In this article on Esquire, which starts with a short erotic story aimed at men, the author suggests that writing for a male audience requires detachment.
https://www-esquire-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.esquire.com/uk/culture/news/amp6758/short-sex-story-ewan-morrison
“Text isn’t a turn-on for men, but images are. Men are aroused by looking and detachment and not by the dissolution of identity, which is more common to the feminine psyche – “two becoming one and merging into each other”, and so on. Men love watching women experiencing the pleasure that men are giving them, so men’s erotic writing usually reflects that detachment.”
I write short, personalized erotica at times, almost always aimed at male readers. I do find that visual descriptions help, as does describing how I am made to feel by their actions. I have been told nice things about the smut that I write, so I’m surprised by the assertion that men aren’t aroused by text.
What are your thoughts?
Source: reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/l0w7v6/meta_writing_for_a_male_audience_f_asking_m
I think men are inherently visual creatures and probably enjoy the physical descriptions of characters and actions more than their emotional attachment to each other. That being said, I don’t think many men would be turned off by such writing, as long as their ‘visuals’ were satisfied as well.
According to some polls I’ve done, most of my audience are men. I tend to write from the female perspective and get into the heads of my characters with their thoughts and emotions when I can, while still being explicit with the details.
It’s a balance that works for me, and my fans. What works for my fans might not work for the Fifty Shades crowd. We’re all different.
Also, your link is broken. ❤
I can’t speak for all men, but I like the text part of smut to give context and buildup. Which is pretty different from porn where I can confidently say we don’t give a shit about any contextual lead up to. I think it’s mostly a balance of adding in that information without detracting from the sexiness of it and retaining attention. Just don’t turn the text parts into multiple long paragraphs before getting into anything good and you should be fine.
I think this is a bit oversimplified. I have a pretty good idea of how both brains work, and to say one likes visual and the other likes context is misleading. For instance, a guy could see an attractive female on the subway. Without any consideration of who this female is as a person, he likely finds her features attractive on their visual merit alone. This is what you could call “detachment,” and women tend to feel less attraction toward detached sexual imagery. However, this doesn’t really translate into writing, as there’s no pictures, and a list of detailed physical descriptions isn’t really the same imo. What you could say is that women choose erotica over porn more often than men do per capita, which I assume is true. As far as men who like erotica and women who like erotica, it is more important to look at what the male and female audience is going to find attractive as far as characters and their dynamics go. By eliminating the individuals who are only in it for the pictures, there is a much smaller desparity between the male and female audiences.
This is just specualtion, but I’d assume females like POV more than men do. I don’t really have anything to back that up, just a hunch.
The moral of the story is people come to read a well written story. If the writing is good, and the subject matter is something they fancy, they will enjoy reading it. The subject matter is going to have a bigger affect on your audience composition than writing style does.
(Just to clarify, I’m not writing this from any perspective. I prefer to keep my gender unknown on this account. These are just things I’ve observed and read about over the course of my life.)
Anyone who really thinks this has clearly never heard of Penthouse letters.
​
“Dear Penthouse,
I never thought is would happen to me, but…”
​
That’s erotica for men. Tales, fiction or otherwise, that are presented as having happened. It’s why a lot of men read r/gonewildstories
​
Men are far less likely to read erotica literature, as that is generally written for a female or queer audience.
​
Now, they are on to something with the part about detachment. The key to male enjoyment of erotica is being able to envision themselves in the story. This is why many erotic visual novel games never show you the protagonist’s face. We want to be able to imagine it’s us fucking that viking warrior princess.
​
Women’s erotica tends to include far more internal information, thoughts and feeling of both parties, which gives it a more voyeuristic quality. You can’t slot yourself in to the blank slate of the character, they have a life of their own.