inverse post from a recent other post, personally most of the men in the series twilight act completely opposite to any other man including myself would have behaved in a similar situation unless there’s lots of unspoken mental illness involved in the series, the level of attachment jacob showed for belle for example is super weird unless dude is also supposed to be an incel of some sort as well, which his character did not exhibit any signs of whatsoever, just a weird combination of traits I wouldn’t see a male writing
by presentsenescence
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If the MC male (or co-lead) is white, a CEO of a large company in which you have no idea what this company does, 6’5 and super good looking, chances are you are in female romance land.
I think there is already sufficient discussion of the physical aspects of the male/female gaze in the last post about this earlier from the male-gaze perspective, so I want to mention the thought processes.
For me, as a middle aged woman, I can really tell when a woman author is writing men poorly when the male characters think in the way that the female characters interpreting their actions *think they are thinking .* Or in the reverse, some incredibly predicable “misinterpretation” cliche like, “he was only being of tall dark insecure control freak because he was afraid of losing her.”
The internal life of my husband, when I get some glimpses of it is hugely diverse – sometimes there is literally nothing going on in his head at all. Sometimes he has anxieties, considerations, and very complex many layered feelings that I don’t think about and cannot adequately describe.
The author’s name on the cover.
The whole men writing women trope exists because men fantasize in a different way than women do. Men are visual, hence their predilection towards pornography.
Women tend to be more spread out in what they find to be sensual, hence their predilection towards erotic fiction rather than pornography. So, the whole she boobily walked her boobs boobling down the boobish hallway thing exists because the straight male writer is visualizing these things while he is writing out his fantasies. He leaves behind her personality, the nuance of her character and all the other things that he would have included if his goal was to observe and write women as real human beings.
On the other hand, women authors who write men into their fantasies include these character traits and nuances because these are precisely the things that turn women on. This is why there are less problems with women writing men than men writing women.
To sum up, men are attracted to the bodies of women and women are sexually attracted to men as a whole. That’s not to say that when a man falls in love with a woman he doesn’t love her for all of who she is, but if a man is just sexually attracted to a woman it *is* solely because of her body, which is usually not the case with women.
For examples of this see Jean M. Auel’s Jondalar or Diane Gabaldon’s Jaime or Anne McCaffrey’s F’lar or F’nor. I’ve selected these authors because their lead male characters obviously embody their fantasies rather than the more sexually neutral men of J.K. Rowling or Ursula K. LeGuin.
When men write women without engaging with their fantasies, the women tend to be much better written. See JRR Martin (often but not always) or Brandon Sanderson.
Talk about the man’a big balls.
https://www.reddit.com/r/writers/s/spGREWytjZ
When the man mentions “hip dips”, “cellulite” or anything else women criticise each other over. Most men IRL don’t even know what these things are or why they would be a negative feature.
Jennifer Crusie (a woman and romance writer) collaborated with Bob Mayer (man and ex Green Beret) on some books. In their first book, the male main character had a very sexy actress come on to him and offer sex. Crusie said they couldn’t have him say yes because he’d met the female main character and that was therefore “cheating.” Mayer apparently looked at her like she’d spouted a second head and said that without an official relationship, most men don’t turn down sex unless they have reservations about the person offering it.
And that’s it in a nutshell. Despite how much women might dunk on men for being possessive, there’s a scary amount of jealousy in women dominated fiction. If there’s a male love interest, once he has met the heroine, all women cease to exist for him (hence the creepy fixations in ‘Twilight’). Doesn’t matter if she’s in another relationship, disinterested, unaware; he will devote himself to her like something straight out of a Courtly Love epic. I do not know all men, nor claim to, but the chances of this happening are extremely unlikely. He might shoot his shot but if it fails and other opportunities come along, a guy will likely say yes.
The male mc is built, without spending hours at the gym. Also they always say your so beautiful every time they see the female mc naked