Male writers who want feedback specifically from females.

[KillerMuffin]

I've always found this notion to be mildly suspect. Feedback about writing isn't gender-specific, though a female is more likely to tell you how close you are in describing female specific portions of the story.

Women don't ask this, I've noticed, just men.

I'm leery of responding to a lot of these requests (particularly those embedded at the tail end of the story) because they appear to be more a means to "pickup" women than any real interest in feedback.

Some I think are honest. I recall one on this forum where the man wanted to know if he'd gotten something right. Most, I think, are from men wanting to know how women responded sexually to the story, explicitly if possible.

This seems a little, well, unethical in a way.

What do you think? Am I overanalyzing this or is this something that's kind of been noted?

 

[its Leslie]

When I think of women, its what's between the legs that has me interested heheh.

But when I am writing I might actually like to better understand what's between your ears.

Although, I would be inclined to be a bit suspicious KM.
For every man that is truely interested in the way women see the world, you can find a veritable mob that only want you for amusement.

 

[cherrylips_au]

I seen some requests like this and either ignore them or just give feedback on the story as I would with any other story.

I never tell someone if their story has any sexual appeal to me, if I'm giving feedback then I don't see how that's relevant to the story.

Maybe you just have to be suspicious of it, but give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe the do want to know if their writing appeals to women, if they have portrayed something correctly, if they have done a reasonable job of getting inside a womans' pov for the story.

 

[Wyatt]

I've requested feedback in the past on a story(But not since yesterday ) but never gender specific.It's a bit acky isn't it?If I wish to ask a specific question that is what PMs are for.Mind you there is nothing worse than submitting a story,getting your hot"H" and getting one feedback only (That was yesterday as well! ). Mind you it was from a female so good on her!!

Basically I agree with it being a bit icky.Personally any feedback is appreciated...don't get much cos I write mainly blackmail nonconsent methinks.

 

[spankableBelle]

Although, I would be inclined to be a bit suspicious KM.
For every man that is truely interested in the way women see the world, you can find a veritable mob that only want you for amusement.

Gee, i've found part of the mob...would anyone else like to have the ones only interested in amusement? i fell for it once...and found that yes the author only wanted to amuse himself with someone sexually...never again will i be so gullible. At least give me something decent to read if you want feedback!

i have never asked for feedback. Not here or on the stories page. For myself, if someone reads one of my stories and feels moved enough to comment, good or bad, then i'll know or at least feel that their thoughts were honest, not coaxed or necessary. i write because i like to, because it allows me to share parts of myself, and because it allows me to explore limits and desires within...i think a reader should be allowed to read and comment because they want to, because something in the writing moved them to do it, not because i put a disclaimer at the bottom of the page that says 'please give me feedback, i love feedback, and i'll answer every email or IM'...

just my two cents worth...

belle

 

[Wyatt]

I agree in one respect about not asking for feedback but my story yesterday had 5500 views ,25 votes and 1 feedback.Sometimes you feel "gee,I wonder what I'm doing wrong?" Or is that just me?

 

[SexyChele]

If the request is embedded at the end of the story, I ignore it. If a man were to request feedback here, then I might consider it - but for things such as if he got the emotions or responses right, or if a woman would speak a certain way. The only time I really take these requests seriously if they were to be asked on the Story Circle Discussion forum.

I can understand wanting to get gender specific feedback, however. When I wrote my first Gay Male story, I specifically asked for feedback - well, both men and women, but hoping for gay men - as I wanted to know if I'd gotten it "right" or if I was totally off base. But that was because the genre was so completely foreign to me.

 

[ronde]

It is probable that some male authors who specifically ask for feeback from women are only wanting an introduction, or want to get their own jollies by hearing how their story might have affected a female reader. The number of authors that submit to Lit make the probablity almost a certainty, but I would think that most women would be able to spot these for what they are. It appears to me that various BB's also attract those looking for cheap thrills, so one is not "safe" answering those requests, either.

I started putting a shameless request for feedback at the end of my stories because I wasn't getting any feedback. The request is not gender specific, and states the reason for the request. I now get feedback, so apparently the gentle nudge has worked. Most is anonymous, and that's fine with me. I'm just interested in knowing if people like my writing. I do correspond with other authors and if I want specific answers, I ask them. It is interesting that I get more "signed" feedback from men than women, and perhaps they fear what KM suggests.

 

[JUDO]

As a pickup attempt by a male - only if the guy is a total moron.

Females who should be worried about responding to this question from such a potential loser - none that I know of.

Possibility that KM is being paranoid - none.

Possibility that the guy in question feels like he knows something about the way a woman might think and is curious as to how close he came - BING-O! DING, DING, DING, DING!


