Why are so many Chyoa authors guys?

I guess the main problem is the way a system is programmed. If it is done sequentially, a single change can be a huge PITA, so you either start from scratch or don't simply don't touch it.
On CHYOA, programming of design and functionality is separated, so you could change parts of the design more easily.

 

I'm sorry! I didn't mean it in a negative way, I'm not native to English so I thought drabble meant just a short text! there are great works here and that's why I check the site, I apologize!

And I also agree on the comfort zone thing! It can be difficult once you are used to having an audience and probably a sense of community to suddenly drop it.

 

You are right on this, but while a minority, I know many people do try and publish their original stories there too. And the romatintic aspects really depend on what you search for? I really appreciate the complex tag sistem there.

I really don't frequent the site at all, I thought the ages were more mixed since I saw authors publishing books under Wattpad's agency in my town. But under the erotica lens exclusively, yes it can get weird, omg :s! I mainly meant it as popular writing sites examples and didn't think about it too much.

But I do believe intentionally or not, people do get used to frequent the same sites instead of always looking for new places.

Regardless I hope this site can keep growing! It's very interesting and I love to see more adult oriented creative spaces.

 

Don't be sorry. It's just my problem to be fair.

I think that being kind of a pornographic site has its pros and cons.

 

Yeah, the tag system is rather efficient.

I haven't really visited either since I was, y'know, a kid (well, teen) myself, but I've only seen Wattpad referenced by kids (teens, whatever), so I assume it hasn't changed too much. Also, it seems young teens do get their work published on ocassion, or in some cases, a story only gains attention from publishers several years after it's written, which means the author is significantly older by then. Frankly, I think the fact that a handful of commercially-published Wattpad stories are written by adults can be an even more disturbing prospect. Anna Todd was twenty-fucking-five years old when she wrote After*. So that's not to say Wattpad is bad, but that publishers don't go there to publish the best works, but the ones they (incorrectly) believe are "hip with the kids (teens)" and as such aren't reliable.

* For those unaware, After is an emotionally immature exploration into the bizarre, abusive romance of a carbon-copy of the author and, I shit you not, a gothic spin on Harry Styles from One Direction. It has since had a commercially published novel and a feature-length film, and is the source of such infamous lines as, "Hey," I give him an equally bright smile and pull my dirty blonde hair into a bun once he releases me from his grip. This is one of the less clunky sentences.

 

I know I'm bringing up an old thread but I only just noticed it and wanted to chime in. Let me give you a psychologists perspective:

We do need to be very careful with statistics because statistics can easily be corrupted. Many statistics, especially those that appear in public media such as magazines and the internet, are garbage. But if the statistics are gathered using scientific methods and those scientific methods are available to scrutiny, then statistics can be reliable.

So what scientific research has discovered is:

• Men are more likely to be involved with the internet and computers generally. Women do use the internet and computers but a little less frequently than men do.
• Men and women both look at pornography and erotica but men tend to be more visual and women tend to be more romantic. Therefore, women buy a lot of romance novels while men buy a lot of magazines full of pictures.
• Men are more likely to be a little mentally off. This doesn't mean that men are perverts but men are more prone to committing violent crimes. Women are more likely to attempt suicide but men are more likely to commit suicide and more likely to choose a more violent method of suicide such as a gun as opposed to sleeping pills.

And since we are talking about gender, gender is largely a social construct but not entirely a social construct. Do women prefer pink and men prefer blue? During the early nineteenth century, women preferred blue and men preferred pink. Nearly every gender distinction you can think of, at some time in history, belonged to the opposite gender. Men used to carry purses, wear dresses and put hose on their legs. Men have also worn makeup. Much of our gender identity is a social construct but not all of it. There are some things that have remained male and female throughout all of history and in all cultures. This is because testosterone causes men to develop more physically while female hormones prepare women to take care of children.

And yes, science has discovered that some people are born with a male mind in a female body or a female mind in a male body or a non-binary mind in an intersex body. It is not a choice. You can't just choose your gender. But people need to be allowed to transform their bodies to match their minds.

