all is healed, all is health

Great dialogue can come from radical emotional honesty. But in most real conversations, people

dodge questions

answer indirectly

lie (badly)

change the subject

crack jokes to avoid serious answers

lie (convincingly)

say half of what they mean

tell the truth but get so anxious/angry/defensive others now think they're lying

If your dialogue feels unnatural, it might be because everyone is saying exactly what they think, or articulating their thoughts too well. Try letting characters hide things instead.

people don’t always speak in full sentences,

slang can change depending on age range, demographic, etc. &

Bumps your ankle

Bumps your ankle

Bumps your ankle

the city of los angeles

the city of new york

sex

how drinking alcohol works

how getting high works

how a child of any age speaks

how nuclear physics work

how [my job] works

how debilitating being shot in the shoulder is

how hypothermia works

things I have never before seen someone fake their way through writing about, until today:

SHRIMP COCKTAIL:

banahbanah: #flashback to that one fic where Peter Parker frets about drinking shrimp cocktail because of the alcohol

generaldeliciousness: adding: what a prawn/shrimp cocktail is

#why is your character turning it down because they're under 21 #do you think prawn cocktail is a cocktail #this lives in my brain rent-free constantly #the rest of the fic was so normal #and good enough that i'll still re-read it #but bro

And then many, MANY, people wondering if this was actually authour mistake, since Peter really would do this!

POMEGRANATES:

zhajhassa: #haha where's that post that was like someone describing someone eating a pomegranate but they ate it like an apple

thornhands: #once someone wrote persephone biting into a whole Pomegranate #had to stop and stare at a wall for a minute

sungsingsanguine: I once saw someone very confidently write about a character eating slices of pomegranate.

FRUIT TREES:

zagreuses-toast: #given a very endearing glimpse into a writers blindspots by seeing them describe someone sitting under a ''pineapple tree''

salatrash: I remember something about picking watermelons... OF A FUCKING TREE

baander: #cranberry trees

DOUGH/BATTER:

maycelium: #I'm a chef so I'm really used to people not accurately describing how to cook food #But I was surprisingly flabbergasted when someone was writing making a cake and was kneading it. Which uh #Not necessary for cake. It was interesting for sure but just bizarre

livebloggingmydescentintomadness: #the one that drove me nuts was when a character set aside a batch of PASTA DOUGH 'to rise' #pasta doesn't have yeast!! #it does need to REST but it will never RISE #you do not want an airy crumb on your noodles

lovesodeepandwideandwell: #THE ONE WHERE THEY MADE COOKIES BY LADLING BATTER INTO A TRAY

Some other topics:

Also rape is not about emotional intelligence, it’s just that men feel attraction more than women, so it’s harder to resist, so they are more likely to rape.

You could argue that for rape potentially, but what about porn? Clearly people don’t watch porn for power, since it’s virtual, so how would you explain that men watch porn a lot more than women, if not because they feel more attraction?

"Feminism is for equality"

Feminism is for the liberation of women from men and the patriarchy. (See this post for a preliminary description of the modern day patriarchy.) The ultimate result of this would be equality between male and female people, but the lens is different (i.e., an active fight against an oppressor vs an passive attainment of an ambiguous goal).

"it's not necessarily against the male gaze"

The male gaze is "usually refers to the sexually objectifying attitude that a representation takes toward its feminine subject matter, presenting her as a primarily passive object for heterosexual-male erotic gratification" [1, emphasis mine]. Therefore, the male gaze – by definition – objectifies ("to treat somebody/something as an object, without rights or feelings of their own" [2]) women and is, therefore, incompatible with feminism.

"There's nothing wrong with giving men what they want"

There is if what they want is power, control, and domination over women. There is what they want is incompatible with basic human rights and dignity. There is if what they want prevents women from getting what they need.

"as long as women can get what they want as well."

Moreover, it really isn't about want. It's about need. Women need physical and emotional safety from men. Women need freedom from oppression and discrimination. Women need a world without the patriarchy.

"Also rape is not about emotional intelligence"

You're right. Rape is about choice. Men choose to rape.

"it’s just that men feel attraction more than women"

No, they don't. [3-6]

The first two source [3-4] describe how in actual research samples, approximately equal numbers of heterosexual women and men report a higher level of sexual desire than their partner (and many couples report no discrepancy). The next source [5] goes even further and discusses how "sex differences in self‐reported sexual behavior were negligible ... [when] participants believed lying could be detected, moderate in an anonymous condition, and greatest [when not anonymous]" indicating "sex differences in self‐reported sexual behavior reflect responses influenced by normative expectations for men and women". The final source [6] reviews the literature and concludes "many gender differences in sexuality are smaller than researchers once thought, ... that within-gender variation is larger than between-gender variation in reported sexual behaviors and attitudes" and that "societal power differentials and social pressures" play a role in any remaining differences.

"so it’s harder to resist, so they are more likely to rape."

Men make the choice to rape.

The idea that men are a mindless slave to their desires is ridiculous. And I honestly cannot think of anything more insulting than the suggestion that you (the male sex) are incapable of not being terrible, self-centered, out-of-control rapists.

Is this really what you want to argue? Would this somehow be better than a (large) portion of men making the active, entitled, choice to harm women?

"You could argue that for rape potentially, but what about porn?"

... argue what??

"Clearly people don’t watch porn for power,"

No, this isn't clear to me. Tell me, what else could be a greater expression of power than the ability to search for, find, and masturbate to videos of women and children being raped and degraded? What does this tell men about their place in society? (To have their every sexual desire fulfilled instantly, over-and-over, by a limitless supply of women? To see women as objects? To demand this availability from the women around them, from the women in power over them, from their wives and girlfriends?) What does this tell women about their place in society? (To be a receptacle for men's desires? To see themselves in a position of inferiority, of humiliation, of degradation? To have the men around them, their family and partners and bosses and subordinates, send them these images, "jokingly" suggest their participation, demand they imitate the acts?)

What is this? If not power, then what?

"since it’s virtual"

Lots of things are virtual. A rape threat emailed to a congresswomen is virtual. A tweet calling for the rape and murder of classes of women is virtual. A man's manifesto cataloging every perceived slight from women and his desired – violent, graphic, sexual – punishment for them is virtual.

And it's still power. It's still a man saying: "See this, you know what we can do to you, what we want to do to you, what we are doing to you. I know and you know but right now I want to make you remember, because you rejected me, because I disagree with you, because I can."

And that's power.

"so how would you explain that men watch porn a lot more than women, if not because they feel more attraction?"

Because porn is designed for men. Because it's produced by men, using women, for men.

Because men are socialized to express more sexual desire, and women are socialized to suppress and hide their own [6]. Because women don't want to watch themselves being humiliated and brutalized [7, 11]. Because women do not divorce their morals from their sexuality but men do [8-9].

And, notably, despite the stereotypes, "the neuronal response to visual sexual stimuli, contrary to the widely accepted view, is independent of biological sex" [10]. Despite this, far fewer women than men report any pornography use, and when women do use porn they use it far less frequently and primarily in the presence (at the request?) of their male partner [11].

Clearly, it is something inherent to pornography, not to men and women, that makes men want to watch it and women want to avoid it.

References: