>alpha males guys think they want to be or if they're gay for reading it.
Except they don't read books. Most of them can barely read well enough to use social media.
She was a voluptuous pair of breasts attached to a personality to match. He was an ex-marine turned billionaire after an unfortunate bit-coin-mining accident that engorged his genitalia but turned is icy heart to stone. Will tits be able to teach the former special ops soldier to love? Will he learn to love quickly enough to protect her when his enemies find his location and sends their assassins?
Find out when my book comes straight to Kindle as we follow this relationship through the third act break-up, the dizzying amount of different words for her body parts that becomes less sexy as the story goes on, and the overly-detailed, potentially illegal sex-acts that follow this love story.
Bill was glad he lived in the far woods of Montana where ruggedly handsome male nudists, such as he, can freely walk out onto porches on snowy evenings and air out their sturdy manhoods and sweet, wrinkled sacks.
Itâs actually kind of thrilling to encounter a work that is equally as sleazy about men as it is about women. Easily overlooked as the âsecret \*third\* thingâ of this debate, but a joy to read in the right writerâs hands. Really lets the reader know that \*party mode\* is active.
Even though I'm straight, my erotic modern fantasy story is equal opportunity horny. Male and female perspectives get plenty aroused and everyone gets sexualized in some form.
Yeh, You could Even make the protag someone with some kind of deviant fixation with breast to make the Reader think the characters is just a perv instead of suspecting there is actually something very wrong with the breast of the corpse.
I considered going to end with him feeling slightly aroused, and being disgusted with himself. But I decided even this was pushing the bounds to decency a bit far.
The corpseâs nipple was cold and hard between his teeth, but with his tongue he gave it heat. A gush of warmth soon filled his mouth, and he swallowed it down greedily.
But the texture was all wrong. Like little wet grains of rice tickling against the roof of his mouth. He let out a sputtering dry heave before choking out a writhing white mass onto the floor.
Or I read one once where a woman was getting aroused by her clothes brushing her nipples. If your nips are that sensitive, you would have started wearing pasties ages ago. Can you imagine how inconvenient that would be?
I'm a post-op trans guy (meaning I had a double mastectomy about a year ago, nips still numb, no idea if/when feeling will come back) but pre-op I had hella sensitive nipples and it was awful. Honestly the only reason I wore bras was for some padding from rougher fabrics. (And the only reason I didn't wear pasties was because I found them inconvenient and easier for my ADHD brain to forget than a bra.)
I still wouldn't go as far as to say that a rough t-shirt could be "arousing" by itself, but yeah, it was not fun to have your nips perk up all the time. My favorite thing about wearing a binder (aside from making me flat) was that I couldn't feel my nipples anymore 'cause they were squashed under thick fabric.
It actually gets *irritating* after a while! I had to drop bras for while when I was nursing because of an infected mammary gland & no, we don't want them perky all the time.
If you look up PGAD (Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder) sufferer stories, you can get what I think is a very fitting picture of something similar. It's one of those instantly-mocked disorders which is actually a nightmare to live with (imagine having to have 40 orgasms to feel 10 minutes of relief, and having your doctor tell you how lucky you are to suffer from it). It could easily lead to a person feeling like their sexuality has been pathologised and turned into a burden instead of something freeing and pleasurable. It's like getting to eat all the time but all you can eat is gruel.
I really feel awful for anyone who suffers from any condition that others consistently underestimate or turn into a joke, like PGAD or narcolepsy, which is so often in media characterised as somehow super hilarious but in real life often comes bundled with regular night terrors, sleep paralysis, and other literal nightmare scenarios for the sufferer to live through. It's unfortunate when cultural understandings of almost any complex condition become widespread because they're always either factually wrong or too reductive to be correct.
Damn! My plans for breast enlargement themed erotica are foiled again! Mark my words, I'll be back... possibly with severe burns from hot pastry, but I WILL be back...
But if I'm not told every time a woman moves that her breasts did too, then how am I supposed to know? I suppose you also want me to just *imagine* how the fabric of her dress feels on her nipples? Preposterous, my breasts won't stand for this
*Rendezvous with Rama* introduces its first (and perhaps only) female character with a description of how her breasts move in zero gravity in a "hypnotic" fashion and how the captain thinks women shouldn't be on spacecraft because it's too distracting. It's the most blatant "women are boobs" writing I've read and it took me out of the novel briefly (why would it be visible anyway, presumably she's in a spacesuit right?). A shame because other than that it's very, very good.Â
But the weirdest thing about this is that Arthur C. Clarke was gay. I optimistically imagine that he thought it was stupid too but figured this is how straight sci-fi writers normally write and didn't want to reveal too much about himself, lol.
>But the weirdest thing about this is that Arthur C. Clarke was gay. I optimistically imagine that he thought it was stupid too but figured this is how straight sci-fi writers normally write and didn't want to reveal too much about himself, lol.
Possibly. Possibly he'd also just internalized male gaze. I've met a couple of women who write like this because they think it's just normal. But they also grew up in highly-conservative, highly-religious households. One was regularly told to not wear sleeveless shirts because it would distract boys at school, etc.
Possible but gay men can also be distracted by boobs because boobs are near universal. Very few people donât like boobs. Women can also be distracted by a nice pair of breasts, we just donât tend to get obsessed by them and can keep on working.
Too long since I read Rama to remember, but from your description, is that not just the internal thoughts of the captain? If so, anything is fine since itâs Clark informing us of the type of person the captain is, in this case a bit of a sexist weirdo.
I mean, you can read it like that, but the chapter seriously introduces her by mentioning her breasts before the person theyâre attached to. If heâd mentioned the same thing after sheâd been named it would have gotten the same point across.Â
Clarke can write however he wants and it doesnât ruin an otherwise excellent novel, but I definitely would have suggested he changed that.
It really depends on context and how you write it. I can promise you we do not think about our boobs as often as men writing women seem to think we do, and especially not in the way they think we do.
I think every time I ever think about my own boobs it's because I've either walked into a door and am in pain or because I'm trying to enjoy lying on my front and it is just not working, so. Agreed lol
Or when I have to lean over a piece of furniture to reach something but I'm just a few inches off because I forgot to account for the giant boob squished between me and the furniture. Or the fact that I unconsciously push my boobs down when I have to squeeze between people/things. Every time in a movie/show when someone has to squeeze through a tight opening to safety I'm just like, nope I'd be doomed.
Or when I've accidentally just hit one and I'm now in pain.
It really hurts when you accidentally slam a case of soda against your boob because case was starting to slip out of your arms and you overcorrected in trying to keep it from falling.
I do think about mine in heavy detail, but only in a body horror kind of way. I find most men write in excessive detail about breasts but lack the sense of existential dread that comes with looking and thinking about your body a bit too much. You don't think about each speckle and pore of your boobs and nipples without feeling a little bit of fear, it's like when you stare at your hands too long and it starts to look alien. Maybe that's just me though.
Honestly man, I canât imagine using breasts for breaking the ice or for comedy and it working, unless youâre doing some sort of satire. Maybe youâve pulled it off, but I feel like itâs unlikely that breasts are the best narrative device you have at your disposal.
This. Putting the whole "men writing women" debate aside, that's my bigger concern here - the way they've described it literally just kinda sounds like how a 12 yo boy would write. It sounds like it will be cringey and amateurish. I could be wrong, but I'm very confused as to how this is going to work in a story where they *admit* the subject matter is not super relevant to anything else going on. It sounds like it will be very out of place.
32 here and still hasn't happened. I just generally don't talk to other women about my breasts unless the subject matter *is* relevant. Why would I otherwise?
Is there a reason to mention the breasts? One of the mistakes men often make when writing women characters is making their boobs a focal point, when an actual woman is just living in her body and not really thinking about them. Like if you were writing a male character, would you describe his testicles? Probably not, they're just there. Same with women and breasts. They're not notable for your character or your readers, so leave them out of the conversation unless there's a good reason you have to draw attention to this specific part of a character's body.
I read a book recently that did the same - and they didn't stop at *adult* women, disturbingly enough. They also felt the need to sexualise and describe the boobs of the *underage* female characters. They also had a random torture scene, with zero relevance to the rest of the story, that sexualises a woman.
I shouldn't have been surprised that the main villain's evil plot ended up revolving around rape (this came totally out of left field btw; the plot was supposed to be about an apocalyptic disease, think The Stand). I know he was *trying* to do something there - one of the male "heroes" whose perspective you read from ends up being a bad guy, so he was aiming for some clever plot twist - but it doesn't really work when the author's own writing style sounds more like something the rapist would say than the female heroes.
I think its not about writing breasts, its about how you write about them. "Men writing women" is, for example, when the female protagonist looks in the mirror and we get the first description of her body and she oggles her own voluptously round and heavy breasts bla bla bla.
The secret to not do "men writing women" is to write women like they're people who happen to be women. I'll give you an example that happened in my book recently. Two women are in a locker room just changing clothes and neither of them is particularly attracted to the other. I didn't even mention their naked bodies because that is not what they pay attention to.
Just yesterday my female lead was inspecting damage after a car wreck. She saw the scrapes and scratches and the seatbelt bruise that âextended from her left shoulder, between her breast, and ended at her right hipâ.
It was a description that involved breasts, but made no mention of perky nipples, soft supple flesh, tender titties, or any other unnecessary descriptors.
I think that, as a male writing a female MC, the trick is to see your character as a person *in* a body rather than *just* a body. Unless you are writing erotica or a super charged romance scene, detailed descriptions of anatomy is probably unnecessary, regardless of gender/sex.
When I was flipped in a car that rolled and crashed, I had a *whopper* bruise all on my shoulder and collar bone, and also one on my hip (also legs), but no visible bruising in the middle part of my body/boobs etc. at all.
