AwkwardMD and Omenainen Review Thread

[KeithD]

I must say that it was fun to have my current avatar, the cover of my current marketplace book, pointed to while I was being lectured about a writer's obligation to include diversity of characters in stories.

Here's one of my marketplace books grounded in China for those who think I need to be lectured about Chinese history.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51mepaR+4oL.SR160,240_BG243,243,243.jpg

Or Thai characters, maybe? Here's one of my recent Thai character books:

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81sNIy4-ppL.SR160,240_BG243,243,243.jpg

Yeah, I need writers at Literotica telling me about employing diversity in one's stories.

 

[Vix_Giovanni]

In a similar discussion in re historical romance, somebody pointed out that there were far more black people in Regency England than there were dukes, but somehow authors who wrote duke after duke after duke were still using "historical accuracy" as an argument against including black characters.

We all pick what we want to include from history (Swords! Princes! Warrior monks!) and what we want to leave out (Bad teeth! The 99% of the population who weren't nobility! Dysentery! Stuff that's boring to research!) All of those are choices, and we should be prepared to own them.

Yup. Write a Duke: no research needed, bravo. Write a black Viking (yes, a real historically accurate thing): receipts please!

All of these are choices, not just choices about what we’re writing but also our openness to process history inclusive of POC and LGBTQ people.

I may describe a woman as having “blonde hair cascading over her voluptuous breasts” but it doesn’t mean she’s white. Black women (and men) have been known to dye their hair and voluptuous breasts can be on a white or Black woman. In just the same way beauty is in the eye of the beholder ethnicity can be in the eye of the reader.

If a story needs a character to be of a particular ethnicity I’ll describe them that way but up to now it’s not come up (unlike what’s happened with the men in my stories.)

There’s universally accepted definitions in porn/erotica, and blonde is one of the most basic. Go to Pornhub right now and type “Blonde”: you get white women with blonde hair, not white men with blonde hair, or Black women or men with dyed blonde hair or Japanese women with dyed blonde hair.... In fact, “Blonde”—ie white women with blonde hair— is it’s own category. That’s not unique to that one site; it’s porn-wide. Incidentally, there’s a separate category on Pornhub called “Black” and another called “Interracial”; a lot of videos in those two categories feature Black women with dyed blonde hair and/or blonde wigs.

It’s hard but possible to write characters who have no presence, no features, no backstories and come from nowhere. I have a series of 750 Word stories that try. They’re about Black British siblings living in America; the brother is a billionaire and megalomaniac and seduces the sister. But in those two stories, I never describe what the siblings look like in any way, or even mention where they’re from. Their race, origin, backstory, talents etc only are mentioned in a separate story about white MCs where the brother is a secondary character.

I wonder about this, too, and am curious what people think about this.

Keep in mind we're writing erotic stories here. Erotic stories have their own needs.

There is some virtue in NOT describing characters in erotic stories, because the readers can imagine them to be whatever they want them to be. It's obvious from reader comments that this is important to many readers.

Shrug.... Again, there’s very few stories on this site that have characters that exist in a complete void. And most stories on this site aren’t prose with high literary value; predominately, these stories are read to get off. And to get off, readers typically want physical descriptions, which, therefore, are absolutely necessary to the story. Eye color, hair color, skin color, nipple color, pussy color, dick color... all of those are indicative of looks, and thus indicative of race.

Yeah, as GL suggested, you could describe a female character with blonde hair and blue eyes and later reveal (or, not) that character was a Black woman. But as decades of Black literature and African-American sociological and literary studies have discussed, doing this is merely putting a veneer of whiteness over identity to make the race of WOC more “palatable”. As BT pointed out, all of these are choices. If we’re trying to be better writers, then we should acknowledge and own our choices and their reasons.

I think this is partly it. I think it's also that in many erotic stories -- in many of mine, for instance -- race isn't an issue. My stories tend to have few characters. When I create them I tend to default to what I know best and is most like me, which is white people. I don't think about it. I don't HAVE to think about it, and as a result, it makes writing easier. It's probably fair to say that whiteness is a default setting in my stories, and it's probably that way for many white writers. I've become conscious of that and I think that consciousness is beginning, slowly, to creep into how I'm developing future stories and their characters.

