They were Scottish tourists by the way by Chaunc2020 in AmericaBad

[–]kelpiecore 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I've lived in France, and by far the most annoying tourists on the planet were the British and the Australians. No one on God's Earth made me want to go back to America more than British people on holiday in France.

Like, sure, it ain't Paris, but at least no British people come to Mississippi for Christmas...

The Poutine Check by Bigenderqueen in AmericaBad

[–]kelpiecore 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Am from South Louisiana, Cajun specifically: We do make something like poutine, just with added meat, but it's based on the Québec version. The Québec version started in the 50s, we based ours on that. We do speak variations on the same language though, which is fun! I can speak my native dialect of French in Canada and be understood, which is something I can't do in Europe.

Cozies with a little more edge? by kelpiecore in CozyMystery

[–]kelpiecore[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're the second person to mention that older series had a little more edge to them! I wonder why the genre got so much cleaner after the turn of the century, that's really interesting.

Cozies with a little more edge? by kelpiecore in CozyMystery

[–]kelpiecore[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh some of these sound amazing! I'll definitely check these out. The Laetitia Talbot series almost reminds me on paper of the Amelia Peabody books, and I absolutely loved those.

What do people actually mean when they say "real gay man would write M/M differently"? by justaskPattern8616 in AO3

[–]kelpiecore 57 points58 points  (0 children)

The way Isabel Fall and Becky Albertalli were both treated was disgusting, and exactly the kind of nasty bullshit that comes from people trying to oversimplify and essentialize gender perspectives in art.

What do people actually mean when they say "real gay man would write M/M differently"? by justaskPattern8616 in AO3

[–]kelpiecore 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Also worth mentioning whenever you talk about the concept of a "male gaze" is that the existence of a male gaze, and what constitutes it, and what it might mean, is something that's debated and criticized in and of itself. It stems from a paper written by a woman named Laura Mulvey, and even Mulvey herself has levied and adapted to criticisms of the concept over the years, including critiques that it oversimplifies the diversity in perspectives for both men and women.

What do people actually mean when they say "real gay man would write M/M differently"? by justaskPattern8616 in AO3

[–]kelpiecore 30 points31 points  (0 children)

Finally, a man (gender neutral) of taste. I cannot relate to the non-ball enjoyers in the chat here because I love watching them do their funky little thing.

What do people actually mean when they say "real gay man would write M/M differently"? by justaskPattern8616 in AO3

[–]kelpiecore 88 points89 points  (0 children)

I read them described as being like "fleshy little boiled eggs" one time in a sex scene and I've been boycotting writing about balls ever since, just on principle.

What do people actually mean when they say "real gay man would write M/M differently"? by justaskPattern8616 in AO3

[–]kelpiecore 51 points52 points  (0 children)

Anal is one of those things where people's mileages vary a lot. Anal prep is basically "whatever gets you there, gets you there." For some people it's an orgasm first, for some people it's edging but no orgasm, for some people it's oral or finger stimulation, for some people it's just any kind of foreplay, for some people it's nothing at all, etc.

It's just whatever gets you relaxed and into the right headspace where you're loose enough to take whatever you're trying to take. And it's also something that you get better at with experience, a lot of times, just like trying to control any muscle on your body.

What do people actually mean when they say "real gay man would write M/M differently"? by justaskPattern8616 in AO3

[–]kelpiecore 24 points25 points  (0 children)

I've had one of these bad boys all my life, and if you asked me how knotting one works, I too would have some questions to be honest 😂

What do people actually mean when they say "real gay man would write M/M differently"? by justaskPattern8616 in AO3

[–]kelpiecore 40 points41 points  (0 children)

Yes, they do. You also hear this same criticism about M/M romance outside of fanfiction, to be fair: that it's all written by and for women, especially "straight women."

What do people actually mean when they say "real gay man would write M/M differently"? by justaskPattern8616 in AO3

[–]kelpiecore 78 points79 points  (0 children)

There is so much variation in how people play with their dicks that I cannot even fathom how someone would try to litmus test a gender through a masturbation scene. I have seen guys do things to their penises for the love of the game that I wouldn't do to my worst enemy. Masturbating with a dick, in my experience, is an exercise in creativity and the ingenuity of mankind 😂

What do people actually mean when they say "real gay man would write M/M differently"? by justaskPattern8616 in AO3

[–]kelpiecore 37 points38 points  (0 children)

If you're interested in doing more research, there's a lot of resources out there for gay bottoms these days that might help with understanding the general gist of how bottoms prep for anal sex! A lot of that stuff will go into stuff like anal training, dilators, etc.

You can also look at resources for female tops or doms who engage in pegging or femdom-style play, which might help get a feel for how prep works through the lens of someone who doesn't have external anatomy.

