When love melts your earwax - Men Writing Women

Some examples and a 43-point-list of what not to write while writing women.

Ask a male author to describe a woman. Most would go with morthilswrites’ words, “A lithe, spirited, outgoing, and not afraid to speak her mind. She was a raw sexual force and she knew it. She was dandelion fluff on a summer day, gone in an instant, leaving you with nothing but the memory of her touch and the faint taste of strawberries on your lips.”

I don’t know why men write women like this but they do. Instead of opining about this like some angry feminist, I will show don’t tell a bunch of men writing women in their books. Once I have smothered you with the cringe of all these passages, I will list down forty odd things men could be careful of while writing women.

Sound good?

Let’s go:

Angela ran for dear life; pistol in hand, one shoe untied, and breasts bouncing like two pit bulls who were trying desperately escape from the confines of her shirt.

Her breasts swayed like ancient cracked punching bags.

- The Shining by Stephen King

Ivy had mahogany hair, limpid eyes the color of brandy, and the body for which Hugh Hefner had spent his life searching. Although twenty-four, she seemed genuinely unaware that she was the essential male fantasy in the flesh. She was never seductive. At times she could be flirtatious, but only in a winsome way. Her beauty and choirgirl wholesomeness were a combination so erotic that her smile alone could melt the average man's earwax.

- Velocity by Dean Koontz

Frank brought Mona to her father’s cave and left us alone. We had difficulty in speaking at first. I was shy. Her gown was diaphanous. Her gown was azure. It was a simple gown, caught lightly at the waist by a gossamer thread. All else was shaped by Mona herself. Her breasts were like pomegranates or what you will, but like nothing so much as a young woman’s breasts.

Her feet were all but bare. Her toenails were exquisitely manicured. Her scanty sandals were gold.

“How—how do you do?” I asked. My heart was pounding. Blood boiled in my ears.

“It is not possible to make a mistake,” she assured me.

- Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

She had a sylph-like form, not thin but full-bodied within the limits of her graceful frame, well rounded on the hips, with an arched narrow waist from which descended the folds of her trousers and above which were her full, round, globular breasts, jerking slightly, for lack of a bodice, under her transparent muslin shirt. Bakha observed her as she walked along swaying. She was beautiful. He was proud of her with a pride not altogether that of a brother for a sister.

- Untouchable by Mulk Raj Anand

Two generations of Americans knew more about the Ford coil than the clitoris, about the planetary system of gears than the solar system of stars.

- Cannery Row by John Steinbeck

Geralt picked Fringilla up and she quite eagerly put an arm around his neck. She smelled faintly of ambergris and roses. And femininity. She was warm and her warmth penetrated him like an arrowhead. She was soft and her softness scalded and nettled his fingers.

- The Witcher (The Lady of the Lake) by Andrzej Sapkowski

She said she was a maiden, That wasn't what I heard, For the sake of conversation. I took her at her word, The lights went out behind us, The fireflies undressed. The broken sidewalk ended, I touched her sleeping breasts. They opened to me urgently, Like lilies from the dead, Behind a fine embroidery, Her nipples rose like bread.

- The Night of Santiago by Leonard Cohen

Women also tend to avoid their fathers on fertile days--presumably an outcome of the incest taboo. So even if women (and the men around them) aren't consciously aware of how their fluctuating fertility affects their behavior and preferences, the influences still occur- -a modern-day expression of the ancient urge to reproduce. ().Liebermann et al., 2011

- Liebermann et al., 2011

Becky reached behind her back and with a single, practiced motion unclasped the bra strap, allowing the support to fall listlessly to the floor. Her breasts were larger than average for her relatively diminutive size, and their firmness still held them to her chest in a way that many women ten years younger would envy. To her deep delight, they were still a significant asset. Certainly one to appreciate before the years would pile on top of her, weighing her (and them) down. She tousled and fluffed her long strawberry-blonde hair with both hands and unexpectedly grimaced, sniffing first one upper arm, then confirming the scent by smelling the other. God, even my skin reeks of Dempsey's. She took the next flight of steps two at a time, unbuckling the silver belt which hugged the blue jeans to her waist as she hopped down the long corridor and stepped out of the trousers in stride.

- The Little Woods by A.G. Mock

~Sighs deeply~

Maybe this newsletter should be renamed to, “How to write breasts: A guide.”

My lovely gents, here’s a guide of what-not-to-do while writing women. Just three generalised rules: Women are human beings. Women have friends, a family, a career and a backstory. Get some sex education before you start writing.

  1. Women have more normal shoes than the fancy kind. Nobody wears heels all the time. If your character runs in high heels, she won’t run again for a while because her feet will be sore for days.