 

I think the basic idea of the site, letting you choose how the story progresses, encourages stories about control
and power, which might be a bit of a turn-off for the ladies. All those "You are God and can fuck who you want" type
stories are a direct result of the CYOA format and are inevitably going to be more popular with dudes.
My impression is that a lot of porn for women is really focused on One Specific Ultra-Hot Dreamboat Guy, or else
One Specific Ultra-Hot Ship, not so much the "fifteen different girls you can choose from" format that this site makes
very easy.
My impression is also that female fans get a bit weird about their ships, so I doubt that an avid Hamilton X Sasuke shipper
is going to appreciate the possibility of random Hamilton X Batman shippers being able to butt in...
But that's just a theory...

 

I'm pretty sure most of them are girls pretending to be guys.

 

This is largely a social construct. Although testosterone does influence men to face challenges, it's the myth of the alpha male that makes men feel they have to be number one and have a harem.

Among wolves, the alpha male looks after all the members of the pack, male and female, old and young. The alpha male does not treat them like a harem. He only mates with the alpha female. The alpha male wolf is monogamous.

We humans are not wolves but we are social creatures. For thousands of years, we have formed communities in which the leaders looked after the whole community, male and female, old and young. Although some leaders had harems, most leaders were monogamous or at least limited their mates in order to secure legitimate heirs. For thousands of years, men have cooperated with each other in communities. It's only recently, due to the alpha male myth, that men stopped cooperating and started competing with each other.

I personally would like to see more stories that are not "You are God and can fuck who you want".

 

Evolution is real. Evolutionary psychology is real. Reproduction is very important part of natural selection. So, many thing related to our sexual behavior are not social constructs but stuff wired in our minds at firmware level

Note that wolves are barely sexually dimorphic which is typical for... monogamous species. Humans are not like that.

Yep. We are not canines. We are primates. See gorillas with a clear harem structure. See chimpanzee with no stable pairs but constant fight for social status between males.

Yea, humans are monogamous with cheating + occasional harems. Consistent with the species that evolved to be monogamous from harems. Also consistent with social constructs pushing against harem-building instincts.

Are you implying that men of the past didn't compete with each other? It is some alternative reality.

 

I'm not disagreeing with you. I said largely a construct because of things like pink and blue but I did not say completely a construct because you are right about biological influences. I did say " testosterone does influence men to face challenges"

I was not implying that. You're reading into my post things I didn't say. I was saying that human men didn't go to the extreme of pushing other men away. I was saying that human men tended to look after others in their community. Yes, they competed but it was more of a civil, friendly competition, not a fight to the death. Human men used to have more team sports but the alpha myth is teaching every man for himself.

And I stand by my final statement, "I personally would like to see more stories that are not "You are God and can fuck who you want"." Why does this offend you?

 

Ok, you didn't say that men didn't compete. You said that men competed less and\or in more productive ways. Also very unsound statement. Plain physical violence was far more common in the past. The whole feudal era was about gangs of alpha males (called noblemen back then) bashing each other with sharp things competing with each other.

Huh? I didn't even mention that. How did you even come to conclusion that it somehow offends me?

 

Well, we aren't gorillas either. Our closest animal cousins are the bonobos. This is how their society works. When they find a treasure, such as a pile of food, first, they sit around and stare at it for a while. Then they have a giant orgy where gender doesn't matter, males with females, males with males, females with females. When everyone has been sexually satisfied, they all divide up the spoils with no one getting a bigger share than anyone else. If you are arguing that we should be like our closest animal cousins, I'm down with that.

I think we have a choice how we organize society. We could organize ourselves where one male chases all the other males away like the horses do. We could organize ourselves into an orgiastic society the way the bonobos do. We could organize ourselves into packs and communities the way the wolves do. Or we could follow religion and not allow anyone to be happy.