- Judo

 

[horny_giraffe]

Well, I like feedback from women because of a couple of reasons:

1. It reassures me that me stories aren't so alien to the female experience of sex. Or if they are, why they might seem that way.

2. Not ever having been a woman, the subjective experience from a woman's point of view is pretty much a blank to me. I can only interpret physiological reactions (which may be involuntary or voluntary.)

I generally don't solicit feedback, however. Women (or female-present males?) that give unsolicited feedback are a better bet--assuming I get any feedback at all. And famous women/posters like KillerMuffin? Forget it, not worth the bother of rejection. I'm sure you'll get as many solicitations as you like. My solicitations would no doubt be just a drop in an endless sea of private messages and emails.

 

[KillerMuffin]

You think that I don't give feedback?

You're basing this off of what?

 

[medjay]

One of the stories I posted featured my attempt to write in the first person from a female point of view. In the feedback section I asked the ladies to tell me whether I got the tone right or had totally botched it and should go back to the drawing board.

I recieved several replies from female readers, all positive and telling me I had done a good job.

It never occured to me at the time that someone might think I had some sort of alterior motive for the request. When I read the topic of this thread I wondered if I might have unknowingly turned someone off by asking for female feedback. I hope not.

 

[Weird Harold]

In the feedback section I asked the ladies to tell me whether I got the tone right or had totally botched it and should go back to the drawing board.

I recieved several replies from female readers, all positive and telling me I had done a good job.

It never occured to me at the time that someone might think I had some sort of alterior motive for the request.

I think the requests that have "ulterior motives" are pretty easy to pick out.

"Ladies, did I get this right? Please write and let me know."

Is a far cry from, "I love feedback from ladies. Especially when it includes naked pictures."

The last isn't something I've made up for effect, BTW. It's a quote from a regular poster at ASSTR.org -- as close as I can remember without cutting and pasting.

 

[wildsweetone]

WH I agree with you. I think the majority of us have a fairly logical common sense chip which lets us know when somebody is trying it on. Heck, if we don't, then we learn real quick.

Personally, I've not come across any stories with 'those' kind of feedback requests yet, I've been on the receiving end of the opposite version though.

I suggest medjay that you could try using the storyfeedback forum if you want serious feedback. I'm sure that if you requested very specific feedback, it could be given.

 

[medjay]

I suggest medjay that you could try using the storyfeedback forum if you want serious feedback. I'm sure that if you requested very specific feedback, it could be given.

Er . . . I think you might not have gotten the correct jist of my post but that's okay. I got wonderful feedback on my story months ago. I was just pointing out that I was unaware of other guys using the feedback section for their own cad-like activities.

 

[wildsweetone]

medjay

I apologise dear, it's been a rough day.

KM said: 'I'm leery of responding to a lot of these requests (particularly those embedded at the tail end of the story) because they appear to be more a means to "pickup" women than any real interest in feedback.'

Somewhere along the line I must have misunderstood... I thought the postings were referring to comments at the end of the posted stories. I have put the odd feedback request on some of mine. None were gender specific though.

No problems though

 

[medjay]

Re: medjay

I apologise dear, it's been a rough day.

No apologies necessary. It happens to everyone.

 

[Alex De Kok]

I always ask for feedback...

...although I don't get a lot. The wording varies, but at the end of my latest opus, Welcome to our bed, Goody-Two-Shoes(shameless plug!), I added

For those of you who have read this far, my thanks for staying. I hope you have enjoyed my little tale. Feedback is welcomed, either to the address in my profile or via the anonymous feedback. Don't forget your own address if you require a response. The only reward I get for this is your enjoyment, so please take the time to vote, too.

I put something similar at the end of all of my stories. How effective it is I don't know, but I usually get some feedback and some votes, too. It can backfire too, as per the feedback from Mr. (or Ms.) Onymous, saying "your story sucks"!

I do not ask for gender-specific feedback, although I have had some very pleasant responses from lady readers.

Alex

 

[ANiceGuy]

Most guys in this type of forum....

I think a large percentage of the guys on this site are probably more interested personal social intercourse than writing kudos. I also think a large percentage of the girls are "flirting" with guys and girls. Flirting is fun.

I understand how frustrating it can get when someone responds different than you expect them to and you have wasted time trying to communicate on a different level. I work in chats with amateur girls in their websites and a lot of the guys are more interested in trying to get the girls to talk to them in private than participating in chats. Kinda goes with the territory.

To me it is kinda like when a girl wears a very low cut blouse and very short skirt. She will get atttention from ten unwanted guys/girls for every guy or girls attention she really wants. Does that mean she stops wearing low cut tops and and skirts? I hope not. I think most girls learn how to "flirt" innocently with the ones their not really interested in and come on strong with the ones they want to get interested.