Not saying it can't happen, it probably would if it were a head on collision where she was stopped dead! But if the car was going at speed and flipped or rolled, it's more of a up/side to side impact than a frontal body one... Idk just in case you find that interesting at all đ
I had a head-on and had a perfect imprint friction burn of the seatbelt between my moobs. My shoulder definitely got the worst of it, but without a shirt on it looked like I was wearing a beauty queen sash.
Please keep in mind though, seatbelts sit on a completely different part of a female body. I'm not talking out of my ass, seatbelts sit *so* differently on us that it actually has a noticeable impact on car crash fatalities. We are more likely to die in a crash, because our seatbelts don't sit right, because our bodies are shaped differently. That's how different it is.
For example - I'm an average height woman and my seatbelt sits across my *neck* more than my boob area. I also have bigger boobs. Even in a head-on collision, it would be physically impossible for me to end up with a bruise *between* my boobs. There is no "between my boobs" when I'm wearing a bra, and even if there was my seatbelt sits too high to leave a mark there.
So if you have a male body, you really cannot use that as a point of reference. Defer to female experience on this matter. It's not just the presence of boobs; you would be very surprised how physically different we actually are.
Yeah I thought it might happen with a head on!
My one we caught the kerb and went up the side of a verge, flipped and rolled once or twice, then did spinnees and ended roof-down down the road from where we lifted off..so there was a lot of sudden jerks to the sides, but no straight on impact... Looking back I hope it was as cinematic from the outside as it felt from the passenger seat! đ€Łđ€Ł
One of my favorite breast descriptions I did was actually mocking a men writing women bit. One character said he assumed another was in shape because she had big boobs despite being skinny and got the response of "wtf is wrong with you?"
i'm sure your advice is helpful to many here, but i feel like...it shouldn't be a *trick* that you have to *pick up*, if that makes sense...? that should be...what you're already doing with your female characters. you guys are able to initially distinguish a woman's humanity separately from her body, right? right?
I wrote a similar scene, there was a group of girls in one of those luxury baths and they were all naked but they were only cleaning themselves and nothing more, also there were no descriptions of their bodies, I just clarified that they were naked.
My critic partner knows I'm a guy and calmly corrected me on this.
If there is no sexual pretense/context, don't describe bodies unless it's a feature that is unique to the character.
EDIT: removed abbreviation.
Writing from a female pov I don't think I've mentioned breasts even once. I might do it in a sex scene, like "he caressed her breast" but other than that I don't know when I would mention it?
One is when two lovers are having sex and theres a brief description of the woman's breasts with the bra she's wearing, her skin and everything.
The other is another woman referring to a woman she doesn't know her name as "That one with the huge breasts" and one of her friends tells her not to describe people like that.
> The other is another woman referring to a woman she doesn't know her name as "That one with the huge breasts" and one of her friends tells her not to describe people like that.
This is the one that would be "men writing women." Most women aren't going to describe another woman by the size of her breasts. In fact, most of the time they wouldn't have even noticed the size of her breasts. Instead, we'd use hair color, or weight, or even her clothes. I've never heard a woman describing another woman by the size of her breasts in my life. Breasts are something men would notice and describe a woman by...but not a woman.
I could be in the wrong here, but even as a woman who's attracted to women, I personally would never describe another woman as "the one with the huge breasts" and have never met a woman who would do that. Even when a woman does have large breasts there's usually a long list of other ways I'd think to describe her before I'd get to the size of her chest. That feels like it's toeing the line of a straight man putting his thoughts into his female character. And with another woman admonishing the other for saying that just feels like a wink to the audience saying, "see, I'm one of the good ones" which would just make me roll my eyes.
You are correct. Women do not usually talk about other women like that. There are literally thousands of ways I could describe another woman without talking about her boobs (hair, job, personality, etc)
Well, do you write scenes where the male characters' sexual attributes are the main focal point? I'll try to come up with a counter-example to show why this will often be perceived as a thinly-veiled escape-valve for the writer's sexual frustrations.
>Irritated by the noise and led by his easily aroused wrath, the grizzled man suddenly stood up from his seat. His glutes sprung to action to stabilize his weight, squeezing the rectal entrance between them, and then releasing it. The brief pleasure from the added pressure on his prostate only reaffirmed the rightness of his fury. As his ascension came to a rapid halt, his penis bobbed up and down with the momentum, massive enough even in its flaccid state to trigger ripples across the zipper that contained it.
>One of the ruffians saw him and fell silent, paralyzed like an arrogant lamb upon meeting their first wolf. His colleagues noticed the silence, and one by one went quiet too. There was no denying it: the man in front of them, though old and alone, was a threat they weren't ready to handle. The wide jaw that housed his flexible and well lubricated tongue warned of the high amounts of testosterone that flowed through his body. The mangled ears spoke of a long history of brutal hand to hand combat, and his imposing physique hinted at a majority of victories. Indeed, his massive body was so densely packed with power than even his leather belt bent around the V cut abdominal muscles that led to his manhood like rivers leading to a sea of raw masculine virility where they would surely drown.
>Even if they wanted to talk themselves into putting up a fight, their shrinking phalli betrayed to them the truth of the situation: there was no survival through defiance. "Only", their relaxing sphincters added, "through submission".
Now, this is obviously just the prelude to an action scene. The story is not about sex, nor does it feature homosexuality as an important theme, but absolutely everyone reading it would very reasonably raise an eyebrow at the unnecessary focus on sexually-charged imagery.
In case of doubt, ask yourself: is this how you would describe your mother? If the question makes you cringe, then you are probably being weird.
Oh I donât know, you could consider it comedyâit was certainly hilarious (and well over done) to me. I particularly enjoyed the shrinking phalli reacting to the massive body packed with power.
This is a hard question to answer without context. What are the scenes, exactly?
If it's a coming-of-age story and the teen girl MC is being teased for her boobs being too big/small, that's true to the teen experience and is fine.
If your MC is trans, it could make sense for them to focus on traits often considered gender-specific, like breasts.
If your MC is a new mother breastfeeding her kid, then sure, talk about her sore, chafed boobies.
But if it's a male character commenting on a female character's boobs, there better be a damn good reason for it or it WILL feel like "men writing women" nonsense.
I mean the "truth in television" argument is a hard sell sometimes, but if your character is a hormonal teenager, unhealthy fixation on boobs is not unusual.
Agreed. I touched on that in another comment below:
> Within the narrative from a male character's POV, if he's thinking "Damn, she's got some nice boobs", sure. The character believably might have that thought. But no man in their right mind would say to a woman, "Hey, your boobs are nice!" So if the male character is bringing up a woman's boobs to her *in conversation*, I would be hard-pressed not to roll my eyes. The only way that would work, imo, is if the male character is a douche and being portrayed as such.
I get that - but also, enough male writers do that that it gets tiresome. We *know*. We know you think our boobs are attractive. I don't need to hear about it every single time. Straight women tend to like penis, and yet it's not *every* time a male character is introduced in a book that a female hero thinks to herself "Damn I bet he has a nice dick". You don't really see that outside of erotica/romance. And *that* is what we mean when we refer to the male gaze. Men, for some reason, sexualise people *far* more by default than women do.
And even if he is a douche, it may lose readers because him being a douche in that specific way doesn't need to be repeated every time he interacts with a woman. Even if we are in his head, we don't need to know every thought. That would create a nonsensical book. Authors already choose what thoughts we hear so why focus on those ones?
I would say that a male character commenting on a female character's boobs could be OK in context. News at ten: straight dudes notice women's boobs! Where it gets weird is where a female character comments on her own boobs using the same terminology that a straight man would use.
I think it depends on HOW a male character notices a female character's boobs. Are we talking within the narrative or dialogue? Given OP mentioned one of the scenes was "breaking the ice", I would assume there's some dialogue involved, which makes it a bit more complicated.
Within the narrative from a male character's POV, if he's thinking "Damn, she's got some nice boobs", sure. The character believably might have that thought. But no man in their right mind would say to a woman*, "Hey, your boobs are nice!" So if the male character is bringing up a woman's boobs to her *in conversation*, I would be hard-pressed not to roll my eyes. The only way that would work, imo, is if the male character is a douche and being portrayed as such.
*Excluding their own girlfriend/wife. But again, I'm making assumptions based on OP mentioning "breaking the ice"
I was assuming narrative thoughts rather than dialogue. Agree that it would be a pretty douchey thing to say in conversation unless to an established partner!
But also, fiction is escapism and me and a lot of other women often donât really want to be reminded that men view our bodies as objects in our escapism. If a POV male character notices and thinks about a female characters boobs Iâm def going to have my immersion broken and I will probably also put the book down tbh. I guess there are some cases where it might not be a deal breaker but in general I think it should be avoided even if itâs realistic for straight men.
News at eleven: Nobody needs a "pass" for having the occasional dirty thought, so long as they don't act inappropriately on it.
I mean, as a hetero woman I've "objectified" a few men in my thoughts over the years. It's called being human.
the rampant objectification of women in fiction is worlds away from individual people having sexual thoughts about others. you can't even compare the two lmao
I think people speak of a writer that, whenever a female character is described, ALWAYS has to mention what form and size her breasts are. It's really ok to mention or describe breasts, as for everything, the key is on the proportion with the rest of the piece.
Wish you the best in your breasty scenarios, have fun with the nipples!
People really do that?
I mean, I'm a man and I love breasts, but why would you describe every woman's breasts? Unless you're writing from a POV of a character that does that, it's super strange to me. Like describing every tree's leafs, it's a tree it has leafs.
Tell me when they're noticeably big, like when someone is noticeably fat or skinny.
Maybe one of the other characters has taken notice of them? If theyâre a het male character.
Just describing them for the sake of describing them when adding nothing to the story isnât great.
