty people, no matter the gender.

 

[SimonDoom]

Do people actually forget what most stories are about in LW? 95% of the stories are about 'a' women fucking around. No matter if its a simple adultery story, cuckold story or swinger story. The women in most cases is the acting one.

Of course it feels like misogyny is rampant there. But its almost everytime focused on the character in the story. The one women who cheated or fucked around. If the reader dislikes/hates the woman for that reason its not called misogyny. The character receives the dislike not for being a woman but for being a shitty person. Nothing wrong with that in my opinion. Its allowed to dislike shitty people, no matter the gender.

If a husband and wife choose to have a relationship in which she has sex with other men, with her husband's strong approval, then how is she a shitty person? They are partners in the enterprise. She is not "cheating" on him. If they both enjoy it, then who is someone to judge how they choose to conduct their relationship?

There IS an element of misogyny here when, as in your post, you focus on the wife as a "shitty person" and discuss her as a cheater when in this situation the husband is equally complicit, yet there's no condemnation of the husband, and there's no cheating. What's shitty about this?

 

[NoTalentHack]

If a husband and wife choose to have a relationship in which she has sex with other men, with her husband's strong approval, then how is she a shitty person? They are partners in the enterprise. She is not "cheating" on him. If they both enjoy it, then who is someone to judge how they choose to conduct their relationship?

There IS an element of misogyny here when, as in your post, you focus on the wife as a "shitty person" and discuss her as a cheater when in this situation the husband is equally complicit, yet there's no condemnation of the husband, and there's no cheating. What's shitty about this?

Most of the stories (not all, but most) in LW are ones involving the wife cheating either without the husband's knowledge/approval or of the cruel cuckolding variety. In the cases of those stories, the wife is the (usually primary) antagonist. There's a lot of venom for the affair partner's in those stories, too. But if you look at the ones that are more swinging/sharing, most of the comments are of the "this is hot" or, if there's criticism "this writing is trash" variety. And in the rare cases where there's a cheating man as a main character, they usually get raked over the coals, too.

I'm not saying there isn't misogyny in there; there is definitely a set of double standards there re: culpability in the failure of a marriage. But a lot of it is that the nature of the category casts cheating wives in the villainous role, which is in part because of its name/description, i.e., Loving Wives instead of Loving Spouses.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

I have absolutely no right to comment here, because I never really read or write LW, but here I am regardless. Reading through this entire thread has been a blast.

However, I did want to comment briefly on the futility of splitting the LW community (or at least my hypothesis on it).

I don't think splitting the LW community would help, because I think BTB arose out of a legitimate hatred for what the cuck side of LW represents.

Look at the description for LW:

Married extra-marital fun: swinging, sharing & more.

There's nothing in that description to appeal to the BTB crowd at all... But somehow the BTB authors and fans found a home there, fueled (again, I assume) by their hatred of the idea of wives who cheat, and the men who go along with it.

If you created a separate category for BTB, you'd probably still see almost the same number of people crossing over just to rag on the people who fantasize about sharing wives.

Right? Isn't that a fair assumption?

Whatever, I just love the idea that (metaphorically) there's a category named "Pineapple Pizza" and it's home to both the people who LOVE and the people who DESPISE pineapple pizza. I mean, they both sides are super passionate, so it's fun to watch them argue.

 

[yowser]

As I've noted before, the category is simply mislabeled. Should be "Hating Husbands." Would clear up all manner of confusions.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

As I've noted before, the category is simply mislabeled. Should be "Hating Husbands." Would clear up all manner of confusions.

I mean, that's funny... But there are a bunch of fans who  like cuckold stories. That makes them "Loving Husbands" I guess? I'll be honest, I don't know.

 

[Seadog777]

Whatever, I just love the idea that (metaphorically) there's a category named "Pineapple Pizza" and it's home to both the people who LOVE and the people who DESPISE pineapple pizza. I mean, they both sides are super passionate, so it's fun to watch them argue.

Pineapple on pizza is a crime against humanity!!!

