Restrictions on second/third accounts?

[AlinaX]

Threads like this just leave me very confused about what men and women actually are.

 

[SimonDoom]

I think there are a lot of male readers who give a higher rating to a story told from a female POV, if they think it's written by a female. Those male readers would probably be more critical of the same story posted by a male author.

Regardless of how well a guy might write a romance story, let's face facts: fewer women will buy a romance novel from an author named Ralph. And for a sex story, more guys will salivate over a female writing about going wild, more so than a guy writing about being a female going wild. They'll more likely consider the latter as "in your dreams."

Look at the story trends in Loving Wives for evidence. Those trolls will 1-bomb a story of a guy finding his wife cheating, and the guy accepts it. BUT the same scenario wife-cheating-husband-accepts-it when told from the wife POV rates much higher. It's not a stretch to think they rate female POV stories higher because they want to hear the female writer's POV. It's part of the total package for sales to create the account name to lead them to better acceptance. And there are at least two authors here who could provide their own experience of their stories ratings from their female accounts.

Life is not always fair. It's just life, and ad agencies exploit their knowledge of reality that sex sells.

If you are right about your assumptions -- I have no idea if you are -- then they undercut your argument that there's something deceptive or somehow unseemly about using alts. It's just good business sense to do so, because there are highly different markets within the erotica field and an author should feel perfectly free to try to tap into as many of them as he or she wishes. It's no different from taking on a new name as a singer or writer or actor. If it helps the readers enjoy the fantasy more to think that the author is female, then why not play in to that? It's so logical that to me it seems like an odd thing to be critical of.

 

[Lifestyle66]

If you are right about your assumptions -- I have no idea if you are -- then they undercut your argument that there's something deceptive or somehow unseemly about using alts. It's just good business sense to do so, because there are highly different markets within the erotica field and an author should feel perfectly free to try to tap into as many of them as he or she wishes. It's no different from taking on a new name as a singer or writer or actor. If it helps the readers enjoy the fantasy more to think that the author is female, then why not play in to that? It's so logical that to me it seems like an odd thing to be critical of.

You are right.

But it seems odd that others on this forum complained in a different thread when an author asked for some input from a female POV, advising that he do his own work and read female written stories. As I basically said, "Who the fuck KNOWS if it's really written by a female?"

And if it IS good business sense as you suggest ... then are you also supporting the argument that creating a female-named profile would garner higher ratings? (Careful what pile you step in here. I'm already on the shitlist.)

 

[SimonDoom]

You are right.

But it seems odd that others on this forum complained in a different thread when an author asked for some input from a female POV, advising that he do his own work and read female written stories. As I basically said, "Who the fuck KNOWS if it's really written by a female?"

And if it IS good business sense as you suggest ... then are you also supporting the argument that creating a female-named profile would garner higher ratings? (Careful what pile you step in here. I'm already on the shitlist.)

I don't know if you are correct that readers give female authors higher ratings, but from what I know (not much! I admit it) it IS good business sense to write romance, and possibly some erotica, under the name of a woman.

It would be interesting to conduct a blind test of being given samples of Literotica stories and being asked to ID whether the author was really male or female. I could be wrong but I suspect we'd get it right most of the time.

 

[AlinaX]

People are free and welcome to create alts under whatever genders they like. The reality is that many readers do make assumptions based on their perceptions of the author's gender and general hotness.

As long as no harm is done, whose business is it anyway?

 

[KeithD]

It would be interesting to conduct a blind test of being given samples of Literotica stories and being asked to ID whether the author was really male or female. I could be wrong but I suspect we'd get it right most of the time.

The cluelessness on gender here continues. Pray tell how would you establish the true gender of anyone here?

 

[SimonDoom]

The cluelessness on gender here continues. Pray tell how would you establish the true gender of anyone here?

I'm not saying it would be practical to set up. But IF it were set up I think in most cases you could tell. Say one person conducted the test, took 100 stories from different Literotica authors with verified proof of their actual gender, then offered the stories blindly to a group of Lit reader subjects with instructions to guess the gender. I suspect the "guess right" rate would be high. There may be exceptions where someone is deliberately writing in a way to come across as the opposite gender.

 

[SimonDoom]

Interesting though experiment: would it be easier for a male author to pass himself off as a female author than vice versa?