In one of my recent stories I decided to make the heroine half-Indian, and I gave her an Indian name. I wish I could say I did so for progressive reasons but really I was just kind of inspired by a girl I had a crush on a long time ago.

This forum has thrown millions of words at the topic of being better writers. There’s lots of discussion of grammar, narrative style, masters of the craft, etc. and lots of discussion about creativity and broadening one's perspective/scope/style etc by branching out.

We all have selection biases. Writing about white people solely by default is a selection bias. Learning how to write without a selection bias is a valid, important exercise towards being a better writer.

I wrote a story in December that I previously asked AMD to read and critique. The story’s abstract was a universally applicable romance. A very lonely woman who had suffered tragic losses was struggling to make meaningful connections with people, and fell hard for a man who was totally wrong for her but reminded her of the family she mourned. Deus ex machina: a man who understands her losses and wants to be someone she can lean on shows up in an unlikely way.

I think that the specifics of most erotic story are created largely by the characters and their interactions (or lack thereof for erotic reasons). The main characters in that story were a mixed black woman, a white man and a Black man. The white male character was British; I did about five minutes of research about white middle-age Brit slang and locations of a couple of things in the Cotswold to show he was a British expat. I did months of research about the Black characters, especially about nuances of Caribbean-American subculture and beef between Caribbean people and Black-Canadian culture etc. And then once the story was done, I had beta-readers who are Caribbean-American WOC who tore it apart, educated me, humbled me, and then, I picked up my pride and I re-wrote what didn't work. The result thankfully works. The time and work was worth it.

Having gotten all of that nastiness out in a personal attack do you feel so much better now and a member in good standing in the mob?

NO!! Hopefully, we all grow as writers by discussing some difficult topics here. But why would dissent about any of this make me, or anybody else, feel good?!?

You’re a writer that I like and whose work I respect and who’s historical stories I read; that’s why I even commented at all (I don’t waste my time), and why my comments went easy on you.

 

[NotWise]

There’s universally accepted definitions in porn/erotica, and blonde is one of the most basic. Go to Pornhub right now and type “Blonde”: you get white women with blonde hair, not white men with blonde hair, or Black women or men with dyed blonde hair or Japanese women with dyed blonde hair.... In fact, “Blonde”—ie white women with blonde hair— is it’s own category. That’s not unique to that one site; it’s porn-wide. Incidentally, there’s a separate category on Pornhub called “Black” and another called “Interracial”; a lot of videos in those two categories feature Black women with dyed blonde hair and/or blonde wigs.

Perhaps this is a minor point, all things considered, but "blond" and "blonde" are borrow words from French. The feminine "blonde" refers specifically to a woman or girl with blond hair.

I dug into the topic once. If you go deep enough you'll find fairly academic sources saying that "blonde" should be dropped from English because there's no place in the language for gender. Despite that, the usage is still common.

 

[KeithD]

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81oZAit5p-L.SR160,240_BG243,243,243.jpg https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/918NaHOKCEL.SR160,240_BG243,243,243.jpg


https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/91k5VYsdZqL.SR160,240_BG243,243,243.jpg https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41pGF-G7U4L.SR160,240_BG243,243,243.jpg


https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/91XBhyPmHdL.SR160,240_BG243,243,243.jpg https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81YOOV7aRhL.SR160,240_BG243,243,243.jpg


https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81Fh1UM1aqL.SR160,240_BG243,243,243.jpg https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81yE1i6El4L.SR160,240_BG243,243,243.jpg


https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51R4pHs1JFL.SR160,240_BG243,243,243.jpg https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51nxbGnVRCL._AC_UY218_.jpg

 

[KeithD]

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91hm5366zpL._AC_UY218_.jpg https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81YyjEsUExL._AC_UY218_.jpg



Oh, hell, yes, posters to Literotica can lecture me (or tell me to shut up or tell others I have nothing relevant to say) on putting ethnic diversity in stories. I do it for paying readers who aren't going to pay for it if it's not working for them.