1 of my sisters and both my nieces love it though.

 

[NoTalentHack]

Pineapple on pizza is a crime against humanity!!!

1 of my sisters and both my nieces love it though.

BTP (Burn the Pizza) vs PAAC (Pineapple At All Costs)

 

[MediocreAuthor]

Pineapple on pizza is a crime against humanity!!!

1 of my sisters and both my nieces love it though.

I'll be honest, I think it sounds gross, but it tastes perfectly ok.

Definitely not my favorite. But a friend's father made some for us in college, and I surprisingly didn't hate it.

 

[SimonDoom]

Pineapple on pizza is a crime against humanity!!!

1 of my sisters and both my nieces love it though.

A bunch of my friends in high school liked pineapple on pizza, so we got it that way all the time. Pepperoni and sausage for me, although I've come to enjoy plain cheese if the pizza is good enough.

 

[Seadog777]

I'll be honest, I think it sounds gross, but it tastes perfectly ok.

Definitely not my favorite. But a friend's father made some for us in college, and I surprisingly didn't hate it.

I tried it twice.
It just tastes........wrong. and not very good.

 

[Seadog777]

A bunch of my friends in high school liked pineapple on pizza, so we got it that way all the time. Pepperoni and sausage for me, although I've come to enjoy plain cheese if the pizza is good enough.

I am 1 QUADRILLION % with your brother.

Pepperoni and Sausage all day long for me.

 

[lc69hunter]

I am currently the 18th highest commenter on stories on Lit ( I will never move much higher). Just out of curiousity, I checked out the what commenters above me comment on. All but three are inveterate BTB lovers or Incest lovers, and most of the BTB'ers have a limited vocabulary which consists of two words, cuck and whore, and apparently have the intellect to match.

 

[djrip]

I do not see the purpose of explaining anything about LW here, as there appears to be no one willing to listen. Throughout history, human communities have often sought a scapegoat to feel morally superior; designating "barbarians" to enhance their sense of refinement and enlightenment.

My primary critique of LW is the lack of originality and creativity. Many of the stories seem to be repetitive, recycling the same plot and worn-out cliches time and again. Usually, they depict a heartless wife who has an extramarital affair without any consideration or respect for her husband (which raises a fundamental thematic difficulty: why did our saintly hero marry her in the first place, unless...). In the end, she is punished and belatedly regrets her actions, while the husband obtains a happy ending that frequently includes inflicting physical harm on the lover - an extremely foolish conclusion.

LW's writers are capable of regurgitating this same formula endlessly. Despite my attempts to challenge it, I have only succeeded in alienating myself. Unfortunately, I doubt that anything will ever change, either here or there.

No one here will listen to us about LW!

*Proceeds to make same complaint about LW as everyone else*

 

[Lifestyle66]

...Many of the stories seem to be repetitive, recycling the same plot and worn-out cliches time and again. ...

LW's writers are capable of regurgitating this same formula endlessly. Despite my attempts to challenge it, I have only succeeded in alienating myself. Unfortunately, I doubt that anything will ever change, either here or there.

When you simplify the theme and generalize to just a small handful of words, the regurgitation of plot happens in almost EVERY category.

IR: Black guys fucks a White woman.
Incest: Father fucks his daughter, mother fucks her son, brother fucks his sister.
Lesbian: One woman goes down on another woman.
Gay: One man blows or buttfucks another man.

See how simple those category themes are bulletized? It's like saying "All blonds are stupid."

 

[djrip]

I was talking (sting) to him, but if you've bothered to read, you should have noticed that my complaint is solely directed towards the writers, and I hold no ill will towards the readership of LW.

Describing me as "everyone else" is also very perceptive and accurate.

In the interest of comedic effect some of the more subtle nuances of your argument had to be sacrificed. There was no other way.

 

[NoTalentHack]

When you simplify the theme and generalize to just a small handful of words, the regurgitation of plot happens in almost EVERY category.

IR: Black guys fucks a White woman.
Incest: Father fucks his daughter, mother fucks her son, brother fucks his sister.
Lesbian: One woman goes down on another woman.
Gay: One man blows or buttfucks another man.