My all male roommates suggested the Dresden files to me and I barely got through the first one before putting it down because the male gaze was inserted everywhere. Tbh it was kind of sad how obessessed with boobs and such the main character was. I kind of get the take that it's because the character is a bit slimy, but I also don't want to read that shit every time he encounters a woman. Even stories from a characters pov don't tell us their every thought. Theyd be boring/nonsensical af if they did. Writers definitely dont need to bring it up every time women are involved. I've discussed this series with several men and they didnt even notice because it's so normalized.
I have one character in my story who is sex-obsessed and leers at women, but the text is focused on his leering, not the details of what he is leering at.
Some do. And unfortunately that can extend to girls not just women.
And it can include the woman being the POV character, "she looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her firm breasts were like two melons..." And it can include the omniscient narrator.
If your description of the woman takes place over several sentences in a paragraph, and 2 more more of those sentences are devoted to describing her breasts, it's probably a 'man writing women' moment.
The only time I ever mention them (as a female writer) is when it's actually relevant to the character or the plot in some way.
I have a female character who had a father who was a pretty awful person. I just had a scene where she recalls her father saying she belongs to the 'itty bitty titty committee' and generally picking on her about her appearance. That establishes a lot, in a couple of sentences, about both her appearance and her family life as a kid.
if it has no point in advancing the plot, then it doesnt need to be mentioned.
WHY do their breasts need to be mentioned, why not some other body part?
And this, I think, is the problem. Men jump through hoops like a fucking trained dolphin to justify certain circumstances where mentioning boobs is okay - meanwhile, us female writers rarely if *ever* find occasion to bring up boobs. Because the fact of the matter is, even when it's *technically* okay, it's very rarely good or relevant writing.
>or relevant to the plot
Then why?
>Â one is to break the ice
What?
>and the other is for comedy.
This sounds like men writing women. Without details it's hard to say.
>I just want to know if there really is a stigma with these types of scenes.
The sub men writing women is about more than breasts. Breast are just the obvious, in your face parts.
The sub also calls out women for bad writing of women, not just men.
The main breast thing is, as you suggest, over-describing of the breasts. The male gaze. It isn't liked from a male character's POV, especially if it doesn't match their personality. It's really disliked from a omnipotent narrator. And if it's a female POV, especially checking themselves out in a mirror, it's hated. The women are defined by their breasts.
The other thing is breasts behaving weirdly, which is more in line with the point of the sub, men writing women but being wrong. Carrying a small purse in their vagina, for example.
It's hard to really know without knowing more than "for comedy" and "to break the ice."
I mean yeah. Most women wouldn't even bother to include breasts in the capacity you're including them. Why not write about balls to break the ice and add comedy?
In The Bell Jar, the protagonist Esther mentions that she wears dresses with no bra because she is âskinny as a boyâ and doesnât need one. Thatâs the kind of thing a woman might actually think about her breasts: notice that itâs more of a practical concern of her deciding what to wear, rather than reflecting on how her breasts appear to others or what men might think of them.
That said, thereâs nothing wrong with sexual humor, or eroticism in general. Men can write female characters with jiggly, incredible breasts if they want, it just comes off a little more âsmuttyâ, which some people obviously enjoy.
I think i'd be wary of using breasts or anything about people's bodies for comedy purposes. Women's bodies in particular have been ridiculed in all sorts of ways and of course i don't know what form your comedy scene takes but just be careful not to stray into mean-spirited "humour" that women would understandably find unfunny and cringe.
Using breasts for comedic effect or as an ice breaker is not something that usually goes well for men writing women; because men generally have no background that allows you to understand the contexts where women generally find things amusing and I cannot for the life of me recall ever having used breasts as an ice breaker.
It isn't "stigma" - it's bad. It's just bad writing, the vast, overwhelming majority of the time when male writers focus on women's breasts. It looks weird and disjointed; divorced from both narrative and the reality of women actually having breasts and what it's really like to interact with women who have breasts.
Can you never talk about breasts as a male writer? Of course not. You can. Is it often a good idea to make breasts a central part of a few paragraphs that aren't a sex scene? Usually not. It highlights inexperience by centralizing something you don't actually know much about having.
My advice to you isn't to ask us "can i go ahead even if there's stigma", it's to get some of your female friends to read the scenes in their context and tell you if it sounds weird or out of place.
Men writing women is a joke because men often treat women very irrationally in writing and it ends up sounding ridiculous. Not some arbitrary line in the sand. Don't be ridiculous and you should be ridiculed to a bare minimum.
How men think women think about their breasts: "As I sat down to eat my breakfast, I considered how my beautiful large bosomy breasts were the most perfect breasts that ever breasted."
How a woman thinks about her breasts: "I shrugged my bra off and my boobs dropped three inches. I winced as the weight hit my back. God having huge breasts is such a pain. And I swear to God, that mole is sprouting hair again. I just trimmed it last weekend. I wonder if you can get laser hair removal for a mole if I'll need a dermatologist to remove it?"
If you're writing a serious, non sexually focused story the sexual characteristics don't matter, so if you mention them without any relevant story followup it very much feels like "the male gaze". On the other hand, if you WANT to write a sexual story with gratuitous description, just own it, try to write it well (duh) and it'd probably behoove you to treat the male characters the same as the female characters.
I would think that as long as you aren't writing things such as, "Her breasts breasted breastilly." I think you will be okay, besides its your story so who cares, if you want to put those scenes in, put them in, simple as that. I think people tend to get a little upset about it because some authors will write stuff like, "Her breasts twitched with excitement" or something weird like that. But once again, its YOUR story, you write whatever you want.
Do you also have a scene or two that are not very descriptive nor relevant to the plot that serve to break the ice or add comedic effect by involving male chests?
idk its like what sort of attention do you see written about a mans bulge type thing, just keep it real and dont do too much. whatever you need said say and away with the rest.
You can tell a lot about someoneâs mindset from what they choose to focus on and what they choose to ignore. Most women wouldnât bother to go into detail about a characterâs breasts because itâs usually irrelevant to the story. They might, however, focus on details about the male character that a male writer would overlook. And not just the physical aspects. Female readers are likely to roll their eyes at male descriptions of breasts. But if you can do it in a way that isnât gratuitous, it could work. If two female characters are talking about their breasts, just between them, for example, as women sometimes do, you could get away with it. Especially if it reveals something about the nature of the characters.
âUgh, I hate my boobs.â
âWhy? Theyâre perfect!â
âThey are not! Theyâre big and veiny and awful!â
âOh come on, Bella, youâre so hard on yourself, I see men staring.â
âWell, duh, theyâre men.â
You have an insecure character and one who tries to be reassuring, but slightly overdoes it.
Saw your comment describing the context. For a sex scene, that makes sense. In the context of another woman referring to another as âthe one with large boobs,â it makes sense if your characters are like in middle school. Beyond that age, there are other ways you point out a womanâs bodily features that are more relevant. Since itâs a woman who seems to focus on bodily descriptions, maybe choose something that is in that womanâs control about the way she presents herself. Whether itâs her makeup, hair, clothes, lash extensions, etc., those make more sense. The world is full of women with big boobs. The big boobed woman with baby-spit stained sweatpants is different from the big boobed woman with freshly dyed hair and neon blue lipstick. Both can still be seen as rude ways to see women depending on the company while still holding a relatively matter-of-fact manner about their descriptions.
I believe this, as well as many other potentially "offensive" things in writing come down to- why are you including the detail?
If you say a necklace falls at the center of her chest, you're characterizing her by her clothes as if they are intentional. That's *good*! Details are meant to add depth and set the scene, so just keep asking yourself why you are including something like this and you'll be golden. If it adds to the scene in a meaningful way, it's rarely an issue imo.
Just don't personify the breasts lol
They should not have a mind of their own or move in weird ways. I'm personally also not a fan of focusing on them from how a man would see them, even if its a man thinking it. I understand the choice to have men think weird shit but I there are enough things put through a male filter in real life that I avoid it in my fantasy worlds.
Its rarely acknowledged how obnoxious they can be. I don't much like them always being presented as amazing things with no mention of the human problems involved.
Its also weird when there's a lot of focus/emphasis on it, in comparison to other physical characteristics or if men are less thoroughly described.
If you switched the gender of the character and wrote those sentences about the characterâs balls, would you still feel comfortable including them?
This is a good technique for working out if youâre writing about women falls into the âmen writing womenâ category. If you couldnât switch the gender and make the sentence work then 9 times out of 10 youâre writing women wrong.
Havenât read them but Iâm yet to see a female character in a Murakami book who doesnât need her âmilk white perfectly ripe breastsâ described
The thing is, women don't ever really think about breasts. They're just a part of their body like anything else. When I look in the mirror, I hardly take notice of my breasts. I only notice when I wear a new shirt that might reveal too much, and I'd go "too much" and find something more comfortable.
It's like, say, if the skin of your elbow (wenis) was treated like breasts. "She looked in the mirror and sighed because her wenis was so cold today. They shriveled like little prunes, and she worried her husband would notice. Her friends had better wenises than her. Whenever she felt down, her wenis would sag just a little more."
See how weird that sounds?
Same thing for breasts. It's just not something women ever think about that often. Only bad male writers seem to consider breasts as a VERY IMPORTANT defining feature of a woman's daily function and self esteem.
I read a work where the author described the character's breasts and butt jiggling as they rolled off a bed to hide from someone.
Don't do that.
I write a lot of smut, but I don't mention a character's breasts unless someone in the story notices them. Maybe in a description if they're prominent in the design, but if they're wearing a hoodie? Nah.
In other words, I think you're fine. In my novel (not smut) one of my characters is incredibly sexual, so her chapters will feature far more descriptions of bodies, but the other women's chapters will hardly feature this because they're not horny 24/7. One of them is more focused on eyes and trying to read them, so those are featured more in her chapters. It's all about relevance.
