Portraying Sexuality Positively

My title didn't mention females specifically, to be honest. But I'm more focused on the portrayal.

I've seen many instances of female characters' sexuality being portrayed as either depraved (Slut-Shaming, Madonna-Whore Complex, All Women Are Prudes, My Girl Is Not a Slut, Evil Is Sexy... why are these tropes exclusively female? Yes, even the last one, males become Tin Tyrants instead◊), or done rather sloppily such that the character becomes a sex object.

So, my question is: how do I show a female who's sexually liberal? The latest Starfire was supposed to be sexually liberal (I read that DC Comics was genuinely in this endeavor. Oh dear.), yet it flopped completely. How do I use tropes such as Big-Breast Pride without sexualising women?

edited 26th Oct '15 12:14:23 AM by hellomoto

I guess writers just do the best that writers can (or directors, or painters, or even photographers) when portraying a naked body and sexual activities or relationships.

Beyond that, it's up to the cultural climate, which even individual creators are subject to.

As long as sexuality isn't the only thing about the character, I think it would work itself out. True, there are ways to create a character that are "not only about sex" that still link sex with negativity even in-world, or even character actions and plot turns that add up to the message that sex is bad, or even authors who go in with this idea of writing a great romance and what comes out is actually an abusive relationship that author and target audience think is a romance.

If it comes to Big-Breast Pride, well, what would that feel like from the inside—to a person, rather than a character? Is it a reclamation of one's body after losing the genetic lottery and hitting puberty first at school? Is it effortlessly ingratiating oneself to a culture or power structure in society? MindGame had a character with large breasts, and she was also the childhood friend of the main character, and was on the swim team, and got her ankles caught in train doors.

There are still going to be audience members who think "Oh, there's Ms. Fanservice" or who treat that character as actual fanservice, and...not that those interpretations are invalid, but...there will also be audience members who will find that the sexual objectification of that character outside of the work is a problem with the audience, not with the work. I think a lot of those little details in-story help a lot with that. A criticism about that characters role in the story, lack of agency, instrumentality, marginal focus, and how the plot unfolds without decisions made by that character—those would all still be fair I think but if it surmises that it's mostly a problem with the work then I'll mostly disagree? But I'm just one person.

That's just body objectification. Relationships? There's always the Ethical Slut too.

edited 26th Oct '15 1:07:22 AM by Faemonic

A simple rule I have for libertine characters I'm writing is to ask: "how would they interact with an aromantic asexual they consider sexually attractive?" If the answer is either awkward silence or grounds for a sexual harrassment suit, back to the drawing board. (Unless you're conciously writing someone who isn't as sex-positive as they think themself to be. I've met people like that in real life, and such folk make a fine foil for a saner, more interesting Ethical Slut.) This test won't catch everything, but it will prevent the most obnoxiously preachy and/or pervy creations from getting traction.

edited 26th Oct '15 4:36:55 AM by KillerClowns

Your approach here seems...overly referential. We're all shoulders-of-giants-ing to some extent but measuring yourself by the previous work in the field is something preferably done after you slam out a couple thousand words and are working on figuring out how to cope with them.

I doubt anyone's going to be able to point you to a specific work you could lift from, and I doubt it would be valuable to you as a writer if they did. Having a trope description for sex-positivity would be even less valuable. Audience reactions are not entirely controllable and the world we live in at this moment will probably always tilt towards the bad on such a portrayal, so even if you succeed you'll probably also fail.

Go out there and try writing it. Run it by some people to see if it works. Hell, run it by us. I'll be happy to comment.

edited 26th Oct '15 3:52:51 AM by Night

'"how would they interact with an aromantic asexual they consider sexually attractive?" If the answer is either awkward silence or grounds for a sexual harrassment suit, back to the drawing board.'

At first I thought 'What else was supposed to happen?' and imagined this:

Sexually Liberal Person (SLP): Oh hey there! Just thought you looked good, if you know what I mean... *wink*

Asexual: Erm, apologies, but... I'm asexual.

SLP: Goodness, I'm so sorry!

SLP: *awkward silence*

SLP: I'm going to get some tea. *leaves*

And then I realized I'd assumed the SLP was with the Asexual purely to flirt. While such cases can happen, it should not happen all the time.

I suppose your point is "your SLP should have more than just sexiness, and be able to hold a non-sexual conversation"?

edited 26th Oct '15 4:49:48 AM by hellomoto

In a bid to find concrete examples to work on, I found this. From what I gather, the authors and artists tried really hard to portray an SLP, but were far too tainted by society's "female sexiness = submission" ideas.

(While we're at it, I would like to briefly rant about this page. "A girl that classy isn't going to lower herself to a you"... saying that in this day and age? The males have rather flippant attitudes towards Starfire, while her speech goes past 'polite' and into 'submissive'.)

I could see what's bad about it. But let's say I have to change it. How? Personally, I would start by giving her a more realistic body (i.e. remove balloon breasts, give her a larger waist, don't force her into weird sexualised poses) and a new outfit◊. I'll also have to get rid of "female sexiness = submission" - the males, who are presumbly supposed to be good and heroic, should not regard Starfire as some sex trophy. They could talk about her combat prowess, for example. The "can't remember faces/names" thing... I'm not sure what was up with that. But from what I gather, it's bad to use it to make someone forget her sexual partners and then call her 'sexually empowered'.

Yea.The thing is.The male characters were antiheros.Pretty much everyone in that book was screwed up.