See how simple those category themes are bulletized? It's like saying "All blonds are stupid."

He may be a little reductive, but he's not entirely wrong. There are a LOT of LW stories that could be broken down as "morally near-perfect hero whose only crimes were loving his wife too much and working too hard for his family is betrayed without warning by a wife who has inexplicably turned evil/stupid/both, and now he will have his improbable revenge with no consequences for him, except for a newer, younger wife and the unmitigated respect of his peers. Then everyone claps."

bruce1971 and I had an email discussion when he was writing the really great essay on the "Martian Slut Ray" archetype in LW (LW Notes: The Martian Slut Ray), and he and I took differing but complementary views on that type of story and where it comes from. His (detailed very well in the essay) breaks down, sort of, to "these are stories of male development," i.e., the story isn't really about the wife's cheating at all, they're about how the man perseveres int he face of his life blowing up. For the same reason the villains in action movies are basically just sketches of characters, the wife in most BTB stories is, too: you don't want to feel bad for the terrorists that are getting blown up; it just muddies the waters for the story the writer wants to tell.

And I think that's accurate, to an extent; he goes over some other possibilities in there, too, including some that he and I talked about. My take is that it's a mix of things: some of the writers simply don't have the chops to put together more than one strong character, if even that; some of them are actually misogynistic twits and can't write women because they aren't "real" people to them; some of them are leaning into the "horror movie" or "urban legend" aspect of the stories, the cautionary tale for the husband who takes too much for granted.

But I think there's also a big aspect of wish fulfilment. If you look at the writers that go back to the BTB well a lot, there are a bunch of similarities both in their own stories and between each others' stories. There's the template I listed above, but the one aspect that's really telling is that the wife "suddenly" does something: tells her husband she's going out on a date with another man, that she's already done it and he just needs to deal, etc. Or that her excuses are completely flimsy and self-serving, to the point where there's another template for those: "it was just sex, it was a one-time thing, it doesn't mean anything, etc." He divorces her, and she begs to be taken back. She's left destitute. The kids love him more; or maybe they don't, but then they're punished too, and the daughters turn out to be cheaters and the sons weak men because of the insidious influence of the ex-wife. He finds a new love, a younger, prettier, more sexually available woman that he rebuilds his life with. And on and on.

The wish that's being fulfilled is this: "I did nothing wrong." "I didn't miss anything, she just went nuts. I wasn't gone too much, or if I was, it was only because I was taking care of my family, and they didn't appreciate it. I was a good dad; it's not my fault my kids turned on me. She shouldn't have gotten so much in the divorce; the court system is fucked. I shouldn't have been alone. I'm the good guy and she's the cheater; I deserved better." It's righting the "wrongs" of their divorces, of the failures of their marriages, why they lost touch with their kids, why they were so alone for so long after everything fell apart.

It's as much a fantasy as any threesome, or random hookup with a hot teacher, or whatever your personal sexual dream is. It's just that it's not an erotic fantasy, or at least not mostly. The sex is either with the new girlfriend and therefore the reward for his fortitude, or it's horrific, as the main character watches his wife with another and knows the marriage is over right then, no matter what; the "Call to Adventure" of the Hero's Journey, after a fashion.

There's a guy that's both prolific and good in LW, someone whose work I like quite a bit; I've read every one of his many stories. And a lot of his early output is specifically this type of thing; then it becomes more nuanced as time goes on. The cheating wife is still the villain, but the husband becomes more culpable in the failures of the marriage in some of the stories. And it reads like the way in the 90s and 2000s action movies tried to say, "yes, but maybe these villains had a point," which, yeah, okay, but that just undercuts the story. That middle period between MSR BTB and more realistic takes is middling. So bruce1971's point is absolutely correct there, I think.

