[Danikka]
Hey there, welcome to The Snailed It Podcast with Danikka and Erin, brought to you by Authors Own Publishing.

[Erin]
Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode of The Snailed It Podcast with Danikka and Erin. Today, well I don’t know if there’s actually a title, what was our title? Why Women Prefer Reading Sex Scenes Written by Women.

[Danikka]
Yes, exactly, and so I think that title in itself is a disclaimer that this will not only include our normal level of swearing, but very adult, not safe for work content. So, headphones, no children present.

[Erin]
Don’t play it in the car if you’re not alone

[Danikka]
There will be sex scenes read aloud, lots of ranting with maybe more swearing than usual.

[Erin]
Who knows?

[Danikka]
Body parts mentioned,

[Erin]
etc.

[Danikka]
So, if that’s not your thing, we will forgive you for leaving now.

[Erin]
Yeah, yeah.

[Danikka]
This episode was originally sparked because I was in the online dating world, and when the conversation of what do you do for work comes up, I say I’m an editor, and the number of never women, but always men who assume that because I’m an editor, I want to read their writing comes up. And, you know, it’s not very often, like I’m not saying that it’s like all men, just putting that out there because I know that people will get upset. But, you know, if it does happen, it’s always a man.

And, yeah, so this happened because I, you know, mentioned that I edit romance and this man with capital M said, oh, yeah, do you edit spicy, like erotica? And I was like, well, yeah, and he goes, oh, well, I write spicy. And I was like, oh, yeah, you publish? He goes, no, no, I just I just write it myself. And I was like, oh, yeah, that’s really cool. He’s like, oh, can I can I send you something? I was like, fine.

[Erin]
But this is you don’t know this man

[Danikka]
I mean, like we have been talking for a little while at this point. It wasn’t like it was the first time we discussed anything. You know, we weren’t having a good rapport. It was okay. It was just like an immediate turn off. It was so bad. Yeah, because like he had been, you know, quite good to talk to after this point. And I think it was just like, this is a man who, you know, had definitely had sex before, you know, supposedly knew his way around a woman, had children. So, you know.

[Erin]
Yeah.

[Danikka]
Hello, this is future Danikka stepping in here. The excerpt that we’re about to talk about is, as I said, from a guy on dating app. He did not intend it for public consumption. So originally we had read it out. But on listening back to the podcast, I decided that wasn’t very respectful. So I’m just going to give you the cliff notes of what I found problematic about it and kind of indicative of the way men who write sex scenes and write sex in their books view women. And so the context was that they were at a party and had not said any words to each other. They’d just been dancing all night.

And then, you know, by making eye contact, they walk into the back room and it’s revealed that she hadn’t been wearing any underwear all night. And then also had had a very large dildo up her butt the whole time. And so we all know that that is one, not very safe. People go to the emergency room with things like that stuck up their butt all the time. And also very uncomfortable. How was she dancing with that up there all the time?

But then they then proceed to have very passionate anal sex. And the only thing that she says in the whole story is, oh, fuck, fuck, fuck. And then I’m squirting. And he has not touched her or said anything to her at all. He then goes on to describe her ass as milking his cock while she’s orgasming. And then she stops and pulls away. And then he immediately comes on her face again as soon as she touches him again. There’s no discussion of consent. There’s no mutual pleasure, really, as far as him touching her to give her pleasure. She is considered to be pre-primed for him. And he just kind of uses her. And so I found that to be just very off-putting and was kind of aghast. And that is the gist of that story.

I’m sorry if you were looking forward to it being read out loud. But I just felt it wasn’t very kind or appropriate to read something that someone had sent to me privately. But Erin and I do go on to continue and discuss. And then there is a published story that is traditionally published. And that author then has published an article about how women make fun of men who write sex in their books that we discuss later in the episode as well that we do read out loud. And so if you’re here for the Not Safe for Work content, I promise there’s more to come.

Thanks. Back to the episode.

[Erin]
And that’s really all we need to know.

[Danikka]
That’s all we need to know. And I feel like that’s quite good. Like after this, he then proceeds to come again all over her.

[Erin]
Oh.

[Danikka]
Yeah. Okay.

[Erin]
Yeah. Immediately. Oh, wow.

