Funny Feedback

I’ve received some interesting early feedback on the project, but I think my favorite comment thus far was the bemused observation that the characters are “all women.” That is not exactly true as there are several male characters, but I found this a fascinating comment for a couple of reasons.

First off, the obvious reason is that this book is marketed to lesbians, so I don’t think it’s that unusual that the majority of the characters are women. That said, I don’t think it’s a typical “lesbian” book, although as I stated before, I am a little uninformed on this genre. What I really wanted was to write a “normal” book, i.e. one with a compelling plot, interesting characters, good dialogue, and overall, something that was just a fun, entertaining read. The fact that all the characters are really hot women who all have sex with one another, well, that’s just a fringe benefit.

The second reason I found this comment so revealing was the implied “other” status of women. How many books have been written that have a cast entirely of men, and yet no one comments or even notices? It reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend of mine a few years back. I was talking about a book that documented in great archeological detail the prominent role that women played in the earlier cultures that worshiped a goddess as opposed to a god. My friend (who is male) turned to me and said in a somewhat disparaging tone: “Was it written by a woman?”

His implication was that because it was written by a woman, there was automatically the tint of bias. Does that mean, therefore, that every text written by a man also has the tint of bias? (Although that does explain the last 2000 years of religious texts we’ve been handed). I think the most revealing part of his comment, though, was that he trotted it out without a second thought of what he was implying, it was just understood.

I like to turn things on their head. I like to tease out underlying assumptions and then break them in pieces. And that’s one of the reasons I really like writing in this genre.

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