But at the same time, the stories became better later, with reasons that made sense. They weren't easy, fistpumping feelgood stories about good triumphing over evil. They were murkier, and therefore less well-received. An interesting side note: almost all of the early stories by this writer, like 60 or so of them, had the same name for the villainous wife. I laughed really hard when one of the comments read, "Jesus, what did this bitch do to you?!"

And I think that's the thing: a lot of the writers in LW, the ones with these outlandish stories, are writing as a form of safe therapy. Not the kind that the court forced them into, trying to get them to (in their perception) take their cheating wife back and admit the failures in their marriage didn't just crop up out of nowhere, but the kind where they can take out their anger about the things that felt so unfair, the things that they can't understand or accept.

It's not misogyny, per se: it's an expression of anger at a specific person that badly hurt them, fictionalized to let them work through the issues. Or maybe just to wallow in them and convince themselves they were right all along; that's another form of wish fulfilment. There are very often "good" women in those stories, friends and colleagues and future lovers/wives. Those women are often better fleshed out than the ex-wife, even to the point of having negative personality traits that are accepted and embraced by the MMC, troubled pasts, etc..

I think it's also why, in the comments section of LW, you see a lot of commenters going "you should have..." instead of "the main character should have..." Because they're seeing elements of what happened to them in their divorces there, too, or at least what they wanted to happen, or what "should" have happened. They understand, perhaps instinctively, that this might be fiction, but it's coming from a place of real pain. Therefore, "you should have" seems like a realistic response. Even in this fictionalized version of what happened to the writer, "you" should have done this, because it's what they, the commenter would have done in the fictionalized version of their own horrible divorce.

I haven't looked at the stats, but there are a LOT of guys that wrote like one or two stories in LW and then nothing ever again, even if they were well-received. I wouldn't be surprised if it's higher, by percentage, in LW than most parts of the site. And I think it's because, maybe, they had that one story in them, and they needed to tell it, and now it's done. They got what they needed: a life that turned out better than their real one, where they were never in the wrong and they were happier after everything resolved itself.

 

[Lifestyle66]

He may be a little reductive, but he's not entirely wrong. There are a LOT of LW stories that could be broken down as "morally near-perfect hero whose only crimes were loving his wife too much and working too hard for his family is betrayed without warning by a wife who has inexplicably turned evil/stupid/both, and now he will have his improbable revenge with no consequences for him, except for a newer, younger wife and the unmitigated respect of his peers. Then everyone claps."

bruce1971 and I had an email discussion when he was writing the really great essay on the "Martian Slut Ray" archetype in LW (LW Notes: The Martian Slut Ray), and he and I took differing but complementary views on that type of story and where it comes from. His (detailed very well in the essay) breaks down, sort of, to "these are stories of male development," i.e., the story isn't really about the wife's cheating at all, they're about how the man perseveres int he face of his life blowing up. For the same reason the villains in action movies are basically just sketches of characters, the wife in most BTB stories is, too: you don't want to feel bad for the terrorists that are getting blown up; it just muddies the waters for the story the writer wants to tell.

And I think that's accurate, to an extent; he goes over some other possibilities in there, too, including some that he and I talked about. My take is that it's a mix of things: some of the writers simply don't have the chops to put together more than one strong character, if even that; some of them are actually misogynistic twits and can't write women because they aren't "real" people to them; some of them are leaning into the "horror movie" or "urban legend" aspect of the stories, the cautionary tale for the husband who takes too much for granted.

But I think there's also a big aspect of wish fulfilment. If you look at the writers that go back to the BTB well a lot, there are a bunch of similarities both in their own stories and between each others' stories. There's the template I listed above, but the one aspect that's really telling is that the wife "suddenly" does something: tells her husband she's going out on a date with another man, that she's already done it and he just needs to deal, etc. Or that her excuses are completely flimsy and self-serving, to the point where there's another template for those: "it was just sex, it was a one-time thing, it doesn't mean anything, etc." He divorces her, and she begs to be taken back. She's left destitute. The kids love him more; or maybe they don't, but then they're punished too, and the daughters turn out to be cheaters and the sons weak men because of the insidious influence of the ex-wife. He finds a new love, a younger, prettier, more sexually available woman that he rebuilds his life with. And on and on.