[Danikka]
Which I feel like is a good theme. Because in the one that then was traditionally published, there is another anatomically almost impossible cum story. So it’s just a theme of men not understanding their own bodies as well as women’s. What I couldn’t understand is he sent this to me with the intention of it turning me on.

[Erin]
Yeah. Like, oh, man, that is the stuff. And we are both speechless.

[Danikka]
Yeah. I was just like, I read the whole thing is like kind of looking at it like a train wreck. And then I think what made it worse as well is like, this was quite a long story. Like it went on, you know, for a long time. And like, because we had been talking for a while, I gave him the benefit of the doubt. And I sent him like screenshots from a published book that I enjoyed that was well written. And, you know, actually did turn women on. And both people in the scene enjoyed it. And he didn’t read it.

[Erin]
Oh.

[Danikka]
Yeah. And he admitted he didn’t read it? He told me he didn’t read it. He said, oh, it was a bit long. So I didn’t read it.

[Erin]
Okay. But I read your work of fiction.

[Danikka]
Yeah. So, I mean, we obviously didn’t talk very long after this.

[Erin]
No, no. I think the main thing, I don’t want to say what’s wrong with it, but maybe what differs from sex scenes that I’ve read that have been written by women is there is more lead up to the act.

[Danikka]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Erin]
There is at least some kissing and spoken consent.

[Danikka]
Yes. Yeah. Literally, the woman says nothing in his whole story except for that, oh fuck fuck fuck and I’m squirting. That’s literally all she says. Yeah.

[Erin]
Yeah. So there’s usually spoken consent. There’s more of a lead up. There’s at least some kissing and like just some care taken. I don’t know. I don’t even know how to like put it into words because I feel like it’s kind of…

[Danikka]
Like he doesn’t touch a single one of her erogenous stones. He doesn’t kiss her. He doesn’t touch her breasts. He doesn’t touch her at all. No. Other than to hold her hips and just like use her as something to get himself off, and yet that’s enough for her to squirt.

[Erin]
Like what?

[Danikka]
Something that like most women…

[Erin]
Can’t do.

[Danikka]
Can’t do without like a lot of effort. But this is,

[Erin]
It’s porn. Yeah, exactly.

[Danikka]
It’s showing the harm that porn does to men and women and their relationships with men.

[Erin]
And also, the irony is that men constantly, not like generalization, not all men we know, are saying on the internets how unrealistic romance novels are. And like they’re so unrealistic. They’re setting such unrealistic expectations. But then thinking that…

[Danikka]
Thinking that this is realistic.

[Erin]
This is realistic.

[Danikka]
Like that she’s going to be one, that she’s been dancing around all night with a dildo up her bum, which can we even name the ways that this is impractical?

[Erin]
With no underwear on.

[Danikka]
With no underwear on. So it’s not like, what is her pelvic floor doing all night? Anyway, yeah. So romance novels are the problem because women… Well, I mean, to his credit, she came.

[Erin]
At least, yeah.

[Danikka]
At least. But it was more about him because it was about her squirting. And like her orgasm being enough to get him on.

[Erin]
Clenching. Yeah. Milking, I believe was the phrase. Yeah, yeah.

[Danikka]
Shout out to Glory. What’s it called, Glory? Oh,

[Erin]
Morning Glory. Morning Glory Milking Farm,

[Danikka]
Which I have read.

[Erin]
As have I, yeah. If you’ve not read Morning Glory Milking Farm and you’re not into monster romance, I would not recommend. But if you haven’t read it and you wouldn’t mind reading about a minotaur being milked, and yes, it is the way you think in the context of this conversation, have a go.

[Danikka]
Yeah, it’s interesting.

[Erin]
Look, it’s…

[Danikka]
I actually… It’s like, it’s enjoyable. It was romantic.

[Erin]
The romance was there.

[Danikka]
Yeah, the romance was there, which made the rest of it more believable. It’s true.

[Erin]
Yeah, yeah. More believable than what we just…

[Danikka]
More believable than that. Yeah, exactly.