 

[Lazaran]

I'm sure there's a middle ground. I assume you intend to include female characters in your stories, but you're not (I believe) a woman, and I think it's fair to say that you do not have a complete grasp of the female perspective.

I understand that a person may be accused of tokenism, and that's it's own rabbit hole to go down. I think the easier question to ask is whether you want to avoid the feared perception of tokenism at the expense of erasing people who are not of your demographic.

Whenever I find myself coming up with a bunch of reasons not to do something (as opposed to one compelling reason), I try to stop and ask myself why I'm invested in coming up with all the reasons. Sometimes the answer to that question teaches me something important. That's not always the case, but it never hurts to stop and ask.

Ah, what would I do without my conscience.

I'm simply encouraging people who have no life experience and have done no research, to avoid using people of color as props in their stories, and instead educate themselves through research of, and interactions with people of color before attempting to tell their story. A writer can never avoid all the pitfalls, but they can put in the effort to make the story as authentic as possible.

I would encourage a person attempting to write about anything they have no first hand knowledge of to follow the same steps before attempting to write a story.

Of course an author can skip those steps and just wing it, but in my experience, the stories that result from that approach lack the air of authenticity that separates good from great stories.

Your analogy about a writer not being a woman (or man) and not being a person of color somehow being the same is inapt.

A writer almost undoubtablely has had endless interactions with women or men throughout their lives, but there is no such guarantee that a writer has had meaningful interactions with another race or culture. If a woman was raised in a convent from birth, and suddenly decided she was going to write a story about men, I would also encourage her to do some research and interact with men before attempting to do so.

Your comment about "coming up with a bunch of reasons not to do something " is completely off base. I never advocated for not doing something, I advocated for making the effort to inform oneself before writing about a topic one doesn't have a solid understanding of.

 

[KeithD]

Writing about different cultures and races without a great deal of research or life experience is difficult and could ultimately ruin the work and cost a writer their audience.

Worldly writers and those with the time to invest in research can execute a diverse story without offending people due to some historical or cultural faux pas.

There are obvious pitfalls for ALL writers when writing racially and culturally diverse stories. If a writer sprinkles a few people of color with minor roles into a story. they can be accused of tokenism. If a writer makes a person of color a main character and then gives them a white voice they can be accused of homogeny. Conversely, if they attempt to give them a different colored voice they can be accused of stereotyping. Its quite a conundrum.

Attempting to write an authentic racially diverse story without the prerequisite life experiences or research is a recipe for disaster., especially when you consider the inherent pitfalls that even well researched and worldly writers face.

The old adage "write what you know" seems like it could apply here.

Of course that does not mean that writers shouldn't attempt to increase their knowledge about other cultures and races; it means that a story will feel more authentic if the reader gets the sense that the writer has researched or has personally experienced the people and events in a story.

Great points, I think.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

Ah, what would I do without my conscience.

I'm simply encouraging people who have no life experience and have done no research, to avoid using people of color as props in their stories, and instead educate themselves through research of, and interactions with people of color before attempting to tell their story. A writer can never avoid all the pitfalls, but they can put in the effort to make the story as authentic as possible.

I would encourage a person attempting to write about anything they have no first hand knowledge of to follow the same steps before attempting to write a story.

Of course an author can skip those steps and just wing it, but in my experience, the stories that result from that approach lack the air of authenticity that separates good from great stories.

Your analogy about a writer not being a woman (or man) and not being a person of color somehow being the same is inapt.

A writer almost undoubtablely has had endless interactions with women or men throughout their lives, but there is no such guarantee that a writer has had meaningful interactions with another race or culture. If a woman was raised in a convent from birth, and suddenly decided she was going to write a story about men, I would also encourage her to do some research and interact with men before attempting to do so.

Your comment about "coming up with a bunch of reasons not to do something " is completely off base. I never advocated for not doing something, I advocated for making the effort to inform oneself before writing about a topic one doesn't have a solid understanding of.

