1/7/24
Mars vs. Venus
This is number forty-four in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.
OBSERVATION: Women are different than men.
You might believe this is obvious, but as Wesley said, “The obvious seldom is.” (The Book of Wesley, CC185) In the enlightenment of the twenty-first century, for example, we have learned there is a difference between sex and gender. While sex refers to the physiological or biological characteristics, gender refers to behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits often associated with a specific sex.
Of course, we have also learned that the physiology might not be as simple as we once thought. Where it was once deemed that an x chromosome or a y chromosome determined one’s sex, biologists have discovered there are many other genes that determine sex, and specific combinations of those genes can and do create sexual variants that many cultures in the world have been aware of for millennia, but did not have the scientific descriptions for.
Now that I have you all on your high horse about how many sexes there are and who determined them, let me get to the point. I’m referring to gender roles and traits when I discuss Mars and Venus. Women respond differently than men in terms of social situations, cultural assimilation, and emotional responses. And figuring it out can be a lifelong work of futility.
Whatever is a writer of erotica to do?
I often joke that I write ‘men’s erotica.’ That means that we need to sit and talk about the weather for half an hour before we get to any action, and that sexual activity must be described in detail because men in general, and old men especially, have a poor imagination. I have been asked in comments and email to include much more detail in my descriptions of women in my stories, down to bra size, shoe size, weight, and height. I don’t believe most women understand bra size, let alone men.
I’m more inclined to refer to relative characteristics rather than absolutes. A breast larger than my palm. A waist so tiny I could fit my hands around it. A few inches shorter (or taller) than I am. I believe those terms can be adapted by any man if he takes even a moment to consider them.
In the fall of 2018, I began writing The Transmogrification of Jacob Hopkins series, beginning with Double Take. It was my fun take on a do-over in which the hero comes back as his younger self, but in a different timeline and an alternative universe. He has to try to use his accumulated life experience to understand his new reality. He discovers his past life is a real hinderance to enjoying his present life.
SPOILER ALERT. In chapter 44 of 47, I revealed that one of the characters was a trans-female. She was not only on hormones, but was mid-op in having her sex changed. If she was a nobody character, that might have gone unnoticed, but she was a best friend/girlfriend of Jacob. All manner of hell was rained down upon me for this. For me, it was a sign that Jacob could adapt to a different world in some of the most extreme circumstances—something many of my readers proved they could not do. I lost nearly a third of my readership that day.
I felt it was an important element to the story and to the relationships that were built into the story. It ultimately prompted my disclaimer that I now put at the beginning of all my stories:
This book contains content of an adult nature. This includes explicit sexual content and characters whose beliefs may be contrary to your religious, political, or world view.
Let me say that women read over the reveal without flinching. It was only men who were so shocked and horrified by this that they could not process it as a fictional story. Double Take is available on Bookapy.com. The series is available both as individual books and as a discounted collection.
There are many other differences between the way men and women look at erotica. I mentioned recently that I had read a mainstream romance and was surprised to find that it included an explicit sex scene. But as well-done as the scene was, the female author had never used any common sex slang. She did not say pussy, cunt, tit, boob, cock, prick, dick, fuck, or screw. You would be hard-put to find men’s erotica that did not use these words.
My wholly unscientific opinion on this is that women do not catalog body parts separate from the body. Where a man might say, “I slid my dick into her pussy,” a woman would be more apt to simply say, “He slid into me.” In her mind, the dick was the man and the pussy was her. They weren’t separate things that acted on their own.
I find that watching porn or talking to porn actresses—which I often do—their language is more detached the way a man’s is. And that is understandable. Porn is primarily created for men. Remember my comment that men need to have things spelled out in detail? That’s what porn does. It takes the focus off the people who are engaged in sex and puts the emphasis on the parts of the body that are connecting.
Men tend to focus on their orgasm until it arrives. Then they are done, or need to wait until they can get to an orgasm again. In other words, men think about coming. Women, on the other hand, need to get out of their heads in order to have an orgasm. Often, thinking about an orgasm actually prevents them from coming. Often, a woman feels she has to have an orgasm in order to be good for her partner. Hence the age-old myth of the faked orgasm. Or maybe it isn’t entirely a myth!
It's one thing to know or understand these things, but something else entirely to write stories that acknowledge them. How can an author be fair about the differences between men and women that go beyond the classic ‘Tab A into Slot B?’
I think I’ve opened the door to several possible posts. After all, the essence of heterosexual erotica is getting a man and a woman together. I think next week I’ll explore “The Difference Between Erotica and Porn.”
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
