Am I a misogynist?

[lefingum]

"Nonsense. What happens when a straight guy writes straight sex scenes?"

Like I said, writing about things you are not overly emotional about can be more neutral.

 

[EJMichaels]

...Because, IMO, when a gay guy tends to write steamy scene between men, his own desires, fetishes, lack of fulfillment etc will seep into the scene. It will be difficult for the gay writer to write a sex scene without getting hard himself. If he writes in that state, then other necessary elements of writing can get sidetracked.

Are you speaking from experience? As both a writer and as a reader of gay erotica written by excellent gay authors, I can't agree. Well, the getting hard part may be true, but that doesn't have to be a problem. While there are exceptions, I find that most of the best gay erotica is written by gay men. I'm talking about serious writers who write quality fiction and know how to channel their erotic energy into their writing. While there's no requirement to write "what you know," I think it can be very helpful.

I usually write about sex with power exchange themes because that's what I do and like. My characters happen to be male most of the time (although a few are lesbians). I'm not comfortable writing about the way I have sex with women or men, and I'm usually not all that comfortable writing about women having sex. The reasons are complicated, but the main one is based on how I compare to them. I prefer some distance for the vanilla parts and physical reactions. For the BDSM, however, I almost always write with my own experience in mind.

 

[luckynumbah7]

Makes me wonder whether the general public remembers what a pseudonym is -and that most erotica writers use them, at least judging by a google search and general knowledge (spoiler alert, in case some are unawares, I write.) And they do change the gendered names depending on their targeted audience. Women buy more erotica so men use women's names - also to get around those pesky 'I want to judge the content and style before cracking the cover' people.

Me, I plan on irritating people using my initials and a picture of a cat in my bio.

In order for someone to feel they've clicked with an author without actually reading anything they've written they look at the name. Which tells absolutely nothing about writing quality, style or content.

@lex,

I care about horrifically written hp sex scenes. Then again, I've also found several fanfiction writers better than Rowling in both style and content. I also refuse to read teenage-written erotica though, the crap to gold ratio is much too high.