That's not accurate either. There were wars and there were jousting tournaments but neither of those were "gangs of alpha males". Even if they were "gangs of alpha males" that still shows some cooperation. How could a gang form if the one alpha male chases all the other males off.

Regarding harems, they were rare. They mostly existed in the semitic regions like Israel and Iran. Neither Emperor Julius Caesar nor Emperor Tang Taijong had harems. They might not have been completely monogamous but they did not have harems. We are not "a species that evolved to be monogamous from harems." We are not gorillas. We evolved instincts for sleeping around but we also evolved community minded instincts for sharing with one another.

Then religion came along and spoiled everything, of course.

Alright, maybe you're not offended. So let me reword my question to: Why do you feel the need to prove me wrong?

 

I think you make some good points, but this discussion would go better if you held off on the"why u mad bro".

 

I think you have a very idealistic view of humans, especially early ones. There's evidence going all the way back to prehistory of violence and massacres between groups of humans. For example this event from 10,000 years ago where an entire family group was killed violently and dumped in a swamp: https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news...toric-massacre-extends-the-history-of-warfare

There's even more examples of young men being brutally killed, so saying that they only expressed rivalry through friendly competition doesn't really match the evidence. Saying that we're closely related to bonobos and they tend to be peaceful doesn't mean all that much. There's still quite a lot of difference between us and them, and there's no evidence humans ever behaved in a similar way. They usually don't in the examples studied of hunter gatherer tribes discovered in more modern times, who are often quite violent and territorial.

If you look at the genetics too, it becomes clear that even going back to prehistory many more women were reproducing and passing down their genes than men: https://psmag.com/environment/17-to-1-reproductive-success/
This is only possible if small groups of men were having children with much larger groups of women, with most men probably dying out without passing on their genes due to tougher lives or violence. Harems were in fact very common if you look at who was passing down their genes, not to say they're a natural part of our behavior, but more so that they emerged out of the hierarchical social structures of the time where powerful men could monopolize groups of women.

Saying 'religion' suddenly coming onto the scene is the cause of any division and misogyny is overly simplistic, whether you mean abrahamic organized religion or earlier forms which were often just as cruel and uncompromising to women such as Roman or Greek paganism or Daoism in early China. It's likely, as hypothesized in that study above that the advent of agriculture and cities did lead to an increase in misogynistic oppression of women as wealth was gathered around powerful families. It seems more likely to me that the religious tenets were used as to excuse and flatter what was an already existing social structure.

 

But I'm not arguing that humans were peaceful. You are misunderstanding what I'm trying to say. Of course humans have been violent. We can't seem to go more than a decade without starting a war.

What I'm trying to say is that humans are cooperative and form communities and groups. The fact that one group goes to war against another group is not in opposition to the fact that humans form groups in the first place.

And the only reason I mentioned bonobos is because because someone else said that we were related to gorillas. You're right that what animals we are related to doesn't make any difference. We humans have a choice to imitate whatever animals we want to imitate or go a completely different direction.

Actually, this does not prove that "Harems were in fact very common." There may have been harems but there also may have been other social dynamics going on.

You're right but first, that's not what I said, and second, I'm not here to get into a discussion about religion.

Let's go back to what started this whole thing: "All those "You are God and can fuck who you want" type stories ... are inevitably going to be more popular with dudes." That is what I'm trying to address. I'm not trying to say anything about religion or about chimpanzees or about anything else. I'm trying to address the idea that men want to be gods. I am trying to say that most men don't fantasize that way. Some might because of modern social constructs but we are not genetically pre-wired to fantasize that way. If you look through human history, you see that for the most part, humans have not acted like gorillas or horses. We have tended to form groups of "us" separate from groups of "them". Groups of men hunted mammoths on the Siberian Steppes. Groups of Polynesian men sailed across the Pacific in canoes. Groups of men built cities. Even in the old west, groups of men would gather together to raise a barn. Groups of men live together on oil rigs. Groups of men fish together in fishing boats on the ocean. Modern western society has been promoting extreme individualism and every man for himself but that does not match our genetic pre-wiring. We were meant to form groups.

