Writing From a Female Perspective

Hmm I feel it's being sexual but I still agree it comes from an exhibitionist perspective. I suppose it depends on the situation haha

 

No. The percentage of people that want to have sex on video is so vanishingly small that there's no logical way to connect it to sex drive. That would be like arguing that people who don't webcast their daily meals aren't as hungry as those that do, or people who don't webcast their daily showers are less interested in cleanliness. I've never posted a video of myself reading a book, so I must not be a reader, right?

Videoing one's activities is not a badge of commitment to those activities.

Also: "Exhibitionism: Psychiatry: a mental condition characterized by the compulsion to display one's genitals in public."

 

It's not just video, it's text sex, seeing the person respond to your request on video, and back and forth. To claim it's just exhibitionism is flat out nonsense. It's a form of having sex. One that's faceless and anonymous.
So when we're told women have equally intense sexualities as men, and are simply held back by the possibility of slut shaming, the fact that women don't engage in an avenue of sexual expression with no slutshaming barrier whatsoever, is revealing. To claim it isn't is ideologically driven obtuseness.

 

May I ask why you are SO focused on what is male and what is female?
I truely believe the things you're describing as specifically male are so much more about the individual than the gender. There is a difference in sexuality between PEOPLE but that doesn't really depend on gender. ALL women are not going to have lower sex drives and ALL men are not going to be perverted and sexually obsessed. Do you base all your assumptions of gender on what media and the internet depicts to you? If so I'm sorry but you really need to get to know people for who they are as a person rather than what you think their gender defines them as.

 

Good heavens, of course there's a slutshaming barrier. You're putting video of yourself having sex online! Are you under the illusion that that's absolutely and utterly secure, with zero chance of your identity being revealed? Seriously?

Edited to add: OK, am I being trolled here? Does anyone else, anyone at all, agree that publishing your sexual activities online is a risk-free, anonymous, harmless, perfectly safe activity that will be totally un-influenced by one's feelings about others being aware of one's sexual activities?

 

Again, to argue what you argue presupposes that testosterone is a benign hormone when it comes to sex drive. Which is false.
We're not talking about exceptions,which can occur for a variety of reasons.

 

I mean... as a woman who's partner is often far away I engage with them in sexual activities. And I am truely grateful that technologies have aloud that for us. I have no shame of that and I feel I have just as much desire as my spouse... sooooooo Once again i think you're just obsessing on a single view and refusing to broaden your perspective. You can't say that only men have these sort of desires or participate in these kinds of things. Look at what you're saying -> all men, broadly speaking, just HAVE to have sexual intensity that women do not have.

 

i think the person is just incredibly triggered honestly. And has a pretty limited view of female and male personas lol. Its like they're not even trying to see what others are suggesting and continuously going " NOPE NOPE NOPE" Or maybe you're right and its a troll doing troll things haha.

-> also as far as posting sexual stuff online i feel this slutshamming thing would apply to both genders ahah

 

This is exactly the difference. Many more men are so horny they don't care about "utterly secure", which as a concept, doesn't exist anyway. But there's much less chance of slut shaming. These are transient faceless sexual activities between strangers and what you're saying reeks of paranoia.

 

So one minute you argue that there's absolutely no slut shaming, and the other minute you argue that men don't care about slut shaming. Your argument is not holding together.

Paranoia? Right. Who could POSSIBLY imagine any negative consequences resulting from posting images of one's most private activities online?

 

now the question is, who cares? what if they get off doing that on those shady websites. Those INDIVIDUALS ( not all men for the 50th time ) do there thing. Those groups don't reflect the gender in its entirety? so I don't feel it's even relevant but then again I think your entire argument is just based on some trivial generic idea of what men are like and what women are like.

 

This is actually not correct.
The sex drive of an average man is different than that of an average woman. It's not so much about the amount of sex drive, it's how sex drive manifests itself between the sexes. While culture plays an important role, more so it's evolution that dictates our sex drive.
http://www.webmd.com/sex/features/sex-drive-how-do-men-women-compare#1

 

Hmm. I could see that. I like how you defined a difference between amount and how it is manifested. I still feel individuality plays a big role in this BUT I'll be interested to see what insight this link has to offer.

- this kind of reminds me how a lot of people say that male associated sexual tendencies are the result of being hardwired to "breed with as many women as possible and sire offspring" though I don't really indulge this as the dominant reasoning and agree that society may play a more influential role in this, it's still an interesting and valid thought.

Although after a quick look, the author doesn't seem to have many credentials in the field.... a degree in journalism isn't necessarily going to make him an expert on gendered sexuality. BUT to me it just seems he is still communicating a pretty socially standard idea? information found here : http://www.richardsine.com/about-me/

 

Not every novel needs to have sex, or even romance. Female characters can just be part of the plot. Once you've done that, then maybe a character with a nice stable offscreen husband, so you don't need to deal with the building of a romantic relationship. After that, think about what to try next.