The wish that's being fulfilled is this: "I did nothing wrong." "I didn't miss anything, she just went nuts. I wasn't gone too much, or if I was, it was only because I was taking care of my family, and they didn't appreciate it. I was a good dad; it's not my fault my kids turned on me. She shouldn't have gotten so much in the divorce; the court system is fucked. I shouldn't have been alone. I'm the good guy and she's the cheater; I deserved better." It's righting the "wrongs" of their divorces, of the failures of their marriages, why they lost touch with their kids, why they were so alone for so long after everything fell apart.

It's as much a fantasy as any threesome, or random hookup with a hot teacher, or whatever your personal sexual dream is. It's just that it's not an erotic fantasy, or at least not mostly. The sex is either with the new girlfriend and therefore the reward for his fortitude, or it's horrific, as the main character watches his wife with another and knows the marriage is over right then, no matter what; the "Call to Adventure" of the Hero's Journey, after a fashion.

There's a guy that's both prolific and good in LW, someone whose work I like quite a bit; I've read every one of his many stories. And a lot of his early output is specifically this type of thing; then it becomes more nuanced as time goes on. The cheating wife is still the villain, but the husband becomes more culpable in the failures of the marriage in some of the stories. And it reads like the way in the 90s and 2000s action movies tried to say, "yes, but maybe these villains had a point," which, yeah, okay, but that just undercuts the story. That middle period between MSR BTB and more realistic takes is middling. So bruce1971's point is absolutely correct there, I think.

But at the same time, the stories became better later, with reasons that made sense. They weren't easy, fistpumping feelgood stories about good triumphing over evil. They were murkier, and therefore less well-received. An interesting side note: almost all of the early stories by this writer, like 60 or so of them, had the same name for the villainous wife. I laughed really hard when one of the comments read, "Jesus, what did this bitch do to you?!"

And I think that's the thing: a lot of the writers in LW, the ones with these outlandish stories, are writing as a form of safe therapy. Not the kind that the court forced them into, trying to get them to (in their perception) take their cheating wife back and admit the failures in their marriage didn't just crop up out of nowhere, but the kind where they can take out their anger about the things that felt so unfair, the things that they can't understand or accept.

It's not misogyny, per se: it's an expression of anger at a specific person that badly hurt them, fictionalized to let them work through the issues. Or maybe just to wallow in them and convince themselves they were right all along; that's another form of wish fulfilment. There are very often "good" women in those stories, friends and colleagues and future lovers/wives. Those women are often better fleshed out than the ex-wife, even to the point of having negative personality traits that are accepted and embraced by the MMC, troubled pasts, etc..

I think it's also why, in the comments section of LW, you see a lot of commenters going "you should have..." instead of "the main character should have..." Because they're seeing elements of what happened to them in their divorces there, too, or at least what they wanted to happen, or what "should" have happened. They understand, perhaps instinctively, that this might be fiction, but it's coming from a place of real pain. Therefore, "you should have" seems like a realistic response. Even in this fictionalized version of what happened to the writer, "you" should have done this, because it's what they, the commenter would have done in the fictionalized version of their own horrible divorce.

I haven't looked at the stats, but there are a LOT of guys that wrote like one or two stories in LW and then nothing ever again, even if they were well-received. I wouldn't be surprised if it's higher, by percentage, in LW than most parts of the site. And I think it's because, maybe, they had that one story in them, and they needed to tell it, and now it's done. They got what they needed: a life that turned out better than their real one, where they were never in the wrong and they were happier after everything resolved itself.

All interesting observations. But I could say as many subsets of those other bullet-pointed descriptions of other categories, too. So, it goes to show my point: someone is OVERLY generalizing one category (LW). And some of the LW critics here in the AH have little or even zero experience in even reading those stories in LW before they post their "informed author" opinions. One author even went as far as saying "That was the first LW story I've ever read."