  2. No woman will survive a situation by stabbing her way out of trouble via earrings backings and bobby pins. Most women dress practically so they won’t have the bits and bobs anyway.

  3. Nail polish and makeup don’t stay on all the time. Polish chips and makeup smudges.

  4. Period and pee are different. The fluids exit through different holes.

  5. A tampon going in and a phallus or a phallus shaped object are two different feelings.

  6. Butts and boobs don’t have sentience. They don’t change shape/texture based on emotions/situations. They also don’t have gripping power where the ass grips a seat. Women do not convey emotions through the appearance and movement of their breasts.

  7. Gynaecologists are doctors and not sexy-time tools for bumping pee-pees.

  8. Big breasts splay when women lie down and not bounce like basketballs.

  9. Every woman is in fact like other girls.

  10. Hunger and sex are two different things.

  11. Clothing doesn’t rip perfectly and seamlessly.

  12. Bed hair is messy, tousled and untamed.

  13. Summer is sweaty, sticky and rarely sexy.

  14. Your penis isn’t a rod of pleasure. It is just there like an organ, like say a vagina.

  15. Women don’t sleep with makeup on. It does happen sometimes when one is tired. On an everyday basis, most women take their makeup off the moment they are home. Also, makeup doesn’t come off with water.

  16. Bras are sized by measuring around the torso, under the bust. Cup sizes are the measurement around the actual bust. It isn’t torso measurement. So, when you write about giant breasts on a tiny girl, her measurement is not going to be 46C. That's a large torso and smaller breasts. Make the number proportional to the description and enhance the cup-size. Think 26DD.

  17. When our loved ones go missing, we don’t fondle our bodies. We worry and ponder like normal humans beings and not fall in the arms of some man.

  18. Death does not feel like an orgasm.

  19. Women have smells. We don’t smell like flowers. Feminine is equal to human and not flora.

  20. Stop comparing female orgasms to scientific achievements, exploding bombs, et.al.

  21. Don’t grab a woman’s hand while running. It’ll slow us both down. In scary situations, you don’t hold hands. You run like hell. Make your scene slightly logical.

  22. When shit hits the fan, women don’t look for men to tell us what to do. We try to figure things out on our own first.

  23. Public haircuts and transformations rarely look pretty.

  24. We don’t pour/ glide into dresses seamlessly/effortlessly.

  25. No really means no.

  26. Women have hair everywhere. In a dystopia/apocalypse situation, women won’t be buttery smooth. They’ll be hairy.

  27. If your penis pierces my uterus, I will pass out from pain instead pleasure. Being hit in the cervix might probably be the same pain a man experiences when he is hit in the balls.

  28. Quiet girls generally are shy/introverted. They are not victims of abuse.

  29. Women have organs like stomachs and uteruses. Our stomach won’t stay flat all day.

  30. Your savage arrows won’t give a shattering climax to a virgin. Vaginas do not weep with, “grateful ecstasy from your innumerable, torturous, lighting-like thrusts.” (courtesy of The Godfather by Mario Puzo).

  31. Most beautiful women know they are beautiful. Don’t write the naive, easy “classically beautiful" character.

  32. Use words other than "voluptuous," "womanly," or "shapely" to describe your female characters. They aren’t just soft like a stuffed animal.

  33. Women don’t wear prescription glasses to hide their true beauty awaiting that transformation montage where she removes her glasses and viola, she’s a goddess. They wear those glasses because they can’t see.

  34. Women do more with their eyes than "sultry glances". Our skin is a lot of things. "Dewy" and “Glisten” are just two things among many.

  35. Taking hair out of any hairstyle will result in a nest of tangly hair. It will be frizzy.

  36. Most women don’t colour coordinate their undergarments. They don’t constantly wear lingerie because it is uncomfortable.

  37. Lady lips come in all shades and not just red.

  38. Women can be tough without growing up among just men.

  39. “Bosom” does not equal to a fancy breast. It is still you writing about someone’s breasts.

  40. Form-fitting clothes are uncomfortable. Human bodies, even female ones produce sweat. Combine that with tight clothes, you’ll have a disaster.

  41. Women are good listeners but they also like to say something occasionally. They won’t just keep listening without being asked anything themselves. Make your female characters a part of the narrative.

  42. Women know men shorter than them exist.

  43. When women cry, their tears fall randomly and not one by one. A single, perfect tear won’t cascade down her expressive eyes.

Look, I definitely nitpicked. Women write men terribly as well. What makes men writing women a bigger crime is how women are written in a way that objectifies and sexualises them, using language that reduces them to their physical attributes. The result is unrealistic and dehumanising. It is important for authors to strive for authentic and respectful representations of all characters, regardless of gender.

See you soon with a women writing men newsletter where a man who wishes to sit in silence unrealistically belts out paragraphs about love.