My first thought was: Well, durr. You people have become the Stop Having Fun people, and it's in the nature of youth to rebel against the Stop Having Fun people.
(@radicalbytes is the man behind Feminist Frequency, responsible for the Tropes vs. Women series on Youtube.)
In the past it was the religious morality brigade. Nowadays it's authoritarian SJWs. South Park has already lampooned it with PC Bros, it's only a matter of time before other comics lock the trope in.
This is nothing new. The late 80s/early 90s saw a similar push for political correctness and trumpeted the arrival of the 'New Man' - in touch with his caring, sharing side. By the mid 90s the New Man was soundly rejected by women as an unsexy wet drip and Political Correctness was buried beneath universal mockery. This was the decade that saw the emergence of Lads' mags and Lad Culture in Britain.
The same cycle is repeating itself now. Unfortunately, the viciousness of the more extreme fringe of activism is greater and more visible this time around because of social media. And I think that means the resulting pushback will also be vicious. My own personal opinion is that the average person is considerably less [foo]ist and [foo]phobic nowadays, but there's only so many times you can get hit in the head by a rock before you give in to the temptation to start throwing them back. It's become a cottage industry (or, in some cases, a financially lucrative business) to throw a rock at a group, then scream harassment and seek sympathy when the riled-up group throws rocks back.
Where does that leave us? Probably with a bunch of virulent anti-women misogynists when those 10 to 14-year-old boys, fed up of being constantly told they're the root of all evil, grow up.
And on that cheery note, it's time to get back to writing.
This week I'll be trying to finish off the two stories I have planned for the Literotica Halloween Contest. It ended up not quite being the story bonanza I was hoping for. Progress was a little too much on the stop/start side. I suspect I might be going too long on my short stories (6-7K instead of 4-5K words) and not getting them finished fast enough. I've noticed my productivity and enthusiasm for a story starts to wane once it drags past a certain number of days. Getting an idea down in 2-3 days, while it's still fresh, is what I should be aiming for.
The second story features plenty of weirdness and dangerous snu snu. That's typed up and should be posted in the next few days after I've finished editing it.
The third story references the #GamerGate controversy, so the response to that should be... interesting. It also features an appearance of one of my regular characters. Sort of. I'm deep in the 1st draft for that one. The closing date for the competition is the 22nd. That might be tight, but I'll still post it even if I fail to make the deadline.
Originally I had another third story planned. The first draft is nearly done on that one. Horror-head and Erotica-head had a fight over the ending and Erotica-head rightly pointed out the original ending, as planned, would likely leave readers feeling like they'd been cheated out of some of the sexy stuff. The story does have plenty of nice cliff-hanger moments, so I'll be running that here on the blog throughout November as a mini-serial.
Then it's back to getting the long-delayed "Sandwiched by Scyllas" ready for publication. I'm hoping a break from banging my head against the wall trying to write the second half of that will get it flowing again. Lots of tentacle goodness to come there. ;)
Breaking the Sandwiched by series out of the monthly cycle that wasn't doing me any good means I won't be immediately pressured to get the 5th done (currently pencilled in as the slightly voretastic "Sandwiched by Stomachs"). That means it will be time to do what people have been asking me for all year and bring Succubus Summoning 201 to a satisfying end.
