Can you tell a person's gender from their writing style?

27 May 2010

I would imagine this question has been asked before but, if it has, I was not around to read it, so I will ask now. Here goes.

Do you think it is possible to tell an author’s sex by the style of their writing if gender specifics are not mentioned?

If a person is trying to pass himself/ herself off as a member of the opposite sex in a chat room, let’s say, what are the give aways? I am fairly new to online interactions and still a little naïve. Perhaps some old-timers can share their acquired wisdom.

Does anyone here have another persona that they write under? What is the perceived etiquette here on Lush about having two login accounts. Is it accepted or frowned upon?

I must say the idea of writing an story in a first person female voice and getting all those lovely votes and viewings, does have an appeal. (Irony alert).

All opinions welcome.

27 May 2010

Why don't you just post a story from a female perspective under your normal alias. I've read many stories where the protagonist is a different gender from whatever gender the author is claiming to be. I don't think it would make the story any less powerful. After all, most of these stories are fantasy based anyway.

I don't know if I'd necessarily be able to tell someone's gender from their writing. Interesting question though.

As for things that would give-away a person's gender in a chat room, I don't really have any good advice on that.

I do know of one guy on this site, that used a separate female persona as well, but he was bi and into cross dressing, and I think that helped him live out his inner female side. He did say that cyber sex was a whole lot better (and more plentiful!) when he used his female alias... evil4

I also know a girl that was chatting a lot with what she thought was a guy, who eventually after many long conversations finally admitted that "he" was actually a girl. And she was deeply hurt by it.

I guess if you were bonding with someone and really suspicious of their true gender, you could always request them to leave you a voice message to verify themselves. If I was spending enough time chatting with someone, I wouldn't have any issue doing that.

I'm not sure how many people here have more than one alias, but I guess it depends on what their objectives were when they joined Lush.

I find it exhausting enough just being me.

27 May 2010

What is the perceived etiquette here on Lush about having two login accounts.

Frowned upon.

28 May 2010

Quote by SnakeOil

I must say the idea of writing an story in a first person female voice and getting all those lovely votes and viewings, does have an appeal. (Irony alert).

I assume what you're getting at is that you feel if you posted as a female with a sexy avatar you will get more views and votes. Especially if you post stories.

That probably would happen Snakeoil. I'm sure that if you took any of your stories and posted them unchanged but from a female account, with plenty of nudie pics, the votes and views would triple.

But sometimes these extra votes and comments are just kiss-assery from lonely dudes. Do you really want that? I've read some stories that are just not that great but they have almost perfect scores and tons of votes and views. They are also posted by supposedly hot horny young girls.

I'm not saying that female authors get good scores simply because they are females. Some of my favorite authors on lush are women. I'm not trying to be sexist.

But... Female author+ +anal+nude photos=popular story

28 May 2010

A. No I cant tell which gender wrote a story just from reading it.

B. I really enjoy stories that are writtin by men from the female perspective(I can give you the name of a few authors if you want)

C. It dosnt really matter who wrote the story as long as it is yours, well written and within the lush rules smile

28 May 2010

Quote by Dancing_Doll
Why don't you just post a story from a female perspective under your normal alias. I've read many stories where the protagonist is a different gender from whatever gender the author is claiming to be. I don't think it would make the story any less powerful. After all, most of these stories are fantasy based anyway.

I don't know if I'd necessarily be able to tell someone's gender from their writing. Interesting question though.

As for things that would give-away a person's gender in a chat room, I don't really have any good advice on that.

I do know of one guy on this site, that used a separate female persona as well, but he was bi and into cross dressing, and I think that helped him live out his inner female side. He did say that cyber sex was a whole lot better (and more plentiful!) when he used his female alias...

I also know a girl that was chatting a lot with what she thought was a guy, who eventually after many long conversations finally admitted that "he" was actually a girl. And she was deeply hurt by it.

I guess if you were bonding with someone and really suspicious of their true gender, you could always request them to leave you a voice message to verify themselves. If I was spending enough time chatting with someone, I wouldn't have any issue doing that.

I'm not sure how many people here have more than one alias, but I guess it depends on what their objectives were when they joined Lush.

I find it exhausting enough just being me.

High Dancing-Doll, thank you for your reply. I do have a story written in first person female voice and am wondering what to do with it. As a male I do like to read what appear to be biographical accounts from females. To read such a story and know it was written by a male would not have the same impact, particularly for th e non-wrting reader. Perhaps a male writing about a female experience would be better done in the third person. The story I have enjoyed the most on Lush was written by a female.