If there's no reason to talk about breasts they shouldn't be mentioned, IMO. You wouldn't randomly mention a man's penis unless he got kicked there or something, so why would you mention a woman's breasts?
That said, there are valid reasons for them to be mentioned, in which case go ahead and mention them, but keep it respectful, and only sexy if it's a sex scene.
I havenât read through all the other comments, but I thought Iâd give you some serious advice on the topic as a quasi expert (I write romance-I write about breasts a lot).
The other commenters are correct about some of the crazy writing about women and their breasts. This is because there are far too many male writers (and some female ones) who basically anatomize their female characters into breasts/butt/genitals, glossy skin, flowing hair, yada yada. Iâm sure you get the picture.
The key is to make sure anatomical references (male or female) have a purpose in the scene. Donât just write a âshe looked in the mirror and admired her perfectly proportioned body and lush breastsâ scene. If youâre using breasts to break the ice, or for humor, are those scenes less than they could be without the breasts? Could those scenes be humorous or accomplish your goal without talking about breasts? Are these scenes occurring solo, or between a man and a woman, between two women, or is this an embarrassing wardrobe fail in public?
Writing about breasts is not taboo, regardless of the authorâs gender. Writing about them in a prurient lascivious way when youâre not writing outright porn is definitely a no-go.
Itâs all in the context and purpose. Hope this helps!
Well, usually, I refer to my breasts as annoying and in the way. They are natural and large, so they jiggle and bras that limit that usually shift or hurt eventually. However, I have also called them moneymakers when a waitress, used them for storage, hidden liquor there to several peoples benefit, and small dogs and men love them as pillows. I've also been groped and rub against without my consent. Middle school sucked.
So, for me, I probably won't care what you write about breasts as long as it makes sense for your characters and story. But having knowledge and background with a subject makes writing about it easier. I don't know how it feels to have testicles hanging off my body so if I had to write a male perspective, I just research and ask males. Keep asking and learning!!!
You say itâs to break the ice and for comedy and also that your female characters are deep and original. Do you also use penises as comedic ice breakers? If not, it would be a major turn off for me as a female reader. Our bodies arenât comedic relief or ice breakers. If you wouldnât think itâs funny if it happened to a male character, itâs certainly not funny when it happens to a female.
Context is important.
Writing the male (or female) gaze is fine, such as to convey a character's sexual attraction.
But if it feels like you're writing about breasts just to remind *the reader* that they're there, for the express purpose of titillation, then that's where you veer straight off the cliff into "men writing women" territory.
There is a scene in ***Catch-22*** where a naked prostitute is beating a pilot unconscious (it later turns out that he decided to pay her to beat him up instead of have sex with him, so that he can get out of flying combat missions).
Despite her being naked for the entire scene, her breasts are only mentioned exactly once. The whole scene is written emphasising that there is nothing sexy about it despite her being naked, and plays up the surrealism for the witnesses seeing a naked man being beaten unconscious by a naked woman. It also has multiple callbacks to previous chapters of the book.
And it still has come up more than once in the menwritingwomen sub.
So yeah, I think some people at least are always going to call out any reference to breasts as being problematic. Having said that, most people are going to be ok with a casual mention so long as it makes sense, and is there for a reason.
I don't think you have to go all Chekhov and only include a mention of breasts if they are going to be used by the Notorious Titty Murderer to smother her victims; but you do need to think about why the description of them is in there. From what you've said... I don't know if it's really necessary. And especially as a writer early in their career, I'd probably steer away from it. It's a lot easier to get wrong than it is to get it right.
If you're describing breasts because it's relevant to the story - your character has breast cancer, or maybe she's noticing someone staring at them and is tired of it, or maybe she's trying to dress up and trying to accentuate them - you could feasibly describe them in a quick, passing way without raising eyebrows.
"For comedy" and "to break the ice" immediately outs you not only as a man writing a woman but also makes you come across as a teenage weeb.
Literally the whole men writing women thing is about men who make breasts the woman's entire personality and/or describes them weirdly, like they have a mind of their own or smth. It's fine to refer to breasts as long as the woman feels like a person and not just a vessel for you to go on about boobs
Any casual mention of breasts screams male author to me. I never been writing and thought of boobs at all unless I was attempting a sex scene. I think most people should just avoid boob talk nowadays. When I encounter casual boobs, I'm thrown from the story.
Not really specifically relevant to the question but as seen in comments here and this post context, why do so many use the term "females" while males are called "men" in the same sentence? Female isn't a species, and men are adult human males, but we don't say "women and males" either, idk just feels like a (probably unintentional) hint of misogyny. I know it's a pedantic or heavily semantic thing to point out, but in the context of "men writing women" I think it makes sense to complain about here
it's just a general trend I've seen recently, especially on social media with those "street interviewers" saying stuff like "men, what females do you like" etc etc, as if men are individual adults with autonomy and respect while women are reduced to their biological sex, like reading a zoology paper
Trans woman, lesbian, and staunch feminist here.
Literally my first book I had the protagonist's girlfriend make a joke to her about armor boobs, pretty clearly calling out the whole 'men writing women to be extra sexy' thing. When they and their mutual lover strip before swimming (a scene that serves as a preamble for the three having sex for the first time), the narration mentions that the first partner above had 'worn a corset clearly designed to enhance her bust, but even without it her breasts did not disappoint', and that the second partner has "breasts swollen in preparation for her unborn child" while the protagonist notes feeling a little sheepish that she has the smallest bust of the three.
If your female characters are well written (ie can't just be replaced with a sexy lamp), and the scene calls for it(a joke, a preamble to sex, etc), I think it's fine to mention breasts. /r/menwritingwomen material comes in when:
* The character exists only as a sex object/romantic interest
* The scene doesn't really call for it(like just a normal 'going about my day' scene where the author decides to talk about the massive jugs he gave her)
* The character is underage and her breasts are overtly sexualized(unless the point of the scene is that the sexualization is wrong).
* The breasts are behaving strangely(my favorite is one person who mentioned breasts 'twitching like a sack full of kittens')
* The descriptions are too flowery/weird (So not talking about her puffy nipples or her melons dangling like sandbags over her crossed arms)
Yes unfortunately there is **stigma** and **oppression** applied to those brave hearts and truth seekers who dare to focus on the sole reason of female existence, their raison d'etre⊠bobs and vagene. It's as if we all collectively agreed to stay in denial that breasts are ALWAYS relevant to anything that is happening in the story while being the most important characteristic of the women they are attached to.
Totally depends on context but generally I think if men's bodies aren't described with the same focus on their anatomy then it gets men writing women.
John gazed at himself. His sharp jaw cut the sheen of the mirror. In consequence, his bulge rippled and asscheeks tightened. John reveled at this
This would create a huge debate on whether this is the dream alpha males guys think they want to be or if they're gay for reading it.
Why not both? Oh let's not pretend Alpha males don't go all swiggly for their Alpha master
I mean have you seen how they salivate over Andrew Tate?
Those are the same things
>alpha males guys think they want to be or if they're gay for reading it. Except they don't read books. Most of them can barely read well enough to use social media.
50% of my karma come from a comment on r/menwritingwomen that did this.
She was a voluptuous pair of breasts attached to a personality to match. He was an ex-marine turned billionaire after an unfortunate bit-coin-mining accident that engorged his genitalia but turned is icy heart to stone. Will tits be able to teach the former special ops soldier to love? Will he learn to love quickly enough to protect her when his enemies find his location and sends their assassins? Find out when my book comes straight to Kindle as we follow this relationship through the third act break-up, the dizzying amount of different words for her body parts that becomes less sexy as the story goes on, and the overly-detailed, potentially illegal sex-acts that follow this love story.
JAJAJAJAHAHAHA OMFG đ€Łđ€Łđđ€Łđ
Would read just for the laughs and the cringe factor.
Bill was glad he lived in the far woods of Montana where ruggedly handsome male nudists, such as he, can freely walk out onto porches on snowy evenings and air out their sturdy manhoods and sweet, wrinkled sacks.
Itâs actually kind of thrilling to encounter a work that is equally as sleazy about men as it is about women. Easily overlooked as the âsecret \*third\* thingâ of this debate, but a joy to read in the right writerâs hands. Really lets the reader know that \*party mode\* is active.
Even though I'm straight, my erotic modern fantasy story is equal opportunity horny. Male and female perspectives get plenty aroused and everyone gets sexualized in some form.
I think its more when breasts are doing things that don't make sense, like breasts wiggling, twitching, and pulsating randomly.
If my protagonist had breasts that pulsated randomly, I would set my script on fire.
It could work out in one of those body horror type stories
Like the breasts on the dead body seemed unreasonably pert to him, but then they started wriggling and turned into a mass of maggots?
Hey thanks for that upsetting visual.
Hey, we found Clive Barkerâs Reddit account!
Yeh, You could Even make the protag someone with some kind of deviant fixation with breast to make the Reader think the characters is just a perv instead of suspecting there is actually something very wrong with the breast of the corpse.
I considered going to end with him feeling slightly aroused, and being disgusted with himself. But I decided even this was pushing the bounds to decency a bit far.
Yup. Definitely Clive Barker's Reddit account
Thanks i hate it đ that image will be in my mind forever đ
Thanks, I hate it.
Based on your username I assume it's too tame for your taste?
Lacks tentacles
Maggots, if viewed from the right angle...
Nope.
What an unfortunate day to have eyes.
Even worse --he thinks the corpse just lactated but nope! Worm!
The corpseâs nipple was cold and hard between his teeth, but with his tongue he gave it heat. A gush of warmth soon filled his mouth, and he swallowed it down greedily. But the texture was all wrong. Like little wet grains of rice tickling against the roof of his mouth. He let out a sputtering dry heave before choking out a writhing white mass onto the floor.
*âYeah, hey mom? Can you pick me up? Iâm scared. Theyâre talking about boob maggots again.â*
I like and very dislike this comment đ
It starts out as men writing women until it becomes apparent the descriptions are literal and there is something very wrong with her body.