I suppose there are people who live in 100 percent white communities and have managed to go their entire lives with no meaningful contact with non-whites, in person, through story-telling, or some other medium. I think it is certainly understandable that any Literotica author who fits that description wouldn't feel comfortable writing from another perspective. Travel of at least 50 miles from home might be imperative before such an attempt. Since I was specifically speaking of supporting characters (and explicitly said so in my previous post,) I do feel such authors should feel free to take a stab at it without a complete cultural immersion.

Such authors can rest easy knowing that when you're talking about supporting characters, it's more about recognizing people's existence than it is in exhibiting cultural proficiency. Such authors should be heartened by the ease of which, by simply making the couple next door a gay couple, they've made a place for people within their story, or how the Vietnamese noodle shop on the corner owned by old Mr. Tran-Giac makes their world a little richer. (Yes, there are Vietnamese noodle shops in tiny little towns. Yes, Mr. Tran-Giac can fit into most stories. Perhaps he lays a sympathetic hand on the shoulder of the despondent lover. Maybe he serves his dishes with colorful humor or advice that gives the visiting couple something to talk about before they broach heavier topics. Maybe he stole the protagonist's parking spot that morning, grinning impishly and waving as he walked away.)

The point is that everyone has the ability to include people or shut people out. We are necessarily doing one or the other (with the limited exception of stories with no supporting characters.) So, you get to decide which one you want to do.

 

[KeithD]

In one author's story you have a waiter deliver a meal to a table where two characters are dancing around negotiating a hookup and then leaves, appearing nowhere else in the story. No ethnic origin is noted.

In another author's story you have a waiter identified as black/Chinese/Japanese/whatever ethnic group deliver a meal to a table where two characters are dancing around negotiating a hookup and then leaves, appearing nowhere else in the story.

Which author is pandering and trying to be PC (And, yes, political correctness absolute IS a "thing")?

When I put anyone not white, my grounding (yes, I grant that's a basic--but natural--prejudice. It's my ground zero), in a storyline, then I need a hell of a good reason for them to be whatever I identified them to be for the needs of the storyline. As it happens, in a high percentage of my stories, such a reason exists and I go with it. No reason, though, I don't pander to someone's requirement that I cap the "p" and "c" of PC for them to consider my story worthy of reading/having been written.

 

[KeithD]

Perhaps this is a minor point, all things considered, but "blond" and "blonde" are borrow words from French. The feminine "blonde" refers specifically to a woman or girl with blond hair.

In American style usage, "blond" (male) and "blonde" (female) are still gender specific. It's in Webster's that way, although there's a slight fudge factor in the definition wording that leans to "blond" being acceptable for both.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

In one author's story you have a waiter deliver a meal to a table where two characters are dancing around negotiating a hookup and then leaves, appearing nowhere else in the story. No ethnic origin is noted.

In another author's story you have a waiter identified as black/Chinese/Japanese/whatever ethnic group deliver a meal to a table where two characters are dancing around negotiating a hookup and then leaves, appearing nowhere else in the story.

Which author is pandering and trying to be PC (And, yes, political correctness absolute IS a "thing")?

When I put anyone not white, my grounding (yes, I grant that's a basic--but natural--prejudice. It's my ground zero), in a storyline, then I need a hell of a good reason for them to be whatever I identified them to be for the needs of the storyline. As it happens, in a high percentage of my stories, such a reason exists and I go with it. No reason, though, I don't pander to someone's requirement that I cap the "p" and "c" of PC for them to consider my story worthy of reading/having been written.

If this is addressed to the Vietnamese noodle shop example, I think the examples I gave speak for themselves, but the underlying point is addressed in a previous post that you don't appear to have read - at least not to its conclusion. There are probably places where you can push your point across simply by using loaded terms like "pandering" and "politically correct" to attack the speaker rather than the argument. This isn't one of those places.

 

[KeithD]

There are probably places where you can push your point across simply by using loaded terms like "pandering" and "politically correct" to attack the speaker rather than the argument. This isn't one of those places.

Because you say so? Or because someone you prefer says "shut up" or "ignore him" because he's not spouting your PC view? (Yep, I put it that way on purpose. )

You've been here all of ten minutes. It's a bit early to be speaking for the Web site.

