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Lately I've been wondering, what makes an average guy average? I realize I probably should be able to answer this question, since my parents did my best to raise me as a boy, and as an adult I didn't get called ma'm when I was trying to pass as a guy. Just the same, guys feel like a mystery to me.
The reason I ask this is because I've tried to portray Carl (the big brother in Shoes and Brianna's Big Brother) as an average guy, but I'm wondering how off the mark I've gotten. For instance, in the second chapter of Brianna's Big Brother, he's putting flowers in his sister's hair. While it's something I wouldn't think twice about doing, is it something the average guy would do? Is there a way of making sure my male characters feel realistic?
Run it by a guy - simple
If you're not comfortable with what a guy would do, then ask one.
I don't think many guys would actually put flowers in their sister's hair, depending on how old they were I suppose, but it's not a very male act.
I'm sorry I haven't read your story, but I would be happy to help out if you'd like.
Manly hugs
Nick
Sister's flowers
Daughter... yes. Wife... maybe. Sister? Not most guys. :)
Edeyn Hannah Blackeney
Wasn't it Jim Henson who said, "Without faith, I am nothing," after all? No. Wait. That was God. Sorry, common mistake...
Drives
The average teenage boy is flooded with hormones that are kicking his newly formed sex drive into overdrive. This makes your job easy. Imagine an inner voice in the character's head asking "Is this going to get me laid?" before any action you aren't sure of. If the answer is anything but an absolute no, he'll do it.
As they get older, teenage boys start to turn back into people, but that inner voice is still there about 70% of the time, even in the best ones. It's what makes men so easy to manipulate.
Teenage boy/Mother body swaps
I understand hormone driven teenagers. Well kind of, LOL I'm a father to an 19-year-old daughter. What man understands women, no matter what the age?
One type of TG fiction I've never understood is teenage boy to mother stories. Body swaps between a son and his mother. Usually the boy finding Mom oh so sexy and then there is sex....
I loved my mother, but she was never a sex symbol. As to sex between my parents, I rather not.....think of it. Stories like this and this,(Eric and Raven can write good stories. Actually Eric's tale has given me an idea for an Altered Fates/Medallion tale called Screwed. Screwed would be have a very different outcome for the teen turned mother) stretch implausibility to new heights even for TG fiction.
Teenagers want to be treated as adults, but being adults, like their parents, no.
Daniel, author of maid, whore, bimbo, and sissy free TG fiction since 2000
What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.- Oscar Levant
I agree
With Nick about the flower in the hair thing. It could happen but most guys I think would avoid it.
Danger! Stereotype ahead! Meant only in General terms!!!
Most guys sees things in cause and effects. Girl likes flowers so give her flowers. Nothing about how pretty they are or how sweet it is to be thoughtful!
Girl comes to guy with problem. Guy listens to determine problem and how to best fix problem. Not to give emotional support and a shoulder to cry on. ("State the nature of your medical emergency?" Holographic Doctor Star Trek Voyager)
Like I said this is a very general kind of thing. Guys can be supportive but needs to be clued in sometimes what is expected from them.
I'm sure you can break this down into general types of guys, but I'm not that good at this guy thing myself sometimes. :)
Hugs!
grover
PS: The learning disability Autism is thought by some to a radical expression of a male brain. Difficulty in social interactions and communications are a few of the problems those afflicted have to deal with. Think the Dustin Hoffman film Rainman.
The blind leading the partially sighted
This male thing is a bit of a problem for all of you.
Grover was nearest as not all teenage boys think "will this get me laid?", but men often need to be clued in first about emotional stuff.
It's much easier for a man to be emotionally detached from situations, but again, that's pretty stereotypical.
Am I the only guy guy round here?
Nick
damn kids nowadays
Average guy? Hard to tell anymore, younger guys seem to have become this weird caricature of masculinity, much more hung up on appearing macho than my 60's/early 70's peers. The sort of posturing you only used
to see in jail has become the norm in the suburbs- there seems to be less spontaneous smiling, like it isn't
cool somehow, leaving me to wonder: WHY DOES EVERYONE HAVE TO BE SUCH A BAD-ASS THESE DAYS?
Or maybe this is me, my changes, my turning into a judgemental mysandrist old biddy too quick to see the worst in men......in a way I'd like to think this is so rather than that these perceptions are accurate...
Then again, maybe the whole notion of "average" is cockeyed, and there's this whole diverse spectrum of attitudes and behaviors, not one vast herd of identically-acting guys with a few exceptions at either end.
I think (again, would like to think) Carl could be average and still put flowers in his sister's hair, guys tending to be more tenderhearted with family members, especially ones they feel protective of. But unless they are exceptionally brave and sure of themselves, there are things they would do in a private moment with their little sister that they might feel hesitant to do around their male friends, because most seem to take their cues for what is normal and acceptable male behavior from watching what the others are doing and copying that (see Susan Faludhi's books on men in America). It seems like Carl is pretty brave and independant
in this regard, a well-rounded personality, he has real friendships with girls, so I don't think you've inadvertantly cloaked a female character in male flesh, as you'd hinted was your fear...
Hugs, love these SHOES stories, Laika
What borders on stupidity?
Canada and Mexico.
.
Depends on the guy
I'd have to say, age is very important to what a guy will or will not do. Also situation would play a part, is it just a guy and his sister, are his or her friend's around. Easiest thing to do would be to ask a guy you know I am more than happy to help in addition to Nick...Angel will tell you I often go into "Male" mode when we are arguing :D she means it as an insult, but it just means she's wrong and won't admit it...
Huggles!!
Alexis
Flowers in her hair?
My brothers were more likely to pull my sister's hair.
giggle
Gwenellen
Average??
Hi Heather,
Just the other night I was discussing the 'average person' with a seventeen year old person of the male persuasion. We determined that the average person has a little less than one testicle and slightly less than one ovary. If American (ie USAian), they quit school just after turning eighteen but have almost a year and a half of college. They grew up in a house with one and one-fourth parents and almost one and a third cars and more than two TVs (that's televisions, not transvestites in this case.) One strange dude with one weird background; forget about him (her, whatever.).
From my limited experience with teenagers (but a lot more than just the kid I was talking to the other night), sex is very far from the number one thing on their mind. At seventeen, for kids from the working class and upper middle class, number one would be SATs and APs (for the British speakers, thats a