Apparently I fail the Bechdel Test...

[BiscuitHammer]

A person messaged me to tell me that I'm a terrible author because my stories fail this test. For those not in the know, said test measures aspects of a work of fiction based on specific criteria about the portrayal of women. If memory serves, namely:

1) a story must contain two women
2) they must communicate with one another
3) they talk to about another subject than men or a man.

I think that's the essence of it.

Now while I like to think that I do indeed have strong women characters in my stories, I'm really not sure what this person was getting at. My stories always include named women, they have no problem talking to one another, and a great deal of the time, they're talking about something other than men.

Not that I was worried about passing the Bechdel Test when I began writing here.

I'm also not sure how you can apply anything as specific as the Bechdel Test to a site like Lit where fetishism is literally what people of all stripes are here for.

I've no particular doubt my work fails all sorts of metrics on a social level (my only true consistency is humour), but it did get me wondering if there WERE metrics that could ever hope to apply to a site like this and the story it contains. Not that it's required, of course, but aside from grammar, can anyone think of any measurement applicable?

I'm not saying they need to be applied, I'm just curious if anyone can think of any that are applicable.

- grammar (applicable to ANY type of story)

- some level of familiarity with and working knowledge of female anatomy.

What else what there be? And what could we (jokingly) name the test.

 

[Dingo_Triplesix]

To me, this doesn´t make any sense at all. It´s like measuring the temperature with a folding ruler.

A high percentage of all storys on LIT do contain a man and a woman, period. If you use metrics like the Bechdel you would have to condemn LIT completely (which may exactly what some feminists would propose).

 

[BiscuitHammer]

To me, this doesn´t make any sense at all. It´s like measuring the temperature with a folding ruler.

Hey, you'll get no argument from me. I think the person who criticized me didn't actually understand what the Bechdel Test was.

I was just wondering what comical metrics we could come up with (grammar and knowledge of female anatomy being somewhat snarky metrics).

 

[NotWise]

Don't use the Bechdel test. It came up as a test for movies, and it's validity (if it has any) depends on the historical patterns and tropes in the movie industry.

The test may have been inspired by an observation by Virginia Woolf. From the Wikipedia article:

In her 1929 essay A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf observed about the literature of her time what the Bechdel test would later highlight in more recent fiction:[3]

All these relationships between women, I thought, rapidly recalling the splendid gallery of fictitious women, are too simple. ... And I tried to remember any case in the course of my reading where two women are represented as friends. ... They are now and then mothers and daughters. But almost without exception they are shown in their relation to men. It was strange to think that all the great women of fiction were, until Jane Austen's day, not only seen by the other sex, but seen only in relation to the other sex. And how small a part of a woman's life is that ...[4]

That's an observation of literature, although based on 19th and early 20th century literature. Is it true for more current literature? Donno. Does it matter for erotica? Donno.

One thing I am fairly sure about is that you can develop complex female characters without meeting the Bechdel test.

 

[BiscuitHammer]

Don't use the Bechdel test. It came up as a test for movies, and it's validity (if it has any) depends on the historical patterns and tropes in the movie industry.

That's an observation of literature, although based on 19th and early 20th century literature. Is it true for more current literature? Donno. Does it matter for erotica? Donno.

One thing I am fairly sure about is that you can develop complex female characters without meeting the Bechdel test.

Yeah, I'm really not sure what the person who LM'd thought they were getting at. However flawed it might be, I'm reasonably certain my stories meet the Bechdel metrics.

Might've just been some dumb kid sounding off, I don't know.

 

[Winter_Fare]

You probably can estimate the relative temperature with a folding ruler and a column of mercury as it has a scale and its size doesn't alter with the temperature.

You can't measure the temperature with a column of mercury and your penis, as both are subject to temperature change. Your penis alone does a better job, than penis plus mercury.