[Erin]
So our second…

[Danikka]
So leading from, you know, yes, making fun of someone a bit. But this is, we wanted to give you context onto what, you know, fueled us wanting to record this episode to begin with. But then this has just been kind of sitting on our episodes to record list. And then Steph sent me this Facebook post the other day, which I then forwarded on to Erin and was like, okay, cool, well, this is the meat of our next episode. This is…

[Erin]
So this is from now a published novel from 2005. So it’s from quite some time ago.

[Danikka]
But it is an author who’s published multiple books.

[Erin]
Since then or prior?

[Danikka]
I think both.

[Erin]
Okay. So he’s written an article. Oh no, well, the article that he wrote was in 2021. So that’s not that long ago. So he wrote an article in the Times titled Men are write-offs when it comes to novels. Unless you’re Richard Osman or Robert Galbraith, who’s really a woman anyway, it’s clear writing is no job for a man, was the subheading of this article.

[Danikka]
Which I actually thought was quite hopeful. I was like, oh, this is a guy who’s self-aware. Yeah. Like, let’s go.

[Erin]
No, no, that’s not where it’s going. So he published a novel in 2005 called Winkler. And shortly after it was published, it won the Bad Sex Award. I didn’t even know this was a thing. Yeah.

[Danikka]
And now I feel like we need to start picking books to read.

[Erin]
A hundred percent. A hundred percent we do. And he has said three years of effort, some perfectly decent words in roughly the right order. And all I got was a load of raspberries blown by a room full of plummy virgins who’d only come for the free… I don’t even know what that… Soave? What is that word? Soave strippers. Soave and strippers. Scorn and mockery, boys. Scorn and mockery. That’s all there is in the novelist’s life.

[Danikka]
Now… Okay, so Soave, S-O-A-V-E is the word that he’s used. Yes. And it’s literally a dry white wine producer. He’s calling them dry strippers.

[Erin]
Oh, dry and strippers.

[Danikka]
So not sexy, not turned on. Yeah.

[Erin]
Okay. Okay, so he… And so this post is then going on to be talking about Giles because we also get the excerpt for which he won the Bad Sex Award.

[Danikka]
Which, I mean, can we draw… Listen for the similarities between this excerpt and the one that I read you.

[Erin]
Okay. So we’re obviously only getting a bit of this. We don’t know the context either side.

[Danikka]
No, no. Because neither of us have read the book.

[Erin]
We probably could have done that research before we did this, but we really just wanted to dive right in. So there was no time for that. Okay, so…

And he came hard in her mouth, and his dick jumped around and rattled on her teeth. And he blacked out, and she took his dick out of her mouth and lifted herself from his face and whipped the pillow away, and he gasped and glugged at the air and he came again so hard that his dick wrenched out of her hand, and a shot of it hit him straight in the eye and stung like nothing he’d ever had in there. And he yelled with the pain, but the yell could have been anything. And as she grabbed at his dick, which was leaping around like a shower dropped in an empty bath, she scratched his back deeply with the nails of both hands, and he shot three more times in thick stripes on her chest. Like Zorro.

Now, before we get to anything else, that entire excerpt is two sentences. One takes up most of it. The second sentence is, like Zorro. So the entire first bit is one sentence.

[Danikka]
And what is the choreography? Like, where are they?

[Erin]
It is so confusing. Hence why I stopped briefly with the lifting herself off him from his face. Because she had his dick in her mouth and then lifted herself from his face.

[Danikka]
So were they 69-ing? But then she was scratching his back, so then…

[Erin]
And then whipped the pillow away.

[Danikka]
But then his dick was in her hand.

[Erin]
I’m like… Like… And why is she scratching his back if nothing’s actually happening to her aside from the Zorro cum on her chest?

[Danikka]
Yeah.

[Erin]
So anyway, he was really…

[Danikka]He was screaming because he’s got cum in his eye. That should be enough to stop…

[Erin]
Stop everything happening.

[Danikka]Like, I don’t know many guys who will keep cumming when they’re in pain.

[Erin]
Yeah.

[Danikka]
Unless they like that. But I mean, that’s… Cum in your eye. I’ve had cum in my eye. It is not a pleasant experience. It’s not the kind of pain where you’re like, yes, let’s keep cumming.