 

And humans are still cooperative and form communities and groups. And we are not worse at that. You seem overly focused on that weird "alpha male" stuff. But, again, alpha male myth is not that different to, for example, the nobleman myth.

Nobleman - A warrior, masculine and powerful, gets the best woman as a wife (wives in the Muslim world), inherently better than other men, only other noblemen deserve his respect and cooperation...


You are pushing a claim that modern humans are more competitive than humans of the past but provide no data.

They owned SLAVES. How do you think, what they did with female slaves? How do you think , what a random rich Roman citizen did with attractive female slaves? How are those not harems? Having women you literally own was one of the measures of status back then.

 

No, I am not. That is quite the opposite of what I am pushing. I don't know if I want to try to repeat myself using different words to try to explain because I'm sure you will misinterpret my words again.

Modern western society has been pushing this idea of individualism to such a degree that we have stopped forming communities and groups. It's every man for himself now and if you are not 100% self-reliant, then men will question your masculinity. Therefore, I provide the data mentioning how men used to gather together to build barns. You want statistics? As Homer from The Simpsons said, "Aw, you can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. Forfty percent of all people know that." There are no statistics from the past to compare to.

You are making an assumption. Julius Caesar probably did sleep with one or two of his slaves but actually look at his history and you see that he was mostly faithful to one wife at a time. And in Roman times, the tendency for how to measure status was more about military conquests. They would have huge parades to show of their soldiers, not their slaves.

Also, even among harems, many of those marriages were political. One king would give his daughter in marriage to another king in order to establish an alliance but each king usually had a favorite and did not keep their harem in the same way as modern media portrays harems. You are basing your views on modern media, not on actual history. You are pushing a claim that all harems were measures of status but provide no data.

 

My solution was simply to put "Nunya" on location XD

I suspect part of why there's fewer female authors here is simply survivorship bias: humans are naturally creative beings, and not a whole very many of the stories on here appeal to me as a reader, although the few gems that I do come across have kept me coming back every now and then to see if there's anything else that's any good. Creativity is not generated in a void, and we springboard ideas off of other things we've seen, read, and experienced. So you have the read pillar covered, but what about the see and experienced pillars? Simply put, Western culture, which is much more likely to use big languages like English and Spanish, tends to repress female sexuality, even after the sexual revolution of second-wave feminism. So on the whole, it's largely an effect of fewer things we have access to which spawn our creativity.

 

I saw a video recently that reminded me that many of these violent massacres in history were done as religious human sacrifices. That is, instead of killing off all the males so that one man could have a harem, there were many cases where, after a king died, hundreds of men and women were killed to be the king's servants in the afterlife. That doesn't sound much like a "You are God and can fuck who you want" fantasy.

I still don't want to talk about religion but I think I do need to say this: I make a distinction between spirituality and religiosity.

Spirituality is your own personal relationship with whatever spiritual beings you personally believe in.

Religiosity is about forcing a particular spirituality on everyone else by inventing stupid rules dictating what foods to eat, how to eat them, what clothes to wear, how to wear them, how to have sex (missionary position with the lights off), what to say, what to read, what not to read, what holy days to observe, how to observe those holy days, what holidays to not observe, when to pray, how to pray, what rituals to follow, what relics to honor, what art to create, what art to destroy, how to arrange furniture, what jobs to work, how to wash your hands (pouring water from eggshells in a ritualistic manner), which cloths are acceptable, . . . . . . . .

Now I don't believe that all rules are stupid. There are good laws that ought to be obeyed and there are bad laws that ought to be thrown in the garbage. Good laws allow as much freedom as possible while allowing people to live in community with one another, not infringing on the freedoms of each other. Bad laws are dictated by a control freak that just wants to micromanage everyone.

It is good to know where we came from and what our genetic pre-wiring is but it is also good to recognize, we don't have to stay there. Just because we committed human sacrifices in the past doesn't mean we have to keep committing human sacrifices in the future.