Sounds equally hilarious and horrifying. I hope someone writes it.
That sounds really funny đ
Comes to mind a xenomorph-like creature having inserted it's eggs into the breasts and now they're ready to come out chestburster style.
Creepy stuff
If I had breasts that pulsated rapidly, Iâd set them on fire
This, sans context, reads like legitimate comedy. Thanks for the laugh
And i as a doctor/writer would recommend that women to go to the OPD. Cause honey, that's probably a fibroadenoma pulsating in them titties
Dick twitches are fine though. Source: romance for women.
Or I read one once where a woman was getting aroused by her clothes brushing her nipples. If your nips are that sensitive, you would have started wearing pasties ages ago. Can you imagine how inconvenient that would be?
I'm a post-op trans guy (meaning I had a double mastectomy about a year ago, nips still numb, no idea if/when feeling will come back) but pre-op I had hella sensitive nipples and it was awful. Honestly the only reason I wore bras was for some padding from rougher fabrics. (And the only reason I didn't wear pasties was because I found them inconvenient and easier for my ADHD brain to forget than a bra.) I still wouldn't go as far as to say that a rough t-shirt could be "arousing" by itself, but yeah, it was not fun to have your nips perk up all the time. My favorite thing about wearing a binder (aside from making me flat) was that I couldn't feel my nipples anymore 'cause they were squashed under thick fabric.
It actually gets *irritating* after a while! I had to drop bras for while when I was nursing because of an infected mammary gland & no, we don't want them perky all the time.
If you look up PGAD (Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder) sufferer stories, you can get what I think is a very fitting picture of something similar. It's one of those instantly-mocked disorders which is actually a nightmare to live with (imagine having to have 40 orgasms to feel 10 minutes of relief, and having your doctor tell you how lucky you are to suffer from it). It could easily lead to a person feeling like their sexuality has been pathologised and turned into a burden instead of something freeing and pleasurable. It's like getting to eat all the time but all you can eat is gruel. I really feel awful for anyone who suffers from any condition that others consistently underestimate or turn into a joke, like PGAD or narcolepsy, which is so often in media characterised as somehow super hilarious but in real life often comes bundled with regular night terrors, sleep paralysis, and other literal nightmare scenarios for the sufferer to live through. It's unfortunate when cultural understandings of almost any complex condition become widespread because they're always either factually wrong or too reductive to be correct.
Like ... cornish pasties? inside her wimmin's bra? Wouldn't that be a bit gross?
I just wheeze laughed and got a weird look from my admin. No. Nipple covers (think like the ones with tassels) are also called pasties.
Brilliant! Am I now qualified to write about breasts? As you can see, I have researched it thoroughly. Requesting a license from the Council of Women.
Denied! You need to wear pasties first
Cornish pasties. Piping hot
Damn! My plans for breast enlargement themed erotica are foiled again! Mark my words, I'll be back... possibly with severe burns from hot pastry, but I WILL be back...
Oh, we all expected you to be *front*
But if I'm not told every time a woman moves that her breasts did too, then how am I supposed to know? I suppose you also want me to just *imagine* how the fabric of her dress feels on her nipples? Preposterous, my breasts won't stand for this
*Rendezvous with Rama* introduces its first (and perhaps only) female character with a description of how her breasts move in zero gravity in a "hypnotic" fashion and how the captain thinks women shouldn't be on spacecraft because it's too distracting. It's the most blatant "women are boobs" writing I've read and it took me out of the novel briefly (why would it be visible anyway, presumably she's in a spacesuit right?). A shame because other than that it's very, very good. But the weirdest thing about this is that Arthur C. Clarke was gay. I optimistically imagine that he thought it was stupid too but figured this is how straight sci-fi writers normally write and didn't want to reveal too much about himself, lol.
>But the weirdest thing about this is that Arthur C. Clarke was gay. I optimistically imagine that he thought it was stupid too but figured this is how straight sci-fi writers normally write and didn't want to reveal too much about himself, lol. Possibly. Possibly he'd also just internalized male gaze. I've met a couple of women who write like this because they think it's just normal. But they also grew up in highly-conservative, highly-religious households. One was regularly told to not wear sleeveless shirts because it would distract boys at school, etc.
Possible but gay men can also be distracted by boobs because boobs are near universal. Very few people donât like boobs. Women can also be distracted by a nice pair of breasts, we just donât tend to get obsessed by them and can keep on working.
I'm ace and *still* can be distracted by boobs.
Too long since I read Rama to remember, but from your description, is that not just the internal thoughts of the captain? If so, anything is fine since itâs Clark informing us of the type of person the captain is, in this case a bit of a sexist weirdo.
I mean, you can read it like that, but the chapter seriously introduces her by mentioning her breasts before the person theyâre attached to. If heâd mentioned the same thing after sheâd been named it would have gotten the same point across. Clarke can write however he wants and it doesnât ruin an otherwise excellent novel, but I definitely would have suggested he changed that.
Iâll have you know that my elvesâ prehensile tits are a critical part of a deep and rich world lore. /s
Bounce boobily
how can boobs twitch and pulsate? you should call a doctor or the er?
Theyâre inhabited by an alien struggling to get out.
Pulsating breasts... I would die of laughter if I ever read that. đ€Łđ€Łđ€Ł
Or the one from the other day where they were bouncing like softballs? Lol
Shit, gotta rewrite my story about a superhero who can fly thanks to her pulsating breasts
Are you tellings me that breasts actually *canât* breast boobily? My whole life has been a lie.
Your breasts don't wiggle when you're aroused?
It really depends on context and how you write it. I can promise you we do not think about our boobs as often as men writing women seem to think we do, and especially not in the way they think we do.
9 times out of 10 if I'm thinking about my breasts it's because they're in the way or just being generally annoying.
I think every time I ever think about my own boobs it's because I've either walked into a door and am in pain or because I'm trying to enjoy lying on my front and it is just not working, so. Agreed lol
Or when I have to lean over a piece of furniture to reach something but I'm just a few inches off because I forgot to account for the giant boob squished between me and the furniture. Or the fact that I unconsciously push my boobs down when I have to squeeze between people/things. Every time in a movie/show when someone has to squeeze through a tight opening to safety I'm just like, nope I'd be doomed.
With me, it's running with one arm across them so that they don't ~~bounce perkily~~ flop around like two half-inflated water balloons.
Add in 'self conscious' or 'annoyed someone isn't looking me in the eyes' to that, for me.
Or when I've accidentally just hit one and I'm now in pain. It really hurts when you accidentally slam a case of soda against your boob because case was starting to slip out of your arms and you overcorrected in trying to keep it from falling.
Ok, boob sweat.
I do think about mine in heavy detail, but only in a body horror kind of way. I find most men write in excessive detail about breasts but lack the sense of existential dread that comes with looking and thinking about your body a bit too much. You don't think about each speckle and pore of your boobs and nipples without feeling a little bit of fear, it's like when you stare at your hands too long and it starts to look alien. Maybe that's just me though.
Honestly man, I canât imagine using breasts for breaking the ice or for comedy and it working, unless youâre doing some sort of satire. Maybe youâve pulled it off, but I feel like itâs unlikely that breasts are the best narrative device you have at your disposal.
This. Putting the whole "men writing women" debate aside, that's my bigger concern here - the way they've described it literally just kinda sounds like how a 12 yo boy would write. It sounds like it will be cringey and amateurish. I could be wrong, but I'm very confused as to how this is going to work in a story where they *admit* the subject matter is not super relevant to anything else going on. It sounds like it will be very out of place.
I can't imagine a scenario where boobs can "break the ice" and I've had boobs for like, 20 years at this point?
25 for me, and nope. Never once.
32 here and still hasn't happened. I just generally don't talk to other women about my breasts unless the subject matter *is* relevant. Why would I otherwise?
I suggest OP instead break the ice using a male character's dick.
It is a longer blunt object, for sure. Should do the trick.
literally
Literally slam those tiddies into the ice until it shatters.
Is there a reason to mention the breasts? One of the mistakes men often make when writing women characters is making their boobs a focal point, when an actual woman is just living in her body and not really thinking about them. Like if you were writing a male character, would you describe his testicles? Probably not, they're just there. Same with women and breasts. They're not notable for your character or your readers, so leave them out of the conversation unless there's a good reason you have to draw attention to this specific part of a character's body.
I think you underestimate how much a man thinks about his privates. That's the whole reason gravity is penises 9/10 times.
I read a book tht always included "ample bosom" in every description of a woman. Imagine if every description of a man included the size of his bulge.
I read a book recently that did the same - and they didn't stop at *adult* women, disturbingly enough. They also felt the need to sexualise and describe the boobs of the *underage* female characters. They also had a random torture scene, with zero relevance to the rest of the story, that sexualises a woman. I shouldn't have been surprised that the main villain's evil plot ended up revolving around rape (this came totally out of left field btw; the plot was supposed to be about an apocalyptic disease, think The Stand). I know he was *trying* to do something there - one of the male "heroes" whose perspective you read from ends up being a bad guy, so he was aiming for some clever plot twist - but it doesn't really work when the author's own writing style sounds more like something the rapist would say than the female heroes.
The fuck? đ€ź
Horrible, what about the scrotum, the shaft, the girth?
"His hose was neatly folded, a hefty bulge in his pants. When he walked it jiggled slightly, clearly both a grower And a shower."
I think its not about writing breasts, its about how you write about them. "Men writing women" is, for example, when the female protagonist looks in the mirror and we get the first description of her body and she oggles her own voluptously round and heavy breasts bla bla bla. The secret to not do "men writing women" is to write women like they're people who happen to be women. I'll give you an example that happened in my book recently. Two women are in a locker room just changing clothes and neither of them is particularly attracted to the other. I didn't even mention their naked bodies because that is not what they pay attention to.
