Month: November 2022

Now, To Get Drunk & Write Some Spicy Scenes

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m a smelly CIS white boy and, as such, I should neither be seen nor heard. I should simply step aside and let wymxn tell their stories in their voices and never do anything of note with my life because slay the patriarchy, yadda, yadda, yadda, blah blah blah.

Well, no. Fuck that.

Just because I’m a CIS white male, doesn’t mean I can’t use a combination of empathy, imagination and reverse engineering to write some “spicy” scenes that some woke people will get really upset about me writing. But I have my vision for this novel and, as such, I’m going to wade directly into a mined waters that otherwise I should not get anywhere near.

But it’s not impossible for a middle aged CIS white male to tell a good story from a woman’s POV. It’s a real challenge, yes, but not impossible. And I’m so self-conscious about potentially making a fool out of myself that when I get to the beta reader stage of the process, I’m going to really make it clear to any women who read the novel that I want them to be as critical as possible about any element of me trying to write from a female POV to make sure I don’t come across as an idiot.

There is a whole cottage industry on social media of women who go way, way, way out of their way to find as many egregious examples of men being morons in depicting the female experience and I have really taken this to heart.

It’s a real challenge and I hope to be the exception that proves the rule about such things. I want to be the author that people point to and say, “See, a man can actually write from a female POV and not get it wrong.”

Anyway, with all of this in mind, I’m going to get drunk and sit down to write for the afternoon. It’s the only way I’m going to be able to write these spicy scenes from a female POV without overthinking things. We’ll see. I often say shit like this then just get drunk and don’t do anything, only to wake up in the middle of the night and will write all of these spicy scenes clean sober.

Some Like It Hot

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Don’t you see the rest of the country looks upon New York like we’re left-wing, communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers? I think of us that way sometimes and I live here. — Alvy Singer, Annie Hall

I have long believed that there is an element of class difference when it comes to how much same-sex relationships there perceived in the rarified reaches of high society — specifically fashion. When you reach a certain level of fame and fortune, especially in the context of Hollywood, the idea of same-sex bed hopping is a rather blase lulz.

I say this in the context of what’s going on with everyone’s favorite lesbian lothario Cara Delevingne. She’s been through a lot recently, but she’s apparently recovered enough to continue to plow her way through the female population of tensile town. The woman is a force of nature when it comes to bedding high end women.

Yeah, Kaia, nothing to see her, right?

I at first heard about Delevingne going to Argentia of all places with Margot Robbie and didn’t think anything about it. I thought it was unusual that Delevingne would go from having a serious mental breakdown directly into bouncing around a remote part of South America with one of the best looking women in the world.

My usual assumptions about Delevingne banging the woman she was seen with didn’t come up because I knew that Robbie was married and maybe the two were friends and they thought getting Delevingne out of the limelight for a few days might help her mental health.

AND THEN…I saw on Tik-Tok where apparently the skuttle butt is that Robbie is on the outs with her husband. And all my usual assumptions about Delevingne came roaring back. It would make a lot of sense if Robbie, being estranged from her husband, decided to have a fling with Delevingne somewhere so far away that they could canoodle a bit easier.

AND THEN…Delevingne was seen running around the middle of New York City on Halloween night with none other than Selena Gomez.

I know I’m jumping to conclusions, but, dude, Delevingne’s reputation as a lesbian lady killer is so potent that I just can’t believe that she’s not bouncing back and forth between Robbie and Gomez at the moment. This could be very delusional of me speculate on — I often do such things — but I also think it’s possible that I’m right.

And now we get back to the class issue.

The Poors, the Plebes, automatically want to ascribe some sort of Greater Meaning to famous straight women banging Delevingne. But they’re missing the point — when you’re as wealthy and successful as Delevingne, Gomez and Robbie, you bed hop with women in a very casual way that doesn’t really have any greater meaning. (At least that’s my personal assumption, I’m often wrong. And I’m a dude, so don’t listen to me.)

Now, in recent years, this same dynamic has begun to show up on the other side of the gender spectrum. Male same-sex relationships are beginning to be seen, even by the broader Poor public as a lulz. This, despite the fact that the Reds seem determined to have a hysterical Gay Scare in the middle of this social transformation.

Anyway, I wish those three crazy girls luck. Have fun, ladies. And keep and eye on Delevingne’s mental health. I’m worried about her.