[Erin]
So then from here, we’ve got… For people asking very good questions about what his editors were thinking, letting his book go out like this. We now find an email which he sent to his sub-editors at the time when they removed a single word from one of his columns. And so it’s basically him saying, don’t change my shit.

[Danikka]
Yeah. Yeah. Very rudely.

[Erin]
Very rudely.

[Danikka]
Yeah.

[Erin]
But so his… Look, his editors may have tried to do something about that. I don’t even know what to call it.

[Danikka]
That monstrosity.

[Erin]
That monstrosity. So in that example, she’s not cumming but seems to be enjoying herself.

[Danikka]
Which is fine. Like, you can enjoy getting someone else off.

[Erin]
Totally.

[Danikka]
Yeah.

[Erin]
But I feel like the Zorro thing really was the nail in the coffin of that one.

[Danikka]
You can aim and like a shower in the bathtub. Like, what is going on?

[Erin]
When I was reading it the first time, I was imagining, you know when you go past a used car place and there’s those blow up things that are flying around? That is what I was thinking. And I’m like, is he in possession of a penis?

[Danikka]
Yeah.

[Erin]
Because in my experience, that’s not what they do.

[Danikka]
Yeah.

[Erin]
So like, between those two, I actually think the unpublished version was the more believable.

[Danikka]
I agree. Yeah.

[Erin]
Like, hats off to the first guy.

[Danikka]
And honestly, maybe better written. Yeah.

[Erin]
Considering it had not been edited or, you know. Well, because I mean, there may be a person, we might not be those people, but there may be people who would be turned on by first example.

[Danikka]
Yeah.

[Erin]
I feel like we’d struggle to find someone turned on by second example.

[Danikka]
Yes, I agree.

[Erin]
Because it’s ridiculous. Yeah. So I didn’t come prepared with any better written sex scenes, which probably should have been the other half of this podcast.

[Danikka]
But I mean, I feel like I want to open the floor to people because the whole kind of thing is that that’s why romance novels written by women are as big with women as they are. And that’s why we’re so big on having book boyfriends. And I mean, you know.

[Erin]
I feel like we ranted away in the In Defense of Romance episode.

[Danikka]
We did.

[Erin]
About all of this stuff.

[Danikka]
Like, I think, and I’m pretty sure the In Defense of Romance episode comes out before this one. So if you listen to that episode, this is kind of just like an add on to that of like, anybody can write romance, but it’s like, if you’re a man and wanting to write romance for women, please go and read some romance written by women.

[Erin]
Well, I think that’s the difference. If you’re a man, you’re not writing romance for women. If you’re writing it for other men, knock yourself out.

[Danikka]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Erin]
I mean, but then maybe try and, you know, perpetuate some more healthy ideas than what you’ve seen in porn.

[Danikka]
Yeah.

[Erin]
Like, you know, there is…

[Danikka]
Because otherwise you could just go and watch porn.

[Erin]
Yeah, exactly. I feel like the only thing missing from the porn landscape in the first one was a second woman.

[Danikka]
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Erin]
Yeah, yeah. But just don’t be weird.

[Danikka]
Like women have thoughts. Women have brains. Yeah.

[Erin]
And penises don’t flick around. Those things, like the used car place.

[Danikka]
Do you even own one?

[Erin]
Have you had sex before? Like, yes, obviously. I just… And now I’m trying to think of like some of the better written sex scenes that I’ve read. But of course, when we’re recording this, nothing is coming to mind. Even though I’ve read lots of good ones.

[Danikka]
I’ve read lots by women.

[Erin]
Lots.

[Danikka]
I don’t think I’ve read any by men. But I mean, to be fair, majority of books I’ve read by men don’t include sex.

[Erin]
Well, that’s yeah.

[Danikka]
Because they don’t generally write it. Well, unless it’s… Unless it’s like this.

[Erin]
Or it’s grape.

[Danikka]
Yeah, or it’s grape. Or it’s like, you know, it’s in some kind of… Like I know Dan Brown occasionally had some sexy scenes or something in… I can’t remember which book it was in that I read. It was like one of his older ones. But like, you know, the man she was having sex with died on top of her.

[Erin]
Oh God.

[Danikka]
You know what I mean? Like, because she was an escort.

[Erin]
Oh, poor thing.