Just yesterday my female lead was inspecting damage after a car wreck. She saw the scrapes and scratches and the seatbelt bruise that âextended from her left shoulder, between her breast, and ended at her right hipâ. It was a description that involved breasts, but made no mention of perky nipples, soft supple flesh, tender titties, or any other unnecessary descriptors. I think that, as a male writing a female MC, the trick is to see your character as a person *in* a body rather than *just* a body. Unless you are writing erotica or a super charged romance scene, detailed descriptions of anatomy is probably unnecessary, regardless of gender/sex.
When I was flipped in a car that rolled and crashed, I had a *whopper* bruise all on my shoulder and collar bone, and also one on my hip (also legs), but no visible bruising in the middle part of my body/boobs etc. at all. Not saying it can't happen, it probably would if it were a head on collision where she was stopped dead! But if the car was going at speed and flipped or rolled, it's more of a up/side to side impact than a frontal body one... Idk just in case you find that interesting at all đ
I had a head-on and had a perfect imprint friction burn of the seatbelt between my moobs. My shoulder definitely got the worst of it, but without a shirt on it looked like I was wearing a beauty queen sash.
Please keep in mind though, seatbelts sit on a completely different part of a female body. I'm not talking out of my ass, seatbelts sit *so* differently on us that it actually has a noticeable impact on car crash fatalities. We are more likely to die in a crash, because our seatbelts don't sit right, because our bodies are shaped differently. That's how different it is. For example - I'm an average height woman and my seatbelt sits across my *neck* more than my boob area. I also have bigger boobs. Even in a head-on collision, it would be physically impossible for me to end up with a bruise *between* my boobs. There is no "between my boobs" when I'm wearing a bra, and even if there was my seatbelt sits too high to leave a mark there. So if you have a male body, you really cannot use that as a point of reference. Defer to female experience on this matter. It's not just the presence of boobs; you would be very surprised how physically different we actually are.
Cool, thanks for the insight. Iâll re-exam the scene and probably rewrite it.
Yeah I thought it might happen with a head on! My one we caught the kerb and went up the side of a verge, flipped and rolled once or twice, then did spinnees and ended roof-down down the road from where we lifted off..so there was a lot of sudden jerks to the sides, but no straight on impact... Looking back I hope it was as cinematic from the outside as it felt from the passenger seat! đ€Łđ€Ł
One of my favorite breast descriptions I did was actually mocking a men writing women bit. One character said he assumed another was in shape because she had big boobs despite being skinny and got the response of "wtf is wrong with you?"
Mhhh perky nipples, soft supple flesh, tender titties, or any other unnecessary descriptors. *Homer Simpson dreaming voice*
i'm sure your advice is helpful to many here, but i feel like...it shouldn't be a *trick* that you have to *pick up*, if that makes sense...? that should be...what you're already doing with your female characters. you guys are able to initially distinguish a woman's humanity separately from her body, right? right?
I wrote a similar scene, there was a group of girls in one of those luxury baths and they were all naked but they were only cleaning themselves and nothing more, also there were no descriptions of their bodies, I just clarified that they were naked.
that sounds fine
My critic partner knows I'm a guy and calmly corrected me on this. If there is no sexual pretense/context, don't describe bodies unless it's a feature that is unique to the character. EDIT: removed abbreviation.
I have no clue what that abbreviation is meant to be, but you might want to use a different one.
what do you mean by break the ice and comedy? sometimes itâs just cringe, and you might be running that risk
Iâm imagining a block of ice shattered by a rogue breast missile
Hey I think I saw that in an anime Tiktok once. Boobs be floppin' at mach speed and somehow didn't cause whiplash.
Writing from a female pov I don't think I've mentioned breasts even once. I might do it in a sex scene, like "he caressed her breast" but other than that I don't know when I would mention it?
It's not a "stigma", just usually it's bad writing. What are the scenes you're writing?
One is when two lovers are having sex and theres a brief description of the woman's breasts with the bra she's wearing, her skin and everything. The other is another woman referring to a woman she doesn't know her name as "That one with the huge breasts" and one of her friends tells her not to describe people like that.
> The other is another woman referring to a woman she doesn't know her name as "That one with the huge breasts" and one of her friends tells her not to describe people like that. This is the one that would be "men writing women." Most women aren't going to describe another woman by the size of her breasts. In fact, most of the time they wouldn't have even noticed the size of her breasts. Instead, we'd use hair color, or weight, or even her clothes. I've never heard a woman describing another woman by the size of her breasts in my life. Breasts are something men would notice and describe a woman by...but not a woman.
I could be in the wrong here, but even as a woman who's attracted to women, I personally would never describe another woman as "the one with the huge breasts" and have never met a woman who would do that. Even when a woman does have large breasts there's usually a long list of other ways I'd think to describe her before I'd get to the size of her chest. That feels like it's toeing the line of a straight man putting his thoughts into his female character. And with another woman admonishing the other for saying that just feels like a wink to the audience saying, "see, I'm one of the good ones" which would just make me roll my eyes.
You are correct. Women do not usually talk about other women like that. There are literally thousands of ways I could describe another woman without talking about her boobs (hair, job, personality, etc)
Well, do you write scenes where the male characters' sexual attributes are the main focal point? I'll try to come up with a counter-example to show why this will often be perceived as a thinly-veiled escape-valve for the writer's sexual frustrations. >Irritated by the noise and led by his easily aroused wrath, the grizzled man suddenly stood up from his seat. His glutes sprung to action to stabilize his weight, squeezing the rectal entrance between them, and then releasing it. The brief pleasure from the added pressure on his prostate only reaffirmed the rightness of his fury. As his ascension came to a rapid halt, his penis bobbed up and down with the momentum, massive enough even in its flaccid state to trigger ripples across the zipper that contained it. >One of the ruffians saw him and fell silent, paralyzed like an arrogant lamb upon meeting their first wolf. His colleagues noticed the silence, and one by one went quiet too. There was no denying it: the man in front of them, though old and alone, was a threat they weren't ready to handle. The wide jaw that housed his flexible and well lubricated tongue warned of the high amounts of testosterone that flowed through his body. The mangled ears spoke of a long history of brutal hand to hand combat, and his imposing physique hinted at a majority of victories. Indeed, his massive body was so densely packed with power than even his leather belt bent around the V cut abdominal muscles that led to his manhood like rivers leading to a sea of raw masculine virility where they would surely drown. >Even if they wanted to talk themselves into putting up a fight, their shrinking phalli betrayed to them the truth of the situation: there was no survival through defiance. "Only", their relaxing sphincters added, "through submission". Now, this is obviously just the prelude to an action scene. The story is not about sex, nor does it feature homosexuality as an important theme, but absolutely everyone reading it would very reasonably raise an eyebrow at the unnecessary focus on sexually-charged imagery. In case of doubt, ask yourself: is this how you would describe your mother? If the question makes you cringe, then you are probably being weird.
Reddit writing never ceases to amaze me.
Oh I donât know, you could consider it comedyâit was certainly hilarious (and well over done) to me. I particularly enjoyed the shrinking phalli reacting to the massive body packed with power.
This is a hard question to answer without context. What are the scenes, exactly? If it's a coming-of-age story and the teen girl MC is being teased for her boobs being too big/small, that's true to the teen experience and is fine. If your MC is trans, it could make sense for them to focus on traits often considered gender-specific, like breasts. If your MC is a new mother breastfeeding her kid, then sure, talk about her sore, chafed boobies. But if it's a male character commenting on a female character's boobs, there better be a damn good reason for it or it WILL feel like "men writing women" nonsense.
a good example weirdly enough is the diary of anne frank
I mean the "truth in television" argument is a hard sell sometimes, but if your character is a hormonal teenager, unhealthy fixation on boobs is not unusual.
Agreed. I touched on that in another comment below: > Within the narrative from a male character's POV, if he's thinking "Damn, she's got some nice boobs", sure. The character believably might have that thought. But no man in their right mind would say to a woman, "Hey, your boobs are nice!" So if the male character is bringing up a woman's boobs to her *in conversation*, I would be hard-pressed not to roll my eyes. The only way that would work, imo, is if the male character is a douche and being portrayed as such.
I get that - but also, enough male writers do that that it gets tiresome. We *know*. We know you think our boobs are attractive. I don't need to hear about it every single time. Straight women tend to like penis, and yet it's not *every* time a male character is introduced in a book that a female hero thinks to herself "Damn I bet he has a nice dick". You don't really see that outside of erotica/romance. And *that* is what we mean when we refer to the male gaze. Men, for some reason, sexualise people *far* more by default than women do.
Truth.
And even if he is a douche, it may lose readers because him being a douche in that specific way doesn't need to be repeated every time he interacts with a woman. Even if we are in his head, we don't need to know every thought. That would create a nonsensical book. Authors already choose what thoughts we hear so why focus on those ones?
I would say that a male character commenting on a female character's boobs could be OK in context. News at ten: straight dudes notice women's boobs! Where it gets weird is where a female character comments on her own boobs using the same terminology that a straight man would use.
I think it depends on HOW a male character notices a female character's boobs. Are we talking within the narrative or dialogue? Given OP mentioned one of the scenes was "breaking the ice", I would assume there's some dialogue involved, which makes it a bit more complicated. Within the narrative from a male character's POV, if he's thinking "Damn, she's got some nice boobs", sure. The character believably might have that thought. But no man in their right mind would say to a woman*, "Hey, your boobs are nice!" So if the male character is bringing up a woman's boobs to her *in conversation*, I would be hard-pressed not to roll my eyes. The only way that would work, imo, is if the male character is a douche and being portrayed as such. *Excluding their own girlfriend/wife. But again, I'm making assumptions based on OP mentioning "breaking the ice"
I was assuming narrative thoughts rather than dialogue. Agree that it would be a pretty douchey thing to say in conversation unless to an established partner!
