Snowvase01
Hello Mr Worden,
I think I have figured out how to write to you directly without my every little raving being public. This really is an interesting and quite unique site.
Yes, your writing about the relationship between two women was very beautiful and very sensitively portrayed. I had no problem with it.
OK every relationship is different but women do approach things differently to, same sex men and even mixed, couples. The feeling and sensitivity when kissing another women is entirely different to to kissing a man, many more senses come into play and the experience is entirely different. It's difficult to describe to a man but it is much more tactile and scent plays a much great role.
You caught it well and I was entranced by the relationship between Z'beyda and Andriya. I felt that Z'beyda's behaviour after finding Andriya's corpse was completely appropriate and loving.
I'm still trying to figure out what role I could fulfil.
Best regards, Snowvase x
Snowvase01
Hello Mr Worden,
Yes, this site is not very intuitive and why it classes "Conversations" differently to "email" is beyond me.
I suppose it is difficult for a male writer to avoid objectifying a woman. The usual giveaway when man is writing about women he will objectify breasts whereas woman writer will remain unimpressed by them. She already knows how heavy they are and the unpleasant feel of "under-boob sweat" and the discomfort of a twisted strap so she will not rave on about how magnificent they are... A woman writer will be more impressed with clothes, makeup, small gestures of empathy, little touches of concern. That is not to exclude narcissistic women and other mental disorders but in general women can "mask" psychological disorders better than men.
There was one book I read and was highly impressed by it but it was written by a man with a lead heroine. I really liked the book except for one sex scene where he described a practice which was physically impossible for a women to perform on a man so just where he got this idea from I do not know, but it was a real give-a-way of a pornography obsession.
I think the tea-drinking ritual was excellent and the repeat session with Andriya's body was a masterstroke. The cooling of her tea being a motif for her cooling body was excellent.
Have a good holiday.
Best regards, Snowvase
Avadoro1
Dear Snowvase,
Thank you so much for all the support you've been giving me in your comments. I had serious doubts about whether I could do this scene justice, because I'm very aware that men and women experience intimacy rather differently. I wasn't entirely sure how I should write it, but I knew very clearly how I shouldn't. I knew I had to avoid what is usually called the “male gaze”: focusing on individual parts of the body, and generally relying too heavily on visual impressions, because that can easily lead to fetishising or even objectifying a woman. So if not sight, then touch and scent, and the small gestures and interactions between lovers, suggested rather than made explicitly carnal.
Then I was lucky enough to hit upon the idea of them drinking tea together as a symbol of their intimacy, something that could take the place of a more direct description. It worked particularly well because I could repeat the motif in the climactic scene, when Z’beyda performs the same intimate ritual beside Andriya’s body. I'm very glad the tea motif worked so well for you.
In short, I wasn't trying to write like a woman. I'm not one, and I don't know what it feels like to be one. What I was trying to do was avoid writing in a conventionally male way.
Warmest regards,
Worden