(Did we ever clear up who owns that image you're using in your avatar and if you got permission to use it?)

 

[AwkwardMD]

KeithD is a bully

Ignore him. Don't let him drag you down to his level. You can make all the well-intentioned and logical points you want, but he will find a surface level interpretation of nuance—however out of context it may be—that suits his need to get you to continue to engage with him. He does it in bad faith, intentionally, because he is small and pathetic.

This is his life now. Don't feed the troll.

 

[KeithD]

Aren't Net writing discussion boards great? You can just hang out a shingle, no credentials needed, and start telling people how and what to write and a lot of them will follow you--because you've hung out a shingle and they want so much to believe. If you gather a little clique around you, you can even declare who to ignore and who not to. You don't even have to actually do much of what you're claiming to be a guru for. Ain't that nifty? It's even better if you can tell people to ignore those who actually are doing the work already.

 

[Vix_Giovanni]

Perhaps this is a minor point, all things considered, but "blond" and "blonde" are borrow words from French. The feminine "blonde" refers specifically to a woman or girl with blond hair.

I dug into the topic once. If you go deep enough you'll find fairly academic sources saying that "blonde" should be dropped from English because there's no place in the language for gender. Despite that, the usage is still common.

A fair point indeed (pun intended) and interesting to know about the argument of dropping the gender usage in English (I’m assuming American English?). Yes, I have a bit of familiarity with the etymology. Of course, there are probably a couple of writers on this site that could give us all an illuminating breakdown—I’m quite sure Tio can.

But I agree that, as you pointed out, it’s a moot point to the instant discussion.

(Edit: particularly moot because my comment was responsive to GL’s suggestion of describing a character as “blonde” and “voluptuous” without further description.)

 

[SimonDoom]

In American style usage, "blond" (male) and "blonde" (female) are still gender specific. It's in Webster's that way, although there's a slight fudge factor in the definition wording that leans to "blond" being acceptable for both.

Even at my advanced age (not that advanced, but my kids tell me it is) I learn something. I always thought of "blond" as the adjective and "blonde" as the noun. But you appear to be right, although as you say there seems to be enough fudginess that it's acceptable to say "X has blond hair" about either a man or a woman in American English. This is the way I like to do it. It seems un-American to me to use gendered adjectives.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

Because you say so? Or because someone you prefer says "shut up" or "ignore him" because he's not spouting your PC view? (Yep, I put it that way on purpose. )

You've been here all of ten minutes. It's a bit early to be speaking for the Web site.

(Did we ever clear up who owns that image you're using in your avatar and if you got permission to use it?)

For the third and last time, it is a digital modification of a drawing that was created for me years ago, dedicated to me, and I have the signed pencil and paper original. If you can't make it through the first sentence of the post, I'm not going to make the effort again.

You continue to demonstrate your bad faith. I will be following the doctor's advice from here on out.

 

[SimonDoom]

Aren't Net writing discussion boards great? You can just hang out a shingle, no credentials needed, and start telling people how and what to write and a lot of them will follow you--because you've hung out a shingle and they want so much to believe. If you gather a little clique around you, you can even declare who to ignore and who not to. You don't even have to actually do much of what you're claiming to be a guru for. Ain't that nifty? It's even better if you can tell people to ignore those who actually are doing the work already.

OK but here's the flip side. This is an anonymous forum where we all adopt pseudonyms. I have no reason to doubt your credentials, and in fact I don't, because from the substance of your posts it seems pretty clear that you know something about what you opine about, but, seriously, you could just be A Guy In A Basement who's faking it. Credentials, in my view, don't count for much in a forum like this, so what counts is whether you can marshal good arguments and evidence and cite sound authorities when giving your opinions. Anybody can do that, regardless of experience or "authority", and that's perfectly OK.

 

[KeithD]

For the third and last time, it is a digital modification of a drawing that was created for me years ago, dedicated to me, and I have the signed pencil and paper original. If you can't make it through the first sentence of the post, I'm not going to make the effort again.

You continue to demonstrate your bad faith. I will be following the doctor's advice from here on out.

I missed the first two times and tracing the background of the image seems to lead elsewhere.

I didn't realize Awkward had a doctorate in creative writing, which is what would be relevant here. But of course you'll follow her. You've joined the clique. She's hung a shingle out. Hope is more important to you than credentials. You really want just to be told how and what to write in order to get good ratings and a red H at the little world named Literotica. That would be the tops of success for you.

What bad faith, by the way? Please specify.

 

[KeithD]

OK but here's the flip side. This is an anonymous forum where we all adopt pseudonyms. I have no reason to doubt your credentials, and in fact I don't, because from the substance of your posts it seems pretty clear that you know something about what you opine about, but, seriously, you could just be A Guy In A Basement who's faking it. Credentials, in my view, don't count for much in a forum like this, so what counts is whether you can marshal good arguments and evidence and cite sound authorities when giving your opinions. Anybody can do that, regardless of experience or "authority", and that's perfectly OK.

I vetted to Lynn, the mod of the Editor's board, some years ago. I was managing editor of a major news agency when I first retired and then went back to UVa for advanced credentials in editing and publishing. Since then I've edited over 160 mainstream books for some 25 mainstream publishers, have written some 50 published books in the mainstream and over 200 published works in erotica. I had a publishing consultation service, which included a top-100 Writer's Digest Web site. This was vetted with the editorial section mod of this Web site. Go ahead and ask her. Anyone else vetting with her is quite welcome to do so--especially anyone offering themselves up as a guru critiquer here (which I haven't done, because I'm here to write not to go on a busman's holiday).

Yes, I agree that here the most someone can do is look at their writing file and their advice. I did that with AwkwardMD. Yes, there's good advice in there. There's also some heavy personal opinion, some of which is garbage, that is pushed. I went to school for this. A major axiom there was "keep your damn personal opinion out of it. It isn't your work and it isn't your voice." AwkwardMD, as with "you only write white people" advice on this thread, is off the reservation as a legitimate critic in this--often. She's extremely opinionated. If she had any real experience in doing it, she'd know that and would stop doing it. So, yes, I'm not fully impressed nor do I think that's good service to seeking writers.

 

[BrokenSpokes]

This

He doesn't read your post. He'll just glance at it, pick an opposite stance regardless of whether it's something he believes or practices himself, and shit on it. He an opportunist. His argument doesn't make even the least bit of sense given the conversation about diversity that went on in this thread. KeithD is a bully, and you should all just ignore him.

This is why this forum needs “LIKE” buttons

 

[SisterJezabel]

I wonder about this, too, and am curious what people think about this.

Keep in mind we're writing erotic stories here. Erotic stories have their own needs.

There is some virtue in NOT describing characters in erotic stories, because the readers can imagine them to be whatever they want them to be.

I can see where you are coming from, totally, but I think we also need to challenge some of the sterotypes, especially in the IR world. It's fascinating going back to gay and lesbian stories from the early 2000s on Lit and seeing the change in the way sexuality is portrayed over the last 15+ years. Being mindful of how we act as authors can help with some of the casual racism that we still see everyday. Just my 2¢!

 

[SisterJezabel]

Ignore him. Don't let him drag you down to his level. You can make all the well-intentioned and logical points you want, but he will find a surface level interpretation of nuance—however out of context it may be—that suits his need to get you to continue to engage with him. He does it in bad faith, intentionally, because he is small and pathetic.

This is his life now. Don't feed the troll.

Never argue with an idiot, they'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience!

Thanks for some backstory on this interesting individual.

 

[Bad_Egg]

I can see where you are coming from, totally, but I think we also need to challenge some of the sterotypes, especially in the IR world. It's fascinating going back to gay and lesbian stories from the early 2000s on Lit and seeing the change in the way sexuality is portrayed over the last 15+ years. Being mindful of how we act as authors can help with some of the casual racism that we still see everyday. Just my 2¢!

https://media.giphy.com/media/eImrQGGFPgyFyHAWaE/giphy.gif

 

[AwkwardMD]

Oh look, another one for my ignore list.