I recognize there are may haters/1-bombing troll, etc commenting (mostly) on the LW stories. But other than that, the story types cover some broader ranges than just the "Martian-slut-ray hit the wife of the outstanding husband" trope. I've read Martian-slut-ray type stories in other categories, too. (I read that "LW Notes: Martian Slut Ray". And in my opinion, those notes also missed several significant subsets. Try reading my story "Lifestyle Ch. 13: Single Swingers", where I wrote it to show both a swinger husband and wife's POVs from a third party listening to them. The husband and wife understand each other and are NOT out to destroy their marriage. Then in "Lifestyle Ch. 14: Keeping Score", I point out the husband accepting his own physical limitations, and he even ponders/explains his wife's motivations. These are LW stories.

 

[NoTalentHack]

All interesting observations. But I could say as many subsets of those other bullet-pointed descriptions of other categories, too. So, it goes to show my point: someone is OVERLY generalizing one category (LW). And some of the LW critics here in the AH have little or even zero experience in even reading those stories in LW before they post their "informed author" opinions. One author even went as far as saying "That was the first LW story I've ever read."

I don't disagree with that at all; I think the category is unfairly maligned in a lot of cases. Are there misogynistic comments? Yes; but that's true in a lot of places. But story-wise, there's such a rich variety in there. I know that people have said "split it in two, with sharing going one place and cheating going the other," but I'd actually prefer that they make a more radical change: turn it into Loving Spouses, and say that it's where stories about married people belong, period, whether there's swapping/sharing/cheating involved or not. There was a story that I wrote, Virility, that would have absolutely gone in there, because it's about a loving couple working through their issues, but there was no cheating involved; off to Anal it went instead. I think changing it to "spouses" would also allow for cheating stories where the husband is the primary antagonist, which would probably reduce some of the other complaints.

It's funny, though. When I look at the way a lot of writers treat LW, the thing I'm most reminded of is how literary fiction writers have historically treated genre fiction stories and writers with disdain. "Oh, it's all just spaceships and laser beams, Where's the humanity?" "Elves and swords? How jejune," and "Bodice rippers and dominant men? Trash for lonely housewives." It's ironic, considering that, if you pick a random work from any category, you're more likely to get something resembling literary fiction in LW than anywhere else except maybe Novels and Novellas or Non-Erotic.

 

[SimonDoom]

All interesting observations. But I could say as many subsets of those other bullet-pointed descriptions of other categories, too. So, it goes to show my point: someone is OVERLY generalizing one category (LW). And some of the LW critics here in the AH have little or even zero experience in even reading those stories in LW before they post their "informed author" opinions. One author even went as far as saying "That was the first LW story I've ever read."

I agree with you that generalization is not peculiar to LW. In fact, it's no more that way than other categories. What makes it peculiar, and sometimes disturbing, to me is

1) It's not erotic. It's interesting how the BTB stories are so popular even though they're not erotic. Maybe I'm wrong about that. Maybe the readers who love these stories feel a sort of revenge lust or a feeling of catharis or release from reading about the bad woman getting her just desserts that is like an orgasm.

2) The stories play on a warped, and largely false, perception that everywhere at large men are being taken advantage of by women, when on the whole this is NOT true.

3) The fans of these stories launch more hate at stories that don't fit their ideas than do fans of any other category, and it's not even close. Not remotely close. I don't understand the desire to rain on others' parades, but some BTB readers almost seem to think of it as a moral duty.

 

[alohadave]

Maybe change the name to Extramarital Affairs. Make it clear that it's for cheating and sharing.

But a name change won't change the culture in the category.

 

[Thorlol]

If a husband and wife choose to have a relationship in which she has sex with other men, with her husband's strong approval, then how is she a shitty person? They are partners in the enterprise. She is not "cheating" on him. If they both enjoy it, then who is someone to judge how they choose to conduct their relationship?

There IS an element of misogyny here when, as in your post, you focus on the wife as a "shitty person" and discuss her as a cheater when in this situation the husband is equally complicit, yet there's no condemnation of the husband, and there's no cheating. What's shitty about this?