Your penis does a better job of assessing the relative merits of porn without the Bechdel rule, likely for similar reasons. Noone cares how the sausage is made if it's tasty

 

[SimonDoom]

The Bechdel test has its uses, primarily as a consciousness-raising device, to make us aware that too often authors ignore women as characters who live interesting lives apart from their relations with men.

But it's not much use concerning erotic short stories that involve heterosexual encounters between men and women. That's what I write, for the most part. Everything in the short story is supposed to be integrated with and relate to the encounter between a man and a woman. There usually is no point in inserting a scene where two women are talking with one another about something that bears no relationship with the man in the story. That's not to say it can't be done, but requiring the application of this test to these kinds of stories is contrived and unhelpful.

 

[Lifestyle66]

A person messaged me to tell me that I'm a terrible author because my stories fail this test. For those not in the know, said test measures aspects of a work of fiction based on specific criteria about the portrayal of women. If memory serves, namely:

1) a story must contain two women
2) they must communicate with one another
3) they talk to about another subject than men or a man.

...

"they talk to about another subject than men or a man. "

What other subjects?
Family (but not including sons, husbands, or fathers)?
Shopping? Clothes? (sounds sexist to me)
Jobs (only if they're in female-owned companies)?
Politics (female politicians only)?
Cars? Golf? Sports?

I wrote a story with a strong female character who talked to other women about jobs, fantasies, family, and breasts. She takes control of a very odd situation and turned it around to enjoy herself.

A female critic implied my character is overbearing and out only for her own pleasure, making everyone around her losers. So, the question becomes: "How strong is too strong or not strong enough?"

You can't please everyone. "They'll know it when they see it."

 

[8letters]

Hey, you'll get no argument from me. I think the person who criticized me didn't actually understand what the Bechdel Test was.

I was just wondering what comical metrics we could come up with (grammar and knowledge of female anatomy being somewhat snarky metrics).

When I pulled down all of the Lesbian Sex stories, part of my plan was to scan each story to get some additional statistics. The stats I was planning to get were percentage of the story was dialog, the F-K rating of the non-dialog sections (my theory is dialog sections drive down the F-K rating), the number of words until the first line of dialog, the frequency of "dirty words", and the number of unique words.

 

[windar]

I'm more worried about my stories passing the Turing Test...

 

[jehoram]

I'm more worried about my stories passing the Turing Test...

This.

A lot of stories seem to be computer-generated using algorithms based on Penthouse letters. (Yours are probably fine, windar.)

 

[TadOverdon]

The Bechdel Test is a rule of thumb and it's useful enough. Just as Grammarly is useful enough. Both are limited, but you can get a little insight into what you're doing by referring to them from time to time.

A lot of basic porn fails any kind of test of plausibility where the behavior of the female characters are concerned because they are means to an end. That's fine for the genre in question.

 

[PoisonPen33]

I'm more worried about my stories passing the Turing Test...

I'm not worried about the computer that passed the Turing Test. I'm more afraid of the one that intentionally fails it.

 

[windar]

This.

A lot of stories seem to be computer-generated using algorithms based on Penthouse letters. (Yours are probably fine, windar.)

No algorithm has yet come up with anyting that sick and perverted. But they're probably working on it...

 

[water_moutina]

Should have studied more. Maybe they'll let you take the test again. Practice this time ffs

 

[NotWise]

I've no particular doubt my work fails all sorts of metrics on a social level (my only true consistency is humour), but it did get me wondering if there WERE metrics that could ever hope to apply to a site like this and the story it contains. Not that it's required, of course, but aside from grammar, can anyone think of any measurement applicable?

I'm not saying they need to be applied, I'm just curious if anyone can think of any that are applicable.

- grammar (applicable to ANY type of story)

- some level of familiarity with and working knowledge of female anatomy.

What else what there be? And what could we (jokingly) name the test.

The peter meter is the most long-standing and widely-used metric for erotic literature.