 

[oggbashan]

I created a second account to write from a female point of view - jeanne_d_artois. A spin off is Fag-Ash_Lil, a character in one of jeanne's stories. But they are known to be me.

 

[AlinaX]

verified proof of their actual gender ... the opposite gender

I'm not sure you could get around the selection bias you're building into this.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Interesting though experiment: would it be easier for a male author to pass himself off as a female author than vice versa?

I doubt there is much difference there. There are some obvious tells, assuming the story you are reading is big enough. The only thing I am unsure of is if an author actually tried to adjust the style of writing in order to pass as a different gender. I know some things I would write differently to try to maintain the illusion, and I am hardly someone with much experience there. I assume it wouldn't be impossible to pull of such a deception if one was a skilled author with enough motivation.

 

[alohadave]

You are right.

But it seems odd that others on this forum complained in a different thread when an author asked for some input from a female POV, advising that he do his own work and read female written stories. As I basically said, "Who the fuck KNOWS if it's really written by a female?"

Well, forums are not monolithic; not everyone reads and replies to every thread. So some variation is to be expected in responses.

 

[SimonDoom]

I'm not sure you could get around the selection bias you're building into this.

True! The person administering the test would have to create the author sample in a way to get around this.

 

[Lifestyle66]

There may be exceptions where someone is deliberately writing in a way to come across as the opposite gender.

That's the whole point.

If a good writer can write from either POV effectively and with the same quality, then readers wouldn't be able to guess based on the story. It would be a random guess as to the author's gender.

Then WHY would the author create the alternate profile, or why would they not sell their work under their real identity?

The answer is "it's good business to pander to the readers, where they are more willing to spend their money and rating stars!"

 

[SimonDoom]

I doubt there is much difference there. There are some obvious tells, assuming the story you are reading is big enough. The only thing I am unsure of is if an author actually tried to adjust the style of writing in order to pass as a different gender. I know some things I would write differently to try to maintain the illusion, and I am hardly someone with much experience there. I assume it wouldn't be impossible to pull of such a deception if one was a skilled author with enough motivation.

This could be an interesting story challenge/event, perhaps. Submit a story to the challenge under a new and completely different name, and the challenge is that readers should try to guess your gender and who you really are ("who you really are" being your common Lit identity, with the understanding that none of us really knows whether "who you really are" is who you really are).

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Most people seem to find stories via Category and then the New list or Similar. I doubt many look at Author as much as the Title and Description, but it may influence in some cases where there's a sexy and gendered username.

I get as many people assuming my username is male as female (I don't list gender on my profile any more - dick pics weren't too numerous, but the wannabe subby males were tedious), but then I do write as much Gay Male as Lesbian Sex. My het stuff is mainly from a female POV but not all. But none of it panders to a fantasy version of men or women, so readers who might care about an author's sex probably don't particularly go for my stories, and vice versa.

 

[SimonDoom]

That's the whole point.

If a good writer can write from either POV effectively and with the same quality, then readers wouldn't be able to guess based on the story. It would be a random guess as to the author's gender.

Then WHY would the author create the alternate profile, or why would they not sell their work under their real identity?

The answer is "it's good business to pander to the readers, where they are more willing to spend their money and rating stars!"

Because, rational or not, readers make assumptions. It's part of the fantasy. Most readers aren't giving this a lot of thought. They see a novel called "Sweet Surrender of the Governess" written by "Flora LaRomantica" and they accept without much further thought that it's a romance novel written by a woman, and it's all part of the fantasy.

Where I'm not sure about your assumption is whether readers would give a male author a lower grade. I think it's true that they'd be more inclined to buy a book they thought was written by a female author, but I'm not so sure that, once they finished the book, they'd give the female author the higher rating.

 

[Lifestyle66]

This could be an interesting story challenge/event, perhaps. Submit a story to the challenge under a new and completely different name, and the challenge is that readers should try to guess your gender and who you really are ("who you really are" being your common Lit identity, with the understanding that none of us really knows whether "who you really are" is who you really are).

The better challenge would be to create the alt account with of opposite sex, then write and post a story similar to your other works to see if there are any rating differences.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I think there are a lot of male readers who give a higher rating to a story told from a female POV, if they think it's written by a female. Those male readers would probably be more critical of the same story posted by a male author.

Regardless of how well a guy might write a romance story, let's face facts: fewer women will buy a romance novel from an author named Ralph. And for a sex story, more guys will salivate over a female writing about going wild, more so than a guy writing about being a female going wild. They'll more likely consider the latter as "in your dreams."

Look at the story trends in Loving Wives for evidence. Those trolls will 1-bomb a story of a guy finding his wife cheating, and the guy accepts it. BUT the same scenario wife-cheating-husband-accepts-it when told from the wife POV rates much higher. It's not a stretch to think they rate female POV stories higher because they want to hear the female writer's POV. It's part of the total package for sales to create the account name to lead them to better acceptance. And there are at least two authors here who could provide their own experience of their stories ratings from their female accounts.

Life is not always fair. It's just life, and ad agencies exploit their knowledge of reality that sex sells.

I don't dispute that there are readers who give higher scores to stories written by female (or female preceived) authors. However, there are also readers who automatically downvote female authors. How those groups balance each other out is unknown and it's pointless to speculate, unless the purpose is just promotion of some irrelevant agenda.

But I want to be be sure I understand you. My average story score is 4.80. By your metric, that female authors scores are inflated by at least +1.0, you believe that my average should be no higher than 3.80. Do I have that right?

 

[TxRad]

I have three accounts. One is this one, one is female, and one is for stories I co-write with a female author. The scores are about the same across the three. The comments are higher on the Female alt. The favorites are higher on my normal male alt but that is because I have 300 submission under it and only a couple of dozen under the other two.

Under my TxRad stories I've had people wonder if I'm a woman writing as a male. One guys wife said a guy couldn't write what I wrote. Alts have their uses as a writer and cheating has nothing to do with it if you really want to be proud of what you write.

 

[KeithD]

I'm not saying it would be practical to set up. But IF it were set up I think in most cases you could tell. Say one person conducted the test, took 100 stories from different Literotica authors with verified proof of their actual gender, then offered the stories blindly to a group of Lit reader subjects with instructions to guess the gender. I suspect the "guess right" rate would be high. There may be exceptions where someone is deliberately writing in a way to come across as the opposite gender.

I think the ability to tell would depend on the writing skill of the writer more than the actual gender of the writer.

You're nudging up against trans writers too and the question of how much of this would be couched in biology. Going there would be a nightmare of squishy "just to have something to do" rather than write activity.

 

[Lifestyle66]

I don't dispute that there are readers who give higher scores to stories written by female (or female preceived) authors. However, there are also readers who automatically downvote female authors. How those groups balance each other out is unknown and it's pointless to speculate, unless the purpose is just promotion of some irrelevant agenda.

But I want to be be sure I understand you. My average story score is 4.80. By your metric, that female authors scores are inflated by at least +1.0, you believe that my average should be no higher than 3.80. Do I have that right?

No!

You're a very good writer and deserve high scores.

I think I said if ... I ... created a female account and placed MY stories in Loving Wives, I would probably score 1.0 higher.

I'm not a good writer. At best, I get up to about a 3.3 or 3.4 in that category, and it takes months of scrubs for any of the to get up to a 4.3.

But in that category, I've read some worse stories which achieved much higher ratings. As I said before, it's often the POV and writer that differs in the cheating wives stories which can make a BIG difference.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

No!

You're a very good writer and deserve high scores.

I think I said if ... I ... created a female account and placed MY stories in Loving Wives, I would probably score 1.0 higher.

I'm not a good writer. At best, I get up to about a 3.3 or 3.4 in that category, and it takes months of scrubs for any of the to get up to a 4.3.

But in that category, I've read some worse stories which achieved much higher ratings. As I said before, it's often the POV and writer that differs in the cheating wives stories which can make a BIG difference.

Aww, man. You totally chickened out there

 

[KeithD]

I write in more than one female name account. They don't have the same correlation with each other on voting vis-a-vis accounts in neutral or male names. The difference appears to be predominantly story category based.

 

[Lifestyle66]

Aww, man. You totally chickened out there

Sorry to disappoint, but Melissa's "Oyster River" story was a great one last year, and I told her so in the forums.