f/f writing gripe of the night

[sciatrix]

f/f writing gripe of the night:

 

the problem with having been wistfully deterred every time I tried aggressively to dive into femslash writing the first time is that I just have way less to draw on for scene structure than I apparently can pull from for m/m. Which is ridiculous: I’m not even limiting myself to standard human vulva-inclusive genitals, so why the hell is this hitting me so much harder than sex from a male PoV? 

 

like, why is shit like “I would like clothes off, please remove” and “excuse me, please put your hand on my fucking clit now now now” and “I am nervy but I want to make my body feel good please and thank you” suddenly so much trickier from a female PoV than a male one? It’s not like I don’t have a ton of experience with the latter to draw on here. but okay, it’s intimidating, fine; I’m a baby writer, I am still learning this shit, practicing is okay. gotta think on it and chew a bit. 

 

so I go looking for resources and advice. and…. there are none. fuck. 

 

well, okay. that’s not entirely true. but what there is seems to be very focused on either anatomy, mechanics and safe sex (”how do lesbians do it, anyway?”) or on coming up with good words to use for genitalia in your porn writing. and. neither of those are my bloody problem here.

 

first, I am pretty well acquainted with the theoretical ways that you can get up close and personal with a cunt. tribadism and cunnilingus and fingering and fisting are not foreign concepts to me. I am aware of the difficulties with actually pulling off scissoring and frankly tits present all manner of possibilities, and all that assumes your characters have never heard of toys. I don’t need another list of dry descriptions of Possible Activities to do if you have two editions of Slot B. 

 

hisses Scarleteen is a lovely resource but it is not particularly helpful as a guide to writing porn, thank you. 

 

second, the wording thing people complain about is not usually what I’m bothered with. which: c’mon, folds? lips are right there, or rely on texture and sensation to describe things. obviously euphemisms like ‘love tunnel’ are Right Out, but I wouldn’t have been using those anyway. (also I’m gonna be honest: vulva is an appealing, velvety word. fight me. and cunt: also lovely. I can take or leave pussy, but cunt and vulva are buddies to me.) 

 

besides, word choice normally wouldn’t bug me much–after all, I tend to not be someone who writes heavily on the anatomy references anyway, so 

 

that’s stalling me just a bit, but it’s not actually the thing that keeps smacking me in the head as I try to write this scene and derail.

 

no, what I’m scrambling for is descriptions of sensation, of experience, of feeling… from the perspectives of actual people. And scenes with women fucking each other described in an interesting way that illustrates the vulnerability of the characters 

 

and it’s not just me: cursory searches from my trawling through DW comms yields an anon femslash thread wherein the first comment when asked what people would not want to confess to off anon was people complaining about the paucity of anything but fade-to-black. 

 

so is it something about the headspace? my internalized weirdness? what is going on with my head?

 

and gah, is there like a treasure trove of How To Write Good F/F Explicit Sex I’m missing somewhere? I’ll work up a bunch of links to all the best stuff I find in the morning as I trawl Dreamwidth and LJ comms, but I’m regretfully afraid of the possibility that there’s just nothing for it but to go hunting for the best f/f in my favorites lists, reread them, and brood.

 

oh, oh, the horror. 

Comments

commenting much later on the wlw lack of scripts

[alatefeline]

>> This reminds me of a conversation I've had with my girlfriend, who's a lot more experienced I am. "I'm not used to the idea of stage-managing my own sex," I said. "Deciding what, specifically, I want to do. I always kind of thought I just had to show up and be willing and the other person would figure it all out." <<

*applause* This is STILL TRUE even if you THINK you are good at self-advocating and feel able to do so in a sexual context.

An explicit personal example follows, feel free to skip.

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I went off-script from the start. Being so much more bookish than socially adept, and having well-to-do holdover hippie parents PLUS the gender studies library of a lieft-leaning liberal arts college, I ran with the idea that Consent Was Good and Pleasure Is Fun and Safe Sex Matters and Use Your Words. (As a note, this was about ten, twelve years ago, and I have had sex to date with a grand total of two people). And guess what? My primary partner and I were *still* at sea figuring out how to Words, especially since we were each other's first partner *and* both of us were then actively presenting a gender we would later realize we didn't identify with (she's a trans woman, I'm genderqueer and AFAB). We fumbled around with some bad scripts collected from cultural context, and one of the few things we got right from the beginning was that I articulated my 'yes's and 'no's because I had read the overt script that that was a Good Idea and failed to internalized the hidden script that it wasn't. We eventually had some great sex, but also had, and have, other ongoing problems communicating and connecting what we want and need. The later one-off sexual connection with a friend with whom I was exploring some poly possibilities was sincere, awkward, physically enjoyable, and definitely not something that could provide a useful script to repeat, because it only happened. I now think I have to have Using Words Well as an existing condition in a friendship to consider a relationship and as an existing condition in a relationship to consider sex.

I have yet to have sex with a person with similar genitals to myself, and I expect that when that possibility comes my way, it will be awkward as hell to talk about, too.

So stories like this - stories with wlw, in the broadest sense, believably negotiating desire and connection - would be really amazing for me, and achingly relatable.