And Starfire eventually developed out of that.That was only the first issue after all.Though whether or not it was because of the backlash or would have happen anyway is YWMV

edited 27th Oct '15 8:07:09 AM by DeanCole

Hellomoto, yes your Sexually Liberated Person should have more to them than their sexuality because presumably your character is a person!

So, yes. Ethical Slut but don't stop there. You can have her genuinely interested in the proper and correct way to brew tea. Give her values like honesty, compassion, bravery, diligence, honor, duty, pragmatism; or flaws like a bad temper, pernicketiness or holding grudges. Suppose that another character is upset: would this sexually liberated person have sex with them to cheer them up, or does she believe that people ought to be cheerful to begin with or else it's a bad lay?

The question shouldn't be what a sexually liberated person would do and more about what this sexually liberated person would do.

Sexuality is merely one part of the whole person. No, I should not have to say this, but in context, it feels like I should reiterate the fact. Consider yourself for a moment: How do you relate to your own sexuality? How important is it to you?

A person can be very sexual and very sex-positive—and those are different things, folks!—and that can still be something that only comes up in very particular contexts. As said before by others, in different ways: Make this person feel like a real person with interests and emotions and depth. In my own experience, a sex-positive attitude tends to emerge from a broader philosophy of life and attitude toward politics and the world that, if you're writing such a person, is best developed before that one aspect of that philosophy.

So get to it! Write us a living, breathing, non-stereotypical sex-positive character!

"As long as sexuality isn't the only thing about the character, I think it would work itself out."

It depends, if we are taking about a Minor chararter them yes, have sex as his/her thing are not really bad idea, but if have a lot of screentime...that is another thing already.

" "how would they interact with an aromantic asexual they consider sexually attractive?" If the answer is either awkward silence or grounds for a sexual harrassment suit, back to the drawing board"

I dont want to sound bad but that kind of people are not THAT comon(even more in fiction), so their awkardness can be justified, dosent it?

"Audience reactions are not entirely controllable and the world we live in at this moment will probably always tilt towards the bad on such a portrayal, so even if you succeed you'll probably also fail."

This is the best think I can said: writing this kind of thing is a gamble, sometimes you just have to stick with and hope for the best(or trying to improve) beta teaster of your work can do a lot of good for you

The question is intended to be hypothetical; it doesn't mean that all stories with a character whose sexuality is prominent need to also have an asexual aromantic character. The point of it is to determine if the character can meaningfully talk about or otherwise thinks about things or has concerns in their life that have nothing to do with sex. It's about making characters three-dimensional. It's also true that people exist in real life who truly don't think about much more than sex or their fetish or other things of that sort, but those sorts of people are also what many would consider boring. (Unless you're writing erotica, I guess.)

If you don't want a rational audience to objectify your character or assume you're objectifying the character, don't write a one-note. Write a person.

while "writing a person" sound good is dificult because people objectify more quickly fictional chararter(since they are well...fictional) because unless the sexualy is focal point in your story or arc, it come across as....pointless.

Im I know is hypotetical but the way is framed the question since weird, after all you could just said "what happen if the chararter is gay or married" and you could have diferent reaction

Also you could have minor chararter with positive sexuality: let said there is a detective who for some reason or another go with her friend who is a prostitude and see if she knows something, they have serious talk with lot of jokes but clear respect and them they he move to the scene.

That it, you dont need more deep than that, even in cases where the deepness since the be intend to deflect the sexuality around the chararter

Regarding the "married or of the wrong sexuality" thing; that still allows a discussion of sex as a topic, even if no active seduction is taking place. "Oh, you're married? Well then, next time you and your special someone are together, try..." and so on. The reason I expressly chose asexual was to create a scenario that briefly wipes the sex, even as a platonic discussion topic, off the board.

I disagree that this should be considered. Write a person. If people read a flat character, that will be their problem and not yours. It's no excuse to write a flat character "because people are going to read it that way anyway". No.

So you mean that it's pointless to write a character who has any sexuality unless the genre is erotica? Or that Shippers of works that are not romance or erotica are living pointless lives? The meaning of this sentence is not clear to me.

Well, it can come across as pointless if it is too overt, I guess. But everyone has a sexuality of some sort or alternatively a lack of it, and it is a part of who they are.

And sometimes, sexuality as it is can make the character deeper by working against them in some way (a "person versus themselves" kind of conflict). That, too, can make for a good story without actually causing it to veer into the area of erotica.

" The reason I expressly chose asexual was to create a scenario that briefly wipes the sex, even as a platonic discussion topic, off the board."

Oh I see, I just saying because the rather new nature of asexuality in fiction mean that most likey the other person is going to said "asexuality, is that new type of kink or something?" living things even more awkard, but that is just me nicpicking

"I disagree that this should be considered. Write a person"

Depend, a minor chararter is going to be a minor one, no matter who deep it look like, sometimes you have to go with charming or intersing over deep, but anyway back on topic

"So you mean that it's pointless to write a character who has any sexuality unless the genre is erotica? Or that Shippers of works that are not romance or erotica are living pointless lives? The meaning of this sentence is not clear to me."

What Im saying is that unless plot call it, the sexuality of a chararter means very little overall, usually is just there to know it exist and to provide parings for the fans.

when it matter depend a little bit for the story like a plot point(for example a serial killer with a type or some fetish) a point of drama(like coming out stories)or like Kazeto already said the "one versus itself"(Silent hill reaaaaally love this one)

So for what I think, having a good sexuality is just let the chararter being and having the story not judge them so harshly for it.