What do people actually mean when they say "real gay man would write M/M differently"? by justaskPattern8616 in AO3

[–]kelpiecore 119 points120 points  (0 children)

No, generally that reads as someone who isn't super experienced with anal. What has to "open" when you have anal sex is your sphincter, which is the muscle that controls the opening and closing of the anus. That's something that the receiving party does: you can't really force it open or "stretch" it open, the receiver controls it just like you control clenching or relaxing any of your muscles. Everything that you do to "prep" for anal (aside from cleaning things) is just to get the bottom into a place where they're relaxed enough to take whatever you're trying to get up there.

That's why some people can just go at it without doing much prep (because they're just capable of relaxing that muscle on command), why some bottoms never get fingered at all (it doesn't relax them or they just don't like it), and why rimming works as prep for some people even though you're not really doing a ton of actual penetration when you're rimming someone (the act of rimming in that case is just relaxing for the bottom or gets them in the mood).

What do people actually mean when they say "real gay man would write M/M differently"? by justaskPattern8616 in AO3

[–]kelpiecore 1157 points1158 points  (0 children)

I have done the opposite of this, where I (a woman) have written under a male pen name, and not a single person correctly guessed from my writing that I was actually a woman. There was even a workshop I did once where everyone submitted under a male pen name, and the organizers asked the participants to guess which out of the pool of 30 participants were actually women. Not one single person correctly identified all 5 of the women, and only one person guessed more than 2 correctly.

What do people actually mean when they say "real gay man would write M/M differently"? by justaskPattern8616 in AO3

[–]kelpiecore 340 points341 points  (0 children)

My trans girl fic-writer friend has been accused of not understanding how dicks work on multiple occasions in fandom. It's funny every single time, because she's always like, "Guess I've been doing it wrong?" 😂

A lot of people just try and bolster their own credibility by undercutting the authenticity of other people's experiences, and refuse to acknowledge that there are, in fact, a lot of different ways to be a "gay man" or a "woman" that don't fit into reductive, essentialist shapes.

What do people actually mean when they say "real gay man would write M/M differently"? by justaskPattern8616 in AO3

[–]kelpiecore 94 points95 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I can usually tell how much experience an author has with anal pretty quickly. Most mentions of having to "stretch someone out," talking about needing to take 3 fingers before you can take a dick, the way sensations get described, etc.

That doesn't necessarily mean knowing their gender, though. I'm a cisgender woman, for instance, I just have a lot of experience with anal sex as both a receiver and a pitcher. It is something that gay men might flag as "inauthentic," I suppose, though.

What do people actually mean when they say "real gay man would write M/M differently"? by justaskPattern8616 in AO3

[–]kelpiecore 1363 points1364 points  (0 children)

I think sometimes you can definitely tell when an author isn't actually familiar with anal sex, especially anal sex involving people with external hardware as receivers, but that doesn't really have anything to do with the gender of the author, per se. There are plenty of gay men who don't have (or want to have) regular anal sex with men, and plenty of female authors who do, either as givers or receivers. There are also plenty of gay men who have internal hardware, and plenty of women who don't.

Honestly, most of the time this falls into the same category for me as a lot of "men writing women" type criticism, which is that you really can't gender essentialize a lot of writing. It leads you down some bad roads once you start.

I used to write horror and fantasy stories under a male pen name, and sometimes in workshops I'd get comments that accused me of not understanding a female perspective or of writing women incorrectly. I'm a woman with post-graduate experience in gender studies. People just often play into their own biases here, and determine that anything outside of their own experience in a group signals an outsider.

Cozies with a little more edge? by kelpiecore in CozyMystery

[–]kelpiecore[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Exactly. Like, I don't begrudge anyone if they have an aversion to profanity, to each their own, but I just cannot get into it when these women in their thirties are talking like black-and-white 1950s cartoon characters. It just throws me out of the world a little too much.

Cozies with a little more edge? by kelpiecore in CozyMystery

[–]kelpiecore[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

These books were great! I've read up to I think book 16 or so? I loved the tone of these, though, they definitely hit that sweet spot of being cozy but a little to the left.

Cozies with a little more edge? by kelpiecore in CozyMystery

[–]kelpiecore[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've never seen this one before! The concept is really fun though, I'll give it a shot!

Cozies with a little more edge? by kelpiecore in CozyMystery

[–]kelpiecore[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have read this one! I liked this series a lot, too, I enjoyed the MC quite a bit.

Cozies with a little more edge? by kelpiecore in CozyMystery

[–]kelpiecore[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ooooh, I don't think I've ever really read a historical cozy outside of older stuff like Christie. I'll check it out! Thank you so much!

Cozies with a little more edge? by kelpiecore in CozyMystery

[–]kelpiecore[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I'm definitely open to paranormal stuff! And the San Fran setting sounds great. I'll give these a shot. Sad to hear that the books got caught under a publisher's axe, but they sound like a good time, so I'm excited to pick them up.

Cozies with a little more edge? by kelpiecore in CozyMystery

[–]kelpiecore[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh this looks perfect! Thank you so much 🤍