Girl on the Net

“I know I’m a man, but this story is written from a woman’s perspective, and I’d like you to publish it as my alter-ago Candy Sexpot please!” – I receive a fair few guest post pitches along these lines. These stories are usually written from a cis woman’s perspective, but composed entirely in the headspace of a straight man. I don’t publish these posts, and in case you’re thinking of pitching me one, here’s why.

Before I begin I need to stress that I am not talking about trans people. I understand that trans people can write erotica to explore their gender, or might want to publish it under a pseudonym rather than their legal name. I am talking about men. While I obviously don’t check everyone’s genitals before they write for me, I feel confident in saying that I’m talking about straight, cis men.

A man writing as a woman – how can you tell?

These stories tend to have a few things in common. Firstly, they are usually about a cisgender, heterosexual couple, written from the woman’s perspective. Think: “I’m a horny slut and I wanna tell you a story about how I fucked this guy in a pub toilet.” Occasionally they’ll be stories about cisgender lesbians, though that’s rarer.

They also tend to feature one or more of these issues:

• The author focuses almost exclusively on how the woman in the story looks and behaves. Where he describes the body/actions of the man it is only to highlight those things in relation to the woman’s body. e.g. “He fingered my tight pussy till I was dripping wet.”
• The woman is usually hypersexualised to the point of being one-dimensional: everything she does, even the non-sexual things, are usually framed in relation to sex. “We had a couple drinks because I knew that would get me feeling sluttier.”
• The woman who is narrating the story often says things that ring alarm bells: she is willing to put herself in extreme danger in order to get the sex she wants. e.g. “I wondered why he’d agree to meet me, a stranger, but I figured ‘fuck it, so what if I die? At least I’ll have had a good fuck!'” or “I was being naughty that day so I gave him my house key and told him I’d be face down ass up when he let himself in, and he could fuck me in pussy or ass however he liked. Without lube, if that’s what he wanted.”
• The woman is extremely orgasmic, liable to come from the simplest of things.
• The guy in the story has a ginormous cock, and she mentions it. A lot.

But this isn’t a question of whether I can ‘tell’ if someone’s a dude writing as a woman. To be blunt: I cannot tell what someone’s gender is unless they tell me, and it’s not my place to guess. If someone just emailed me one of these stories from an address which read [email protected] I wouldn’t question their gender, I’d just say ‘I don’t think this is a great fit for my site’ because the points above add up to bad erotica which I’d prefer not to publish.

On top of this, I’m extremely wary of taking one or two of these points and using them to call bullshit on someone’s life: a-ha! You’re a man! I can tell! You couldn’t possibly write this way about sex if you were a woman! People used to do this to me when I first started blogging, and it was tedious as fuck.

I don’t need to guess, though: the guys who send me these stories are up front about the fact that they’re men, and they want to write and publish as a woman.

My question to you dudes is… why?

Bad erotica versus good erotica

There are loads of different ways to write good erotica, and even more ways to write bad stuff. But personally I think what makes a story really hot is truth. Honesty. That doesn’t mean you can’t write erotic fiction, but it means when you write fiction you still have to tap into something that rings true – something other people can read and think ‘ohhhhh yeah, I find that sexy too.’

When you’re writing ‘as’ a cisgender woman, but you’re actually a straight, cis man, what you’re doing is projecting your own fantasies about women into their heads, and the whole thing comes out quite muddled. In reality, women aren’t one-dimensional characters who neatly fit your fantasies, we’re rounded people with thoughts and beliefs and desires that can be surprising.

Personally, I find it extremely difficult to write in the headspace of a man. I’ve done it before a few times, but I don’t think I do it very well. I had a go on Sunday, in a post about a guy sharing his girlfriend, and as you can see – even when I’m cheating by writing it as pure speech (so I don’t have to paint a detailed internal life for the character) – it’s not brilliant. I wouldn’t give myself anything higher than a D minus. generally my ‘dude headspace’ tends towards men who are one-dimension dominant and often outright cruel. Why? I don’t know. I have issues with men, clearly, and that bleeds into my writing. I like to think there’s at least a bit of honesty to them, because I’m still writing ‘as’ GOTN. I don’t tell you ‘this is a guest blog from Joe Bloggs’ but ‘here’s a fiction story that I, a horny lady, wrote myself.’ And from that, as you read the story, you can sense notes of the kinds of things that I enjoy (being used, for instance, or treated like trash – this is likely why so many of my fictional men are arseholes).

In fantasy, it can be fun to explore the idea of ‘your perfect partner/shag’, but it’s always going to be hotter if you’re up-front about what it is you’re doing. Not saying ‘I am Candy, sex kitten extraordinaire, and here’s a fuck I had once,’ but saying ‘I am Bill, a horny writer, and here’s the kind of sex I’d love.’

It’s more believable, because it’s more real.

Injecting truth into your erotic fiction

My advice to you, if you’re a straight dude who wants to write erotica, is to ask yourself first: why do I want to write this as a woman? What am I hoping to achieve? What does the story lose if I pretend it comes from a woman’s headspace, and what could it gain instead if I tried to write it from my own?

I have a theory as to why you might want to do this: you have been taught by society that your desires are shameful. And often, especially in a sexual scenario which involves rough sex (as so many do) and male dominance, you may be worried that you’ll be shamed for fantasising about a woman who is extremely compliant to those desires. A woman who doesn’t behave the way most people who experience misogyny have learned over a lifetime dealing with men: she won’t say ‘no’ to a stranger fuck, she won’t insist on communication before you gag her with your cock, and she will always, always be enthusiastic about the size of your dick.

I get it. It’s not something to be ashamed of, it’s interesting. It’s an insight into who you are and what you want and your genuine, honest desires. But it can only be interesting for me because I know. I know you actually aren’t ‘Candy’, a 23-year-old sex kitten, but Joe Bloggs, a guy who wants to step into her headspace for a while. The insight and honesty and hotness here doesn’t come from Candy’s words, but from the fact that those words give me a glimpse of what you, Joe, actually want.

So before you pitch me a guest blog written under a pseudonym you picked because you want people to believe a woman is writing, consider first sitting down and writing something that feels real. Ask yourself what you want and why you want it. Which fucks have you enjoyed most, and why? What fantasies run around your head? How can you translate those to the page and give readers a shot of you – the real you. Not you as seen through the eyes of a one-dimensional character who will never talk back, but really actually you – in all your honest and fucked-up glory.

Big thanks to the fabulous Quinn Rhodes, who has been doing some kickass work in the sex blogging community to educate us on being more trans inclusive. He was an enormous help in editing this blog post, and if you’re looking for someone to do the same with your work do support him on Patreon and hire him for your own projects. As well as providing lots of info on his educational site What’s In Your Pants, he also writes an incredible blog over On Queer Street. Thank you Quinn!