Authors, what annoys you about depictions of your own gender by opposite-sex authors?

So, male authors, what do female authors do wrong when they are writing from a male point of view? And female authors, ditto: what do male authors get wrong when they are writing from the point of view of a female character?

Of course, not all authors will be guilty of these offences, but some of them will be accurate - and enlightening. I'm hoping to learn something from this so that I can fix it in any future stories, if I see myself in any forthcoming complaints.

So, here's mine. Sometimes the female character will be describing her own appearance inside her own head in great detail, as if she's going about her usual business while fixating on her luxuriant honey-blonde hair and arresting big breasts.

"Tiffani woke up and stretched lazily, wiggling her perfectly shaped smooth boobs at the ceiling, enjoying their heavy DD-cupped weight and bounciness. She would enjoy a cup of cocoa for breakfast today, she thought as she flipped her waist-length red hair behind her creamy 22-year-old shoulders, and stood up, feeling her fleshy butt cheeks bouncing up and down. I love how awesome my butt looks, she giggled boobily to herself as she took her gigantic boobs and porn-star-grade butt to the bathroom to pee."

As a woman, I do like my own boobs, but I have never once had a thought like that.

So what do we authors - men and women - do wrong?

Well, actually only the bolded part above describes Tiffani thinking about her own body, the rest of it is simply how the author chooses to focus on her physical characteristics. (I'm rather uncertain what the adverb "boobily" means, exactly. Does it mean while her "gigantic boobs" are bouncing around?)

If you believe that male authors often focus a great deal on the physical attributes of their young female characters, I can't dispute you on that claim...

--C.K.

Aw, now you're just pretending not to get what I mean. That paragraph was clearly written entirely from her own point of view. (Who else besides her would know that she was thinking about hot cocoa?)

And to be clear, I don't mind drawn-out descriptions of sexy female characters, but it would have be through some infatuated male character's eyes (or infatuated female, whatever). It can't be from her own point of view - that's the mistake I was pointing out.

Don't even try to pretend you don't get it, I won't believe you.

Burgundy


That was pretty funny. That said, it's more bad writing than a gendered issue. Bad writing bugs me, but not specific in a way that gets "maleness" wrong. I think writers get people wrong when they're too focused on what they want to see happen, and not how what happens is communicated to a reader. Both genders are so diverse that I think any well written story is likely representative of someone or some type. As long as the story is about individual characters and not characters that are representative of common tendencies within their gender, I think there's a wide berth of behavior you can get away with.

Well, that would make you the first female to ever doubt my solemn word--except for the one thousand or so before you.

The paragraph is written from the third-person 'omniscient observer' point of view, isn't it? While the erotically-arousing description clearly is focused on Tiffani's exaggerated feminine charms, it comes primarily from the author--only the "awesome butt" part is indicated as the woman thinking about her own physical attractiveness.

Actually I do understand your point, however to me it would be better made if you would directly indicate that Tiffani is focusing on all those appealing aspects of her own body--writing it in the first person would create a more clearcut example, I'd venture.

If you're describing an extremely vain woman though, it could make sense for her to have those thoughts about her physical characteristics. A heterosexual male or lesbian female having them while in the woman's presence, that would obviously be more typical, I'll agree on that.

I'm still wondering what "boobily" means though, is it similar to "bubbly"...??

--C.K.

Now Burgundy don't fool around with this anymore. Just give CK the spanking he is practically begging for and get this over with. Of course if you do that, you may find a few more males lining up to pretend they don't get it either.

CS

Well, RIP this thread, thanks to both of you. I'm getting my hairbrush right now...

This is all CK's fault! I was just trying to get this forum piece back on track. Shame on you CK!

CS

*quickly joins the queue!*

Actually I get your point about the difficulty of males writing females characters - and the reverse.

I often struggle when giving my female characters motivation to spank (or submit to a spanking) and wonder if I am getting it all wrong.

For example, we males are almost obsessed with our penises and, when naked, love women to notice/comment. (or is that just me?!! hee hee)
But I have noticed that some female writers almost ignore the sight of an exposed penis, so am I getting that wrong? If so, what else do I get wrong?!

Female psychology is a minefield for us poor males!

Oh, blaming someone else now on top of tattling? You didn't think both of you had already mucked things up enough for yourselves??


That's a very good point (and thank you for taking this seriously, unlike some people). I'm pretty sure I'm guilty of this in at least a few of my stories - and it would be especially hard to avoid when writing kink stories like we do here, since the very point of them is to write out what we want to see happen.


You're right, we do (or at least I do). Probably for the same reason we don't, on average, focus as much on characters' physical characteristics in general. Men are more visually driven, bla bla. (As I was trying to illustrate in my opening paragraph about Tiffani.)
I'm aware of it, though; in one story I had the female spanker deliberately ignore the spankee's nakedness as additional emotional punishment, leaving him to wonder if he was "unremarkable" down there and if that was why she didn't pay him any attention.
Besides, if it's a punishment spanking, then I don't want to read (or write) about nekkid sexy parts - they don't belong. It's a punishment.