 

In the end, evolution has us the way we are for one purpose, to procreate and continue our bloodline. All society/culture can do is subdue our nature, and it's a valid argument that even that has evolutionary roots.

 

I surely can't disagree there. I suppose there just are a lot of factors on how we as a collective express it ^.^ ( although maybe not subdue.... I'd think more just reshape. Though I suppose that entirely depends on when and where ahah xD)

Man this thread has really opened up a can of worms beyond the original question lol XD! though interesting none the less.

 

Theories and studies about men in general and women in general have no bearing on a conversation about characters, because we don't write our characters in general.

I don't think I've ever read a legitimate study on sex-based differences that didn't present findings as overlapping bell curves. The degree of overlap may vary from study to study, but it's always there. So, for a less contentious issue than psychological factors - the peak of the bell curve for height may be at 5'5" for women and 5'7" for men, but the curves overlap and there are loads of women who are taller than loads of men. The same goes for psychological factors - I have a good friend who broke up with her fiance before the wedding because she realized she just couldn't live her life with someone with such a different sex drive. She's always been very into sex, and he was more of a snuggle-up-and-watch-TV-together kind of guy. These two may or may not have hit the averages for their sexes, but they're real people and would be realistic characters.

So, again, the overall ideas about men and women have no real bearing on this thread. Write an individual character, not a representation of the gender average.

 

Finally.

Not so much to be caricatures but those on the steeper slopes of those bell curves are the ones that garner my interest.

 

Males and females are undeniably and by definition different.
Birds, bees, lions, people - all exhibit sex-linked differences in genotype and phenotype.

I suspect you are trolling. Time to put you on a diet, then.

 

@Phil Mitchell "Men and Women are 100% opposites"
@xBlackHeartx "Men and Women are 100% identical"

Have either one of you ever googled "misconceptions about gender differences"?

 

I never said that or once thought it. There is sexual dimorphism between male and female anatomy , which the brain is not exempt from, however that doesn't make men and women "opposite", whatever that means, and there are social factors in conjunction. Real scientists believe there's a nature and nurture aspect to sex based differences. Only gender studies researchers, aka non scientists, believe it's all social factors. Why? Because they're ideologically driven to believe that. No where was this more clearly demonstrated in this documentary:



Where a comedian completely embarrassed the Nordic Gender Institute as making wild absolutes with no evidence whatsoever. All he did was record their claims, the reaction of real scientists, and showed each other. Shortly after the documentary's release, the gender institute was CLOSED DOWN and defunded after sixteen years of operation, with the downsized version merged with some other institute. And if the Nordic countries close you down, as a feminist institution, you have to be peddling some really unscientific nonsense.

Well it does if you actually listen to my argument. You posited the notion of "utterly secure". "Utterly secure" doesn't exist anywhere. As a concept it's bunk. So is there a remote chance some creep can hack your computer and use your details against you? Yes. So is there absolutely no chance of being slut shamed whatsoever? No, there is a tiny chance. However it's a paranoid fantasy, Chickenfreak.

Lets looks at the risks rationally. For chatroulette and omegle you don't sign up. You don't pay, people don't show their faces, and it's a transient activity, over when you want it to be. Now you're proposing there's some creep who's going to hack your computer,find your details, match it to your body, and hold you to ransom, or shame you somehow. Slut shame a completely random non celebrity over faceless video sex. Well, you buy things online, right? And if you don't, many do. People put their bank details into these websites. Their name and their address, which sites like ebay and amazon actually store. People put their bank details, men and women, in the Playstation and Xbox live account http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2888339/Hackers-release-cache-13-000-passwords-credit-cards-Playstation-Xbox-Amazon-users.html If you think for a second, Amazon and Ebay are immune to this, then I have snake oil to sell you. Or how about many female celebrities who put nude images on their phone, knowing that phones can be hacked. And their nudes are actually worth something.

 

Here. I got you this.

 

I think that for some reason, you have a very strong need to believe that this is a safely private activity. The fact that it isn't seems so obvious that I need to treat it as a troll assertion, even though I think you actually believe it. It's just too far from reality to be argued. It's like someone telling me that the moon is made of green cheese.

 

I disagree that males and females aren't different psychologically or biologically. Only skimmed through the comments here, but I recall reading something like that, and it's straight-up misinformation.

That doesn't mean you can't have a woman who is an outlier, behaviorally or physically. But to say that the genders are identical is grossly dishonest. It would be like saying monkeys and humans are the same because the DNA is "close enough". No; they're either the same, or they aren't.

Anyway, just don't fall for cliches and generalizations, if you're serious about your character feeling real to the reader. What better way to do that, than by talking with women in real-life, or on here. Have women beta-read for you. You could also try reading The Hunger Games.

And keep in mind not to try too hard, honestly. Start with making the character human first, before anything. Then with 3/4 of the work done, you can worry about the little "flourishes" and "dashes" of a female perspective.