Men with Tits and Women with Dicks

This is actually a WRITING Post!

(Sorry about the ‘click-bait’ title, but it really is what the post is about.)

There is an old (well at least to me it’s old!) complaint from a lot of women when reading female characters in stories written by men that ‘you just wrote a man with tits’. Which I honestly have to admit, in a lot of cases was true. However, we never heard the reverse critique of a lot of male characters written by woman authors that ‘you just wrote a woman with a dick’.

Which I have seen, more than once. I’ve even seen some famous and best-selling woman authors do this, but I’ve never seen them get the opposite criticism. Well perhaps if you look at their sales demographics, you’ll see a silent criticism in that men won’t buy their works.

Now in a lot of cases, the guys writing ‘men with tits’, and the women writing ‘women with dicks’, are writing for primarily an audience of men, or women, respectively. So a lot of the readers aren’t going to notice. Also, women are far more likely to read books ‘written for men’ (or a male audience) then men are to read books written for women. Don’t believe me? Look at Romance sales. The percentage of men reading it is quite small. Yet if you go look at Harem fiction, which is written almost exclusively for men (not all of it is, however) you will see a much larger percentage of women readers. My Valens Legacy series (written under my penname), for example, had a readership that was fifty percent women!

Now I have been fortunate that I have not gotten the ‘men with tits’ criticism, (or at least not that I know of!), but then I did spend some time writing romance at one point in my career (which I do recommend authors should try - romance readers are quick to comment and critique, and a lot of those critiques are worth reading).

However, on the flip side of the coin, I have seen more than a few women writers who don’t seem to understand the converse equation. I have seen women authors (few, thankfully) who were told ‘do not write that, men will not like it’, yet persisted in saying ‘well they’ll like it when I write it, because I know how to make men like it!’ (yes, I shuddered).

At the risk of being canceled, I’m going to point out that men and women are different. Men and women don’t even read the same way (not making this up - women read by syllables, men read by word recognition). Understanding how to write the opposite sex is not easy. Not if you want the opposite sex to look at it and say ‘oh yeah, I knew her/him’ or ‘Damn, that could be me!’ But it is a skill very much worth learning and it is a skill worth pursuing. Because why would you want to limit your audience?

Also, it helps in knowing when a character has to ‘reach outside themselves’ (as the actors like to say) and do something that is not typically them. Because there is a huge payoff in being able to do that, and it’s not just in the writing of characters of the opposite sex, but in writing of characters of the same sex! Because any tool that is good for the ‘goose’ is undoubtedly good for the ‘gander’ as well when it comes to writing stories and creating characters! These are the little challenges that you, as an author, try to find for yourself, to work on ‘upping your game’.

That’s the real goal in learning to write woman characters who aren’t a man in disguise, or a man character who isn’t a woman in disguise - it will help you to write better and more unique characters. Characters who are more interesting even if those characters are the same sex as you, the author. Which is never easy and is something I will admit I am still working hard on learning myself.

So yes, learn to write characters of the opposite sex. Learn how to write them so they are recognizably of the opposite sex in their actions and not just their description. Learn how to write them so that members of the opposite sex will find them plausible and acceptable. Because not only will you become a better writer of characters of the opposite sex - but you will become a better writer of characters of the same sex.

Oh, and Sorry (not really!) for that title…