It was also a wider question. I was wondering if any psychologists have ever studied this. George Elliot had to write as a male, back in the 19thc, to be considered a serious writer.

I really like it here on Lush and have come to regard it as my online home. I would not want to commit a faux pas here.

28 May 2010

Quote by Magical_felix
Quote by SnakeOil

I must say the idea of writing an story in a first person female voice and getting all those lovely votes and viewings, does have an appeal. (Irony alert).

I assume what you're getting at is that you feel if you posted as a female with a sexy avatar you will get more views and votes. Especially if you post stories.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

There's a little of that, but it is not my main concern. I just think a lot more men are inerested in the female perspective and would give a story more of a chance if they thought the author was actually female. That is to say, it gives your work better odds of being read.

Technical question. How do you quote partially? When I press the quote button I can only post the entire block of text, if I deleat part the box vanishes. ? SOrry, I really am not very online savvy.

28 May 2010

I worked on a little project with several authors, where we posted a short story, all of them posted anonymously by a moderator. The readers were asked if each were written by a male or female author. The results were very interesting. I'm a guy, but 90% of the readers polled thought I was a female writer (my pseudonym was hidden. It was listed as just author #12 or something like that)... and a couple of the female authors were pegged as male by the readers.

But the most interesting item was, that the readers were right in their guesses roughly 75% of the time. Obviously this little sampling is not really scientific evidence... but it was interesting.

Some of my test readers point when I write something that is obviously male oriented. I write erotic romance, so its important for me to be aware of when I am letting my testosterone seep into my manuscripts. *lol*

Here is an interesting site. cut and paste your story into it and it will analyze your story and tell you which gender it thinks wrote it based on word choices... http://www.hackerfactor.com/GenderGuesser.html

paranormal • erotic • romance
www.forlorn-hope.net

28 May 2010

Brindle... that gender guesser link was interesting!

I plugged in most of my stories, and while I have always thought I was a bit of a girly writer, I was surprised by my results, as I almost always came up as a "Weak Male, possibly european"... evil4

I did come up as a weak female twice, a regular male once, and a regular female once as well.

I guess my writing is more on the 'neutral gender' side (based on these results), although everything I write is from my own (female) perspective. Actually, I think I'll take that as a compliment, as perhaps it means I have the potential for more crossover appeal with both genders.

Thanks for the link! You should consider posting that as a separate thread in the pub. I think a lot of people would have fun with it!

28 May 2010

Thanks, BrindleChase, that was most interesting and helpful.

I have taken aboard the consensus from you guys and published the story I mention under my own name. It is Called "Jilly's Story." If you have time, have look, and let me know if you think it works or not.

P.S.

I just did the test on my story and I got the following results

Formal .................................Weak Female

Infirmal ................................Weak Female

I was very pleased with that result.

I will have to test one of my usual stories now.

29 May 2010

Quote by SnakeOil
Thanks, BrindleChase, that was most interesting and helpful.

I have taken aboard the consensus from you guys and published the story I mention under my own name. It is Called "Jilly's Story." If you have time, have look, and let me know if you think it works or not.

I read it. I'll give you a quick overview of it, but please understand, critique is best served honestly and its also subjective. I'm a rank amateur, so take it with a grain of salt. I offer it to help, not tear down... good? Good.

So the overall story was good. It has the right elements. A plot, with an arc. It's really more of an erotic fiction biography, than erotica. The first problem is your narrative voice. The entire story is "telling" rather than showing us. Showing is critical in writing, but even more so in erotica. People read erotica to submerse themselves in the characters and what they are experiencing. They want to "feel" what the characters feel, not be told. Does that make sense.

Here's an example of "telling" from your story:

Little did I know he was grooming me for swinging, and had been all along.

This is being told to the reader in hindsight. To show this, the character from who's point of view (POV) we are seeing the story from, she wouldnt know she was being groomed, therefore it doesnt help to put this in your story. If you show all the things that happened for her grooming, the reader will know she's being groomed without the character telling the reader they were groomed. Make sense?

Your story encompasses a very long period of time and multiple scenes... literally a novella's worth. But because you're telling it like notes from someone's diary, it reads like a biography.

"When I was a kid. My mother used to dress me... Once I got to highschool... And then I went to college. My first girlfriend was..." Stuff like that is telling and is okay, if you truly intended it as an erotic biography. Nothing wrong with it if you were. But I got the sense you were trying to do a story and resorted to "telling" to give the reader a lot of backstory. This is called info-dumping. Info dumping is a lazy way to write and it reads lackluster.