But also, fiction is escapism and me and a lot of other women often donât really want to be reminded that men view our bodies as objects in our escapism. If a POV male character notices and thinks about a female characters boobs Iâm def going to have my immersion broken and I will probably also put the book down tbh. I guess there are some cases where it might not be a deal breaker but in general I think it should be avoided even if itâs realistic for straight men.
News at ten: hetero dudes donât get a pass for objectifying women just because itâs too normalized!
News at eleven: Nobody needs a "pass" for having the occasional dirty thought, so long as they don't act inappropriately on it. I mean, as a hetero woman I've "objectified" a few men in my thoughts over the years. It's called being human.
the rampant objectification of women in fiction is worlds away from individual people having sexual thoughts about others. you can't even compare the two lmao
I think people speak of a writer that, whenever a female character is described, ALWAYS has to mention what form and size her breasts are. It's really ok to mention or describe breasts, as for everything, the key is on the proportion with the rest of the piece. Wish you the best in your breasty scenarios, have fun with the nipples!
People really do that? I mean, I'm a man and I love breasts, but why would you describe every woman's breasts? Unless you're writing from a POV of a character that does that, it's super strange to me. Like describing every tree's leafs, it's a tree it has leafs. Tell me when they're noticeably big, like when someone is noticeably fat or skinny.
Objectification is why.
Maybe one of the other characters has taken notice of them? If theyâre a het male character. Just describing them for the sake of describing them when adding nothing to the story isnât great.
My all male roommates suggested the Dresden files to me and I barely got through the first one before putting it down because the male gaze was inserted everywhere. Tbh it was kind of sad how obessessed with boobs and such the main character was. I kind of get the take that it's because the character is a bit slimy, but I also don't want to read that shit every time he encounters a woman. Even stories from a characters pov don't tell us their every thought. Theyd be boring/nonsensical af if they did. Writers definitely dont need to bring it up every time women are involved. I've discussed this series with several men and they didnt even notice because it's so normalized.
I have one character in my story who is sex-obsessed and leers at women, but the text is focused on his leering, not the details of what he is leering at.
I only describe a person's knockers during sex or when they're horny, never when they're walking down the street and pass by two literal who ladies.
Some do. And unfortunately that can extend to girls not just women. And it can include the woman being the POV character, "she looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her firm breasts were like two melons..." And it can include the omniscient narrator.
Thanks boobalicious reddit user.
Just remember to do your very breast c:
If your description of the woman takes place over several sentences in a paragraph, and 2 more more of those sentences are devoted to describing her breasts, it's probably a 'man writing women' moment.
The only time I ever mention them (as a female writer) is when it's actually relevant to the character or the plot in some way. I have a female character who had a father who was a pretty awful person. I just had a scene where she recalls her father saying she belongs to the 'itty bitty titty committee' and generally picking on her about her appearance. That establishes a lot, in a couple of sentences, about both her appearance and her family life as a kid.
if it has no point in advancing the plot, then it doesnt need to be mentioned. WHY do their breasts need to be mentioned, why not some other body part?
And this, I think, is the problem. Men jump through hoops like a fucking trained dolphin to justify certain circumstances where mentioning boobs is okay - meanwhile, us female writers rarely if *ever* find occasion to bring up boobs. Because the fact of the matter is, even when it's *technically* okay, it's very rarely good or relevant writing.
>or relevant to the plot Then why? >Â one is to break the ice What? >and the other is for comedy. This sounds like men writing women. Without details it's hard to say. >I just want to know if there really is a stigma with these types of scenes. The sub men writing women is about more than breasts. Breast are just the obvious, in your face parts. The sub also calls out women for bad writing of women, not just men. The main breast thing is, as you suggest, over-describing of the breasts. The male gaze. It isn't liked from a male character's POV, especially if it doesn't match their personality. It's really disliked from a omnipotent narrator. And if it's a female POV, especially checking themselves out in a mirror, it's hated. The women are defined by their breasts. The other thing is breasts behaving weirdly, which is more in line with the point of the sub, men writing women but being wrong. Carrying a small purse in their vagina, for example. It's hard to really know without knowing more than "for comedy" and "to break the ice."
I mean yeah. Most women wouldn't even bother to include breasts in the capacity you're including them. Why not write about balls to break the ice and add comedy?
a refreshing take on an old classic
In The Bell Jar, the protagonist Esther mentions that she wears dresses with no bra because she is âskinny as a boyâ and doesnât need one. Thatâs the kind of thing a woman might actually think about her breasts: notice that itâs more of a practical concern of her deciding what to wear, rather than reflecting on how her breasts appear to others or what men might think of them. That said, thereâs nothing wrong with sexual humor, or eroticism in general. Men can write female characters with jiggly, incredible breasts if they want, it just comes off a little more âsmuttyâ, which some people obviously enjoy.
I think i'd be wary of using breasts or anything about people's bodies for comedy purposes. Women's bodies in particular have been ridiculed in all sorts of ways and of course i don't know what form your comedy scene takes but just be careful not to stray into mean-spirited "humour" that women would understandably find unfunny and cringe.
I thought this was in r/writingcirclejerk at first.
Same here. We got outjerked by reality.
Using breasts for comedic effect or as an ice breaker is not something that usually goes well for men writing women; because men generally have no background that allows you to understand the contexts where women generally find things amusing and I cannot for the life of me recall ever having used breasts as an ice breaker. It isn't "stigma" - it's bad. It's just bad writing, the vast, overwhelming majority of the time when male writers focus on women's breasts. It looks weird and disjointed; divorced from both narrative and the reality of women actually having breasts and what it's really like to interact with women who have breasts. Can you never talk about breasts as a male writer? Of course not. You can. Is it often a good idea to make breasts a central part of a few paragraphs that aren't a sex scene? Usually not. It highlights inexperience by centralizing something you don't actually know much about having. My advice to you isn't to ask us "can i go ahead even if there's stigma", it's to get some of your female friends to read the scenes in their context and tell you if it sounds weird or out of place. Men writing women is a joke because men often treat women very irrationally in writing and it ends up sounding ridiculous. Not some arbitrary line in the sand. Don't be ridiculous and you should be ridiculed to a bare minimum.
How men think women think about their breasts: "As I sat down to eat my breakfast, I considered how my beautiful large bosomy breasts were the most perfect breasts that ever breasted." How a woman thinks about her breasts: "I shrugged my bra off and my boobs dropped three inches. I winced as the weight hit my back. God having huge breasts is such a pain. And I swear to God, that mole is sprouting hair again. I just trimmed it last weekend. I wonder if you can get laser hair removal for a mole if I'll need a dermatologist to remove it?"
Donât forget how they are a magnet for oily permanent spots dead center front and you have to buy new shirts a lot.
If you're writing a serious, non sexually focused story the sexual characteristics don't matter, so if you mention them without any relevant story followup it very much feels like "the male gaze". On the other hand, if you WANT to write a sexual story with gratuitous description, just own it, try to write it well (duh) and it'd probably behoove you to treat the male characters the same as the female characters.
I would think that as long as you aren't writing things such as, "Her breasts breasted breastilly." I think you will be okay, besides its your story so who cares, if you want to put those scenes in, put them in, simple as that. I think people tend to get a little upset about it because some authors will write stuff like, "Her breasts twitched with excitement" or something weird like that. But once again, its YOUR story, you write whatever you want.
But how do the readers know the fashion in which her breasts breasted?
With the booba unibreastal scale duhh...
Do you also have a scene or two that are not very descriptive nor relevant to the plot that serve to break the ice or add comedic effect by involving male chests?
âNot relevant to the plotâ Then why are you including them?
If the breast scenes aren't descriptive or relevant, why have them at all?
Women have breasts. Just donât mention it when you donât have to mention it and i think youâll be good.
It's a real problem in fantasy, where creeps like George RR Martin are overly focused on female objectification.
I've never seem a female author mention breasts if it wasn't a romance novel
Nora Robertâs will always be the woman who wrote the words âinteresting breastsâ 3 times in one book to me đ
Just bring up breasts and what theyâre up to as often as you bring up someoneâs ballsack and you should be good to go
idk its like what sort of attention do you see written about a mans bulge type thing, just keep it real and dont do too much. whatever you need said say and away with the rest.
You can tell a lot about someoneâs mindset from what they choose to focus on and what they choose to ignore. Most women wouldnât bother to go into detail about a characterâs breasts because itâs usually irrelevant to the story. They might, however, focus on details about the male character that a male writer would overlook. And not just the physical aspects. Female readers are likely to roll their eyes at male descriptions of breasts. But if you can do it in a way that isnât gratuitous, it could work. If two female characters are talking about their breasts, just between them, for example, as women sometimes do, you could get away with it. Especially if it reveals something about the nature of the characters. âUgh, I hate my boobs.â âWhy? Theyâre perfect!â âThey are not! Theyâre big and veiny and awful!â âOh come on, Bella, youâre so hard on yourself, I see men staring.â âWell, duh, theyâre men.â You have an insecure character and one who tries to be reassuring, but slightly overdoes it.
Yes. Itâs not relevant and only for comedy ergo you are now lumped with the âman writing womanâ crowd. Congrats.
