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Corrupting my leading ladies

The Din

Troubadour
I have come to the realization that my treatment of my heroines might come across a little misogynistic. Being a bloke, its hard to know how much a female reader will put up with before condemning my book as chauvinistic tripe.

Don't get me wrong, my gals are tough b***hs, they just manage to get themselves in scenarios where their shirts get misplaced... Guess what I'm asking is: Can I describe my heroine's breasts for a paragraph, yet still have her taken seriously?

Also, when I was younger, I used to get really annoyed when the love interest so much as smiled at anyone but the protagonist. I have a love triangle in the works and am curious as to how much the girl can get away with before being labelled a sl** by the reader, specially the high fantasy crowd.

And before you girls get out your pitchforks and torches, let me add that there's plenty of male nudity too, in all its graceless glory.
 

Saigonnus

Auror
Women in general in a traditional fantasy setting (TSR or Wizards of the Coast) novels especially depict women in skimpy chain mail bikinis (not protection at all really) and revealing clothing, usually ones that wouldn't be proper in an "adventuring party". I think if you don't go that far in depicting your women, you should be fine. There are many types of women and what one woman can get away with, another would be labelled as a sl** for doing the same thing.

If your female character has the personality that she'd be in an "open" relationship without remorse or emotional impediment, stick to it if you want her to be that way. I would really say it would depend on the characters traits what you could get away with in the story.
 

Rullenzar

Troubadour
Your story = your rules. There is all sorts of women in the real world so it would only make sense they would exist in our fiction too. If your women are badass like you say they are then the rest doesn't matter because you have already given the female readers a tough woman to look up to.

On a side note, tough independent women in the real world take what they want when they want using all their god given assets. So it's by no means a stretch to say the women you have created are in open relationships as triangles happen often in real life scenarios too.
 

Caged Maiden

Staff
Article Team
I think portraying women with desires of their own and the guts to act on them is very appealing to me. Aah, my own life has been a fun one, and I do like to see characters modeled after real people. As for how offensive sluttiness is... well I write prostitutes into my books regularly... and not in the context of nameless conquests of MC male characters. My favorite MC is a courtesan and assassin in my book Sayan Soul. Let's be serious, it depends on the story and how the characters interact. I am probably not normal (which I have admitted in several threads) but my characters are sexual beings, and deal with all kinds of real issues, because my focus tends to be more about the human condition than solely a quest.

That being said, I think a paragraph about breasts might be a bit much, but then I have a set of my own and would probably not have a paragraph to say about the subject. To me, I'd give even a nice set no more than a passing glance. I hope at least you do your lady justice and make the paragraph flattering. :) I think it can give a lot of depth to a character when you explain their views on things, and I applaud you for being aware that other people might find the subject distasteful. I however, find nothing distasteful about nudity.
 

ascanius

Inkling
Hmm... I think it depends on how you write it. Even being a guy I think I would toss the book aside if was sexual, and what I mean by that is for the sole purpose of getting someones rocks off, if you get what I mean. I think nudity, just like in photographs can have two contexts, sexual, all those wonderful adds on tv, and simply put the human body. I doubt that your writing smut so so I don't see the problem with describing nudity of your characters. But I have two say that describing your heroines breasts for a paragraph may be a bit much, just my opinion. I can say that I have a fair bit of nudity in my story.

As to them being slutty, that depends entirely on how you portray them, and how other characters view them.
 

Ireth

Myth Weaver
Unless there's something significant about the breasts in question (and I mean REALLY significant, like a serious wound that needs medical attention immediately, not just that they're outlandishly huge), I think you don't really need to describe them in a lot of detail. Breasts aren't as prone to variation as faces and other body parts are; people will fill in the blanks themselves if you just say what they are without going into what they're like.
 
One of the most annoying things I find with much of the anime I watch is women with breasts so large they should honestly fall over every few steps. That type of thing would get me to drop a book in a heartbeat. Nudity is fine, but even as a guy, I think a paragraph about them is probably too much...unless it's from the pov of a teenager....then a paragraph would be enough.

I say write it, get some feedback, and then adjust it as you think would best make it work for the target audience.
 

The Din

Troubadour
Just to clear my name, I don't actually have an entire paragraph devoted to breasts, it was merely meant as an example. Nor is any set in my book bigger than you'd expect to see walking down the street. And skimpy chainmail doesn't make an appearance. I guess I take a George R R Martin perspective on sexuality, if that makes sense.

Thanks for everyone's feedback, good to see that people are quite open to such things.
 

Amanita

Maester
Well, I can't speak for all female readers, but I view stories as misogynistic for completely different reasons.
If there's a male view point character telling the story in first person or third person limited, why shouldn't he notice her breasts? That would be quite realistic after all. ;) I'd try to stay away from descriptions that are too long, no matter which gender or body part is being described.
I'm not bothered by a more liberal view on sexuality either. In my opinion the belief that a man who has many women is cool but a woman with many men is a slut is much more misogynistic than the opposite but our "traditional values" are quite important for many people and anything going to far would probably still bother some. A love triangle shouldn't be one of those things though, it's a quite common trope. ;)
I'm not mentioning some of the things one of my female main characters got involved in for the same reasons. It probably would bother some people and the story isn't supposed to be about sexual freedom, therefore it's not worth offending people.

Something that's bothering me much more are scenes where the supposedly strong and important female character has to be saved from random men bothering her by some male character in the first scene where she appears. I've recently read such a story on the Showcase but kept from answering just to point this out. If she has to be saved from some severe danger okay, but this is the kind of situation a woman skilled in magic and or combat should be able to deal with on her own if extreme violence by common men against woman isn't an important plotpoint.
In general I really hate female characters which are skilled in fighting and magic but still fail in important situations. Women in traditional gender roles who need protection in battles? No problem, but if they're supposed to be as skilled as the men, it should be shown and not just told to let them be saved by men once again. This reads like the author telling me "oh look, they are allowed to try this, but they just fail, can't you see."
 

Ivan

Minstrel
Sometimes it is best to leave things to the imagination. A sentence implying their general character is sufficient.
 
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