[Danikka]
Yeah. I think that was a Dan Brown book. I can’t remember. Well, and maybe… I was reading that when I was a child.

[Erin]
Aren’t really… Oh, where did you find that book.

[Danikka]
I don’t know.

[Erin]
The library. You just…

[Danikka]
Probably, yeah.

[Erin]
Unaccompanied Danikka wandering the library shelves. Went, oh, this looks good. It just… And maybe… Well, I think it’s probably saying something about the reading preferences of men and women in that case. Very generally speaking, because we’re kind of just talking about straight men. Straight men.

[Danikka]
Oh, yeah.

[Erin]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, like, lots of straight women are reading romance to escape maybe relationships that they feel trapped in or not super happy in.

[Danikka]
Yeah.

[Erin]
And so they’re reading these scenes where the woman is really, like, taken care of and loved and adored. Like, they’re always pardon the pun, coming first, etc. Whereas maybe men don’t have those kind of fantasies.

[Danikka]
But also, I think, like, it’s always the idea that men are very visual creatures, so they’re more likely to watch porn than they are to read their porn.

[Erin]
Well, like, if you were reversing it, if it’s their fantasy being taken care of and they’re coming first, that kind of happens.

[Danikka]
Yeah.

[Erin]
That’s not fantasy.

[Danikka]
It’s real life.

[Erin]
It’s real life for them.

[Danikka]
A lot of them. So, yeah. So, I think, like, in conclusion, light women have their sex scenes that they are writing for themselves because they know what they want. And maybe read more of them written by women because you might learn a bit about what good sex is in the point of view of a woman.

[Erin]
Yeah. And also, be kind to your editor. If you’ve got a run-on sentence that goes for that friggin’ long and your editor’s like, hey, that’s a bit long.

[Danikka]
Yeah, and if it’s going to be in choreograph, like, because otherwise, you could be winning a bad sex award.

[Erin]
Hey, and no one wants that. No one wants that. Yeah.

[Danikka]
But yeah, this is in no way us saying that men can’t write.

[Erin]
Absolutely not.

[Danikka]
Or that they shouldn’t write romance. All we’re saying is that if you’re, you know, going to get salty about winning a bad sex award, then

[Erin]
maybe it’s not for you.

[Danikka]
Maybe run the sex scene by a woman first.

[Erin]
Or just anyone else.

[Danikka]
Or anyone else.

[Erin]
Like a trad published book goes through so many pairs of eyeballs.

[Danikka]
Yeah, don’t get mad at your editor just doing the job.

[Erin]
But now, so we want to know, so have you read any really good sex scenes written by women? Any really, sorry, any really good sex scenes written by men? Any really bad sex scenes written by women? Or like confusing ones? And I’m not talking like, why choose where there’s five people? Because we’re all getting confused by that. No one knows where all the legs and arms are.

[Danikka]
Yeah.

[Erin]
Not those. Like, just two people in the scene. Yeah, we want to know the best ones and the worst ones. And who’s written them.

[Danikka]
Yeah, I’m really interested to know. Because yeah, like we said, we didn’t really do any research with kind of going in for like a rant in this episode. Just because I was so gobsmacked when I had that story sent to me. And then also having this article sent to me by Steph. And yeah, when we both read it and just having it confirm my personal experience versus what’s happening in the trad pub world. And then having the unpublished version actually be better. Yeah, I’m just really interested to see what else other people have read. Because yeah, I am guilty of not reading anything really outside of what I work on as an editor in the last 18 months or so.

[Erin]
Oh yeah, and it has not been a good reading. 2024 has not been my year of reading.

[Danikka]
So yeah, send us in some recs and maybe we’ll add them to the buddy read list.

[Erin]
Oh my gosh. Yeah. The buddy read list, yeah.

[Danikka]
So yeah.

[Erin]
Yeah,

[Danikka]
I think that’s all. Thanks so much for listening and we’ll see you in the next episode.

[Erin]
Bye.

[Danikka]
Thank you for listening. Brought to you by Authors Own Publishing, the home of indie publishing. Don’t forget to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts and follow us on Instagram at Authors Own Publishing.

Music brought to you by Mikkel with more details in the show notes.