Personally I'd rather get feedback from a woman because know she sees things more from a realtionship aspect than how erotic I get. (I've got most guys attention the first time I use the f word.) Also most of the women I relate to on a long term personal level are bi and I connect most deeply with that part of our population. Sooo.. I'm probably going to write back sooner to a bi woman and have more of a long term intercourse (social) with her than with a guy. I also know from my experience on the chats that about half of the "girls" are guys using girls names (We can compare the chat handle with membership lists.) Very seldom do girls seem to cloak their sex.

Most of my stories are written with a girlfriends help. A girl will tell me about an experience in her life and I will write about it then go back and forth with her until I get what she wants to have written. Soo..... when I get good feed back I know I have captured the moment well so to speak.


I love it when some one asks for feed back and I discover an exciting and eroticly enjoyable story. No matter what their response is to my feedback I have an enjoyable experience.

Nice guy

 

[Octavian]

Female Feedback

Oh dear! Writing as someone who specifically asked for female feedback on this very board, I realise that everyone now knows I am really a pervert masquerading as an author.

It never occurred to me that people might ascribe an ulterior motive for what was an innocent request. I only wanted to know if my story appealed to women or if my female character seemed plausible. You see I actually tried to write a romantic story. A complete story too, rather than a series of erotic episodes.

Unfortunately only a couple of people took the trouble to post replies so I’m not much the wiser. But at least I have an idea why the response was so low.

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=51798

 

[Ulyssa]

Wyatt

I agree in one respect about not asking for feedback but my story yesterday had 5500 views ,25 votes and 1 feedback.Sometimes you feel "gee,I wonder what I'm doing wrong?" Or is that just me?

When you go into a restaurant do you always fill out the comments card on the table? Chances are when you've had a decent meal and fairly good service, you won't.

Since there is money involved in the voting on this site, responses are overemphasized. Since there are always needs involved in writing, a lack of response can be a crippling blow to a writer's ego.

In spite of what the public believes, being a writer is the intellectual equivalent to serving a life sentence at hard labor. Plus, we keep refusing parole.

 

[takingchances42]

I never tell someone if their story has any sexual appeal to me, if I'm giving feedback then I don't see how that's relevant to the story.

There is something in this thread that has been bothering me. I think it is that I am getting the impression that some people are implicitly defining writers by their motivations. Sort of like: "If you are not writing for a motivation I agree with, then you are less of a Writer". I don't see it that way.

I am not "guilty" of requesting feedback from females only. The feedback I have gotten from my one posted story has been from both men and women, and I have enjoyed both. In my profile, however, I do say that what I am specifically looking for is feedback on the sexual appeal of the writing. I do that for two reasons, each of which I consider to be valid.

One is that in my current novel (that will never get done if I keep posting here or writing erotic short stories), I am changing writing directions. The story is not erotica, per se -- but there will be a whole lot of fucking on. Which is a change for me from previous novels. I don't want a reader to look at that writing, and go "my, what beautiful prose". I want her or him to not even notice my sentence structure, because she or he is getting too hot reading those paragraphs to pay attention to anything else. I want to invoke passion, lust and chemistry. A goal I haven't reached yet, and perhaps never will. To help reach that goal, yes, I do want readers to tell me exactly what turned them on the most.

My second motivation, is that with my little experiment in erotic writing, I write about things that I find to be personally very erotic. If it should so happen that a woman reader wants to open up a dialogue about that aspect of sexuality, instead of my writing -- then I am just fine with that. I like it. So shoot me...

 

[peachykeen]

while I can understand there may be valid, innocent reasons for a man being interested in female feedback in particular, to ask for it exclusively would indicate to me that this is not someone who takes himself seriously as a writer. All constructive feedback is valuable, and I always appreciate anyone who has taken time to write and tell me what they think of my stuff. I do wish I had more time to give feedback as well but unfortunately time demands and real life demands that sometimes I just vote 'n go!

 

[Octavian]

In the initial post seeking feedback from a feminine perspective I did say that I'd already had a lot of feedback. But this was either anonymous or the name indicated that the correspondent was a man. It was an innocent request, for the reasons outlined above.
There never was an ulterior motive.

 

[KillerMuffin]

You were the genuine curiosity seeker I was talking about in my first post, Octavian. I had to look, cause my memory was shot, but there it is.

A lot of times, though, the whole "Ladies, drop me a line and tell me how you liked my stories!" feels like getting asked "Your place or mine?" right after he just paid for dinner.

I'm not saying all men who ask this question have bad intentions, but a lot of times it feels as if he might be looking for a little return on the ol' investment, if you understand what I'm saying.

It's not necessarily what he meant, it's what I understood. There's a definite failure to communicate going on when it comes to male~female stuff. I think that when you single one gender out without an explicitly stated motive, that instantly sends an "ulterior motive" message whether it was intended or not.