You got a point. I actually meant all stories where no consent is given. And I would say 80% of the stories are missing the consent for extra-marital fun. Maybe more.

Lets take an average pure cuckold story from the LW section. Doesnt even matter if there is consent or not but 90% of those stories focus on humiliation. Sure there is an agreement but as an outsider you will still dislike the female character because of what she is saying. Its like observing a bully and a victim. No matter if you are involved or not, the moment the average decent human being observes the action he will dislike the bully. The same happens when most people will read such a story. The gender in that case has no significance. Its all about the person doing the deed.

The same goes with with the standard adultery story. In 90% of the stories the women cheats. Intentionally inflicting emotional harm to their partner. Of course a normal person wont like the character or their actions. But again, its not about the gender.

Swinger stories are actually difficult. They dont come up often but if they do you will often find that one of the spouses has a harmful agenda.

Thats my take on misogynist issue. I dont see one, atleast from my perspective. In my mind its okay to not like or even hate the character who is the 'villain'. No matter if you are the reader or if its the character in the story. For me its really not about the gender of the cheater.

With that said, I as a reader look into the LW section when I want to read drama. The best stories I have read on this site I found there. From an entertainment standpoint. Never because I like people bashing on women in general. I dont go there to read something 'erotic'.

I think the most glaring issue is the flawless husband in most stories there. To quote NoTalentHack

He may be a little reductive, but he's not entirely wrong. There are a LOT of LW stories that could be broken down as "morally near-perfect hero whose only crimes were loving his wife too much and working too hard for his family is betrayed without warning by a wife who has inexplicably turned evil/stupid/both, and now he will have his improbable revenge with no consequences for him, except for a newer, younger wife and the unmitigated respect of his peers. Then everyone claps."

After some time on this site I am almost at the point to skip those stories. Even the 'working too hard for his family' clichee triggers me nowadays. People who do say something along those lines are the people who lost focus on the important parts of their life.

My other issue is the age of some authors. Not because they are old but still live in the past, atleast in their heads. Regarding divorce and what the cheating spouse should get in a divorce. They view splitting assets as theft because in their minds only the husband contributed to them. Wich is laughable. Since the `90s it became increasingly difficult to live on only one income. For the AVERAGE couple. It only became harder with time. But even if he was the sole breadwinner, he doesnt have the right to steal the 50% wich should rightfully go to the other spouse. They agreed to it at one point of their lifes.

Thats the only misogynistic view I find

 

[djrip]

. I know that people have said "split it in two, with sharing going one place and cheating going the other," but I'd actually prefer that they make a more radical change: turn it into Loving Spouses, and say that it's where stories about married people belong, period, whether there's swapping/sharing/cheating involved or not. There was a story that I wrote, Virility, that would have absolutely gone in there, because it's about a loving couple working through their issues, but there was no cheating involved; off to Anal it went instead. I think changing it to "spouses" would also allow for cheating stories where the husband is the primary antagonist, which would probably reduce some of the other complaints.

This is how I've treated it. If the characters in the story are married, LW. I actually put my cheating wife story in erotic couplings, because the husband wasn't present or involved, so in my mind it was just sex between two unmarried people. Then when she brought home her female friend to share with hubby, LW. This was 8 years ago. I didn't know that LW had such an association with cheating wives. Now I'd put the cheating story in LW too, but still also any others with married characters.

 

[djrip]

Sure there is an agreement but as an outsider you will still dislike the female character because of what she is saying. Its like observing a bully and a victim.

I agreed so hard, until recently. But now I'm getting the kink. I'm looking at it from the perspective of a guy with a humiliation fetish, who in real life might role play a scenario like this, coming to these stories to experience a visceral thrill by reading something that portrays the scenario as real. Like a woman might want to read about a real forceful rape/ravishment, thought in real life if she had that kink she would probably only role play it with trusted partners and safe words. In the story you can go farther, have the woman really have disdain for the cuck, really prefer the bull, but it's just a deeper layer of fantasy than an acted out scene. At least that's how I've been coming to understand it recently.