So... what I would task you, is take your story. Dump the backstory and stick to the actual action of the story.

instead of

It was my boyfriend of the time, Mike, who introduced me to swinging. I was nineteen, he was thirty-five.

your story actually begins where she finds his computer with the personal ads showing. so maybe something like this to show, rather than tell...

The glow of the computer caught my attention as I walked by the bedroom. I could hear my boyfriend Mike in the kitchen. Curious, I stepped in and glanced at the screen he'd left up. Personal ads? What the fuck was he up too?

Okay, that was sloppy off the top of my head. I bolded the active verbs for you to see. But hopefully you can see how the sentence structures and tone and tense I used, use active rather than passive verbs. I walked is active. Walking is passive. Mike introduced me is active. Mike, who introduced me is passive. See the difference?

Anyway. I hope that helps some. And remember, it's just one person's opinion. Everyone enjoys different styles of writing and reading. Just thought I would share some of the knowledge I've gained from the authors and editors who have helped me.

paranormal • erotic • romance
www.forlorn-hope.net

1 Jun 2010

This is just my opinion but I think it’s very difficult to tell who wrote a story without looking at the profile of the author in question. I must say some of the male writers from a female perspective are brilliant and definitely have a special talent. For me to switch and write such a story would mean entering into a whole different mind set and that would prove ‘too much of a challenge'. But well done to those who have the flexibility to be able to do this kind of writing.

*The Dark Room*

How do you talk to an Angel available from Amazon.

13 Jun 2010

Hi BrindleChase,
thank you for taking the time and trouble to read my story ("Jilly's Story.) and for offering comments and advice.

I've only today come back to the thread today so have not been able to thank you before.

Yeah.. amateur (me not you) sums it up. I've only been writing fiction about three months so am still getting to grips with all there is to learn; but hey-ho, I'm keen.

Cheers
James

13 Jun 2010

Formal....Weak male

Informal....Weak female

Still not too sure what this means.JL7vapLmExtqcuXF

13 Jun 2010

Quote by Magical_felix
Formal....Weak male

Informal....Weak female

Still not too sure what this means.tCf2IoLIexjoUIvz

Could mean your writing is morphing into some kind of ground-breaking-post-gender-genre.

Since my last post I have tried loads of writing in the damn thing and it don't seem that reliable to me. The only thing I have tried in it that has come out as strong male is some war reportage from the BBC.

I suppose erotic fiction is not the best thing to get conclusive male or female result from.

13 Jun 2010

Quote by SnakeOil
Quote by Magical_felix
Formal....Weak male

Informal....Weak female

Still not too sure what this means.nhqHndYQJm6lqpkR

Could mean your writing is morphing into some kind of ground-breaking-post-gender-genre.

Since my last post I have tried loads of writing in the damn thing and it don't seem that reliable to me. The only thing I have tried in it that has come out as strong male is some war reportage from the BBC.

I suppose erotic fiction is not the best thing to get conclusive male or female result from.

16 Jun 2010

That's intersting, I never thought to put other writing in it. I ran all my stories in it and it seemed pretty consistant for me. Always weak male, weak female. I'm American too so it was even weirder that it thinks I might be European.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Your writing comes across to me as very American, and definitely masculine.

I've bee putting in a few stories from other people on Lush today, supposedly by girls and they've come up as definitely masculine. Perhaps the gender guesser is affected by atmospheric conditions? I hear we are in for magnetic storms from the Sun in the coming years. It will make the havoc caused by the Icelandic volcano look like a gentle sprinkling of fairy dust.

Also tried a chunk of George Eliot's prose. Came up Male on the Gender Genie (I like that one better, it has the fiction option).

16 Jun 2010

Quote by SnakeOil
That's intersting, I never thought to put other writing in it. I ran all my stories in it and it seemed pretty consistant for me. Always weak male, weak female. I'm American too so it was even weirder that it thinks I might be European.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Your writing comes across to me as very American, and definitely masculine.

I've bee putting in a few stories from other people on Lush today, supposedly by girls and they've come up as definitely masculine. Perhaps the gender guesser is affected by atmospheric conditions? I hear we are in for magnetic storms from the Sun in the coming years. It will make the havoc caused by the Icelandic volcano look like a gentle sprinkling of fairy dust.

Also tried a chunk of George Eliot's prose. Came up Male on the Gender Genie (I like that one better, it has the fiction option).

You're right, I think the fact that it is fiction throws it off. I think I read on that website that it was best not to use quotes.

Are you sure?