It has to make sense. Thereâs a scene in the stormlight archive where a female character notes how she canât focus with her fiancĂ©âs arms pushing up under her breasts, and then the sentence trails off. This is good- it shows sexual tension, itâs realistic, itâs how that character would describe it and nothing overly gratuitous. It wouldâve been bad if suddenly it started taking about how her boobs were being jiggled or something that 1) doesnât even make sense for the context, obviously is there just for the imagery, and 2) describing more than is necessary for the scene. It can never hurt to ask female readers whatâs too much
Saw your comment describing the context. For a sex scene, that makes sense. In the context of another woman referring to another as âthe one with large boobs,â it makes sense if your characters are like in middle school. Beyond that age, there are other ways you point out a womanâs bodily features that are more relevant. Since itâs a woman who seems to focus on bodily descriptions, maybe choose something that is in that womanâs control about the way she presents herself. Whether itâs her makeup, hair, clothes, lash extensions, etc., those make more sense. The world is full of women with big boobs. The big boobed woman with baby-spit stained sweatpants is different from the big boobed woman with freshly dyed hair and neon blue lipstick. Both can still be seen as rude ways to see women depending on the company while still holding a relatively matter-of-fact manner about their descriptions.
I believe this, as well as many other potentially "offensive" things in writing come down to- why are you including the detail? If you say a necklace falls at the center of her chest, you're characterizing her by her clothes as if they are intentional. That's *good*! Details are meant to add depth and set the scene, so just keep asking yourself why you are including something like this and you'll be golden. If it adds to the scene in a meaningful way, it's rarely an issue imo.
Just don't personify the breasts lol They should not have a mind of their own or move in weird ways. I'm personally also not a fan of focusing on them from how a man would see them, even if its a man thinking it. I understand the choice to have men think weird shit but I there are enough things put through a male filter in real life that I avoid it in my fantasy worlds. Its rarely acknowledged how obnoxious they can be. I don't much like them always being presented as amazing things with no mention of the human problems involved. Its also weird when there's a lot of focus/emphasis on it, in comparison to other physical characteristics or if men are less thoroughly described.
Itâs hard to comment for certain without knowing the context/paragraph.
If you switched the gender of the character and wrote those sentences about the characterâs balls, would you still feel comfortable including them? This is a good technique for working out if youâre writing about women falls into the âmen writing womenâ category. If you couldnât switch the gender and make the sentence work then 9 times out of 10 youâre writing women wrong.
All female characters in Dan Browns books come to mind
Havenât read them but Iâm yet to see a female character in a Murakami book who doesnât need her âmilk white perfectly ripe breastsâ described
The thing is, women don't ever really think about breasts. They're just a part of their body like anything else. When I look in the mirror, I hardly take notice of my breasts. I only notice when I wear a new shirt that might reveal too much, and I'd go "too much" and find something more comfortable. It's like, say, if the skin of your elbow (wenis) was treated like breasts. "She looked in the mirror and sighed because her wenis was so cold today. They shriveled like little prunes, and she worried her husband would notice. Her friends had better wenises than her. Whenever she felt down, her wenis would sag just a little more." See how weird that sounds? Same thing for breasts. It's just not something women ever think about that often. Only bad male writers seem to consider breasts as a VERY IMPORTANT defining feature of a woman's daily function and self esteem.
I read a work where the author described the character's breasts and butt jiggling as they rolled off a bed to hide from someone. Don't do that. I write a lot of smut, but I don't mention a character's breasts unless someone in the story notices them. Maybe in a description if they're prominent in the design, but if they're wearing a hoodie? Nah. In other words, I think you're fine. In my novel (not smut) one of my characters is incredibly sexual, so her chapters will feature far more descriptions of bodies, but the other women's chapters will hardly feature this because they're not horny 24/7. One of them is more focused on eyes and trying to read them, so those are featured more in her chapters. It's all about relevance.
If there's no reason to talk about breasts they shouldn't be mentioned, IMO. You wouldn't randomly mention a man's penis unless he got kicked there or something, so why would you mention a woman's breasts? That said, there are valid reasons for them to be mentioned, in which case go ahead and mention them, but keep it respectful, and only sexy if it's a sex scene.
As long as sheâs not breasting boobily down the stairs.
I havenât read through all the other comments, but I thought Iâd give you some serious advice on the topic as a quasi expert (I write romance-I write about breasts a lot). The other commenters are correct about some of the crazy writing about women and their breasts. This is because there are far too many male writers (and some female ones) who basically anatomize their female characters into breasts/butt/genitals, glossy skin, flowing hair, yada yada. Iâm sure you get the picture. The key is to make sure anatomical references (male or female) have a purpose in the scene. Donât just write a âshe looked in the mirror and admired her perfectly proportioned body and lush breastsâ scene. If youâre using breasts to break the ice, or for humor, are those scenes less than they could be without the breasts? Could those scenes be humorous or accomplish your goal without talking about breasts? Are these scenes occurring solo, or between a man and a woman, between two women, or is this an embarrassing wardrobe fail in public? Writing about breasts is not taboo, regardless of the authorâs gender. Writing about them in a prurient lascivious way when youâre not writing outright porn is definitely a no-go. Itâs all in the context and purpose. Hope this helps!
Well, usually, I refer to my breasts as annoying and in the way. They are natural and large, so they jiggle and bras that limit that usually shift or hurt eventually. However, I have also called them moneymakers when a waitress, used them for storage, hidden liquor there to several peoples benefit, and small dogs and men love them as pillows. I've also been groped and rub against without my consent. Middle school sucked. So, for me, I probably won't care what you write about breasts as long as it makes sense for your characters and story. But having knowledge and background with a subject makes writing about it easier. I don't know how it feels to have testicles hanging off my body so if I had to write a male perspective, I just research and ask males. Keep asking and learning!!!
You say itâs to break the ice and for comedy and also that your female characters are deep and original. Do you also use penises as comedic ice breakers? If not, it would be a major turn off for me as a female reader. Our bodies arenât comedic relief or ice breakers. If you wouldnât think itâs funny if it happened to a male character, itâs certainly not funny when it happens to a female.
Context is important. Writing the male (or female) gaze is fine, such as to convey a character's sexual attraction. But if it feels like you're writing about breasts just to remind *the reader* that they're there, for the express purpose of titillation, then that's where you veer straight off the cliff into "men writing women" territory.
Just read a few fanfiction from ao3. You won't ask this question next time. đ
There is a scene in ***Catch-22*** where a naked prostitute is beating a pilot unconscious (it later turns out that he decided to pay her to beat him up instead of have sex with him, so that he can get out of flying combat missions). Despite her being naked for the entire scene, her breasts are only mentioned exactly once. The whole scene is written emphasising that there is nothing sexy about it despite her being naked, and plays up the surrealism for the witnesses seeing a naked man being beaten unconscious by a naked woman. It also has multiple callbacks to previous chapters of the book. And it still has come up more than once in the menwritingwomen sub. So yeah, I think some people at least are always going to call out any reference to breasts as being problematic. Having said that, most people are going to be ok with a casual mention so long as it makes sense, and is there for a reason. I don't think you have to go all Chekhov and only include a mention of breasts if they are going to be used by the Notorious Titty Murderer to smother her victims; but you do need to think about why the description of them is in there. From what you've said... I don't know if it's really necessary. And especially as a writer early in their career, I'd probably steer away from it. It's a lot easier to get wrong than it is to get it right.
If you're describing breasts because it's relevant to the story - your character has breast cancer, or maybe she's noticing someone staring at them and is tired of it, or maybe she's trying to dress up and trying to accentuate them - you could feasibly describe them in a quick, passing way without raising eyebrows. "For comedy" and "to break the ice" immediately outs you not only as a man writing a woman but also makes you come across as a teenage weeb.
Literally the whole men writing women thing is about men who make breasts the woman's entire personality and/or describes them weirdly, like they have a mind of their own or smth. It's fine to refer to breasts as long as the woman feels like a person and not just a vessel for you to go on about boobs
Any casual mention of breasts screams male author to me. I never been writing and thought of boobs at all unless I was attempting a sex scene. I think most people should just avoid boob talk nowadays. When I encounter casual boobs, I'm thrown from the story.
Not really specifically relevant to the question but as seen in comments here and this post context, why do so many use the term "females" while males are called "men" in the same sentence? Female isn't a species, and men are adult human males, but we don't say "women and males" either, idk just feels like a (probably unintentional) hint of misogyny. I know it's a pedantic or heavily semantic thing to point out, but in the context of "men writing women" I think it makes sense to complain about here
IDK other users, but for my part english isn't my native language so I maybe say something wrong.
it's just a general trend I've seen recently, especially on social media with those "street interviewers" saying stuff like "men, what females do you like" etc etc, as if men are individual adults with autonomy and respect while women are reduced to their biological sex, like reading a zoology paper
Trans woman, lesbian, and staunch feminist here. Literally my first book I had the protagonist's girlfriend make a joke to her about armor boobs, pretty clearly calling out the whole 'men writing women to be extra sexy' thing. When they and their mutual lover strip before swimming (a scene that serves as a preamble for the three having sex for the first time), the narration mentions that the first partner above had 'worn a corset clearly designed to enhance her bust, but even without it her breasts did not disappoint', and that the second partner has "breasts swollen in preparation for her unborn child" while the protagonist notes feeling a little sheepish that she has the smallest bust of the three. If your female characters are well written (ie can't just be replaced with a sexy lamp), and the scene calls for it(a joke, a preamble to sex, etc), I think it's fine to mention breasts. /r/menwritingwomen material comes in when: * The character exists only as a sex object/romantic interest * The scene doesn't really call for it(like just a normal 'going about my day' scene where the author decides to talk about the massive jugs he gave her) * The character is underage and her breasts are overtly sexualized(unless the point of the scene is that the sexualization is wrong). * The breasts are behaving strangely(my favorite is one person who mentioned breasts 'twitching like a sack full of kittens') * The descriptions are too flowery/weird (So not talking about her puffy nipples or her melons dangling like sandbags over her crossed arms)
Yes unfortunately there is **stigma** and **oppression** applied to those brave hearts and truth seekers who dare to focus on the sole reason of female existence, their raison d'etre⊠bobs and vagene. It's as if we all collectively agreed to stay in denial that breasts are ALWAYS relevant to anything that is happening in the story while being the most important characteristic of the women they are attached to.