 

[rescatooor]

It would be a rather easy business to make a story pass the test. But to write one extra scene into an otherwise well structured story just to pass some silly test does not really serve anyone.

The commenter should just go explore the Lesbian Sex category. A lot of stories pass by default.

 

[TadOverdon]

Honestly?

Most sex stories are written primarily to entertain men. Most men do not care what women talk about among themselves other than men.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Gee, some of the women in my stories talk about a lot of things other than men. Some of the things they talk about are windage and elevation for distances longer than a hundred yards, while they are tending to a wounded comrade during a firefight.

Then I have other's that just discuss the latest happenings around the world.

Silly me, I didn't know that they just talked about the next dick they wanted.

 

[BiscuitHammer]

I'm guessing the kiddy who yelled at me misunderstood the purpose of the metric at all. I generally DO meet all the criteria to pass the Bechdel Test (if I cared about meeting the criteria of a test), so I'm likely to assume that said kiddy was never taught actual critical thinking or objective observation. I generally find it's mostly a voluntary thing with the young'uns, since the evidence was right there in front of them.

Then again, I'm as Gen X as you can get, so I'm pretty cynical about other people's motive or perceptions of nearly everything.

I guess they hoped none of their peers understood what the Bechdel Test was either and it just sounded good.

For the record, I no doubt also fail the Ada Lovelace Test, insofar as I'm not related to Lord Byron.

I just made that test up. We all failed it. You failing fucks, you...

 

[windar]

Honestly?

Most sex stories are written primarily to entertain men. Most men do not care what women talk about among themselves other than men.

OK, this raises a question that I've heard different things about. What are the demographics of the readers? I would guess on Lit, nobody really knows, not even the poobahs, because you're never asked when you sign up and most of the profiles I've seen don't say. Many of the comments are Anon, so who knows? All I can say is of the named comments/feedback people on my stories almost all were male (or pretending to be).

On the other free site where most of my stories are, there are no anonymous comments or likes, and the readers who I know are 4:1 male, more or less. I suspect those who read and don't like or comment break down similarly.

However, on the Reddit for Erotica Writers-mostly people who post on Amazon-the dogma there is that men don't read stories, they watch porn (though I don't see why you can't do both). Amazon knows everything about everybody, of course, but they haven't said. The guy who runs the pay site where I post says there are a substantial number of female readers, but I don't know what that means and the few who comment on my stories seem to be male (and many are written with a co-author whose pen name is clearly female, so you would think that might attract female readers).

Does anyone have any thoughts, or, better yet, actual data?

 

[TadOverdon]

Data? What's that?

I must confess that my opinion is naught but intuition from the kinds of comments I see from readers online not only here but at numerous other sites. And my prejudice upon perusing the stories themselves is that the most popular ones represent male fantasies.

Oh, and to be fair there's apparently much evidence that where fiction of all kinds is concerned, far more women than men read for entertainment.

 

[jehoram]

Honestly?

Most sex stories are written primarily to entertain men. Most men do not care what women talk about among themselves other than men.

Well, men have lots of conversations that don't mention women. But except for gay sex stories, you won't find them on Lit.

I do like one of your sig lines.

"I don't want to go to heaven. None of my friends are there." - Oscar Wilde

It reminded me of one that's been attributed to Mark Twain: "Heaven for climate. Hell for companionship."

 

[Bramblethorn]

For the record, I no doubt also fail the Ada Lovelace Test, insofar as I'm not related to Lord Byron.

I just made that test up. We all failed it. You failing fucks, you...

Honestly, Byron (happy 234th birthday!) was enough of a fuckboy that chances are pretty good somebody here is related to some unacknowledged by-blow of his.

 

[BiscuitHammer]

Honestly, Byron (happy 234th birthday!) was enough of a fuckboy that chances are pretty good somebody here is related to some unacknowledged by-blow of his.

One of my characters in the Alexaverse is related to him via his mother, Catherine Gordon. So she passed the Ada Lovelace Test...