65 upvotes, 4 direct replies (showing 4)
View submission: Where Is All the Sad Boy Literature?
Granted, some may feel that their stories are not important considering the focus on the experiences of women in recent years.
As a male writer, this is one of my personal concerns/fears. I feel like my perspective is less valuable in left or left-adjacent circles since I have the "privilege trifecta" of being a cis white male. I am also autistic and gay/ace but those seem to be secondary to the former (and don't get me started on the people who say that gay men and asexuals aren't as oppressed...)
And I'm always scared I'm gonna end up on /r/menwritingwomen or the more misandrist parts of Booktok
This is almost certainly an irrational fear but it's something that's constantly in the back of my mind when I'm writing, especially when writing a female character.
Comment by Eager_Question at 22/02/2025 at 04:39 UTC
33 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I think this is a lot like eating disorders. Women and girls have terrible rates of eating disorders and instead of lowering those, we've just been bringing men and boys up to parity.
Women writers have been getting a bunch of sexist hate for decades. And instead of actually reducing the amount of gender-based hate directed at writers, society has decided that the solution is to throw gender-based hate at writers of more genders.
We need more gay-ace voices and more autistic voices dude. Write the thing.
Comment by aftertheradar at 23/02/2025 at 02:49 UTC
7 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I'm a closeted queer nb, but for most situations i get lumped in with "men". and I'm a writer - i live in fear of my stories ending up in those places too, no matter what i try to do... It's good to know that someone else in a similar situation worries about that for their writing as well
Comment by ToocrazyforFlorida at 21/02/2025 at 23:55 UTC
37 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I feel like my perspective is less valuable in left or left-adjacent circles since I have the "privilege trifecta" of being a cis white male. I am also autistic and gay/ace but those seem to be secondary to the former (and don't get me started on the people who say that gay men and asexuals aren't as oppressed...)
This is definitely a thing. A lot of people, women especially, think that trifecta trumps everything. The life outcomes for autistic people are incredibly bad, massively worse than almost any other type of drawback or disability. Being gay is pretty rough too, and can be horrifying depending on location/culture.
Yet you still have to listen to women talking about how lucky you are and inherently rejecting your perspective or any challenges . . .
Comment by JaStrCoGa at 27/02/2025 at 17:37 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
One of the things I would suggest is to be sure all your characters are fully developed people and are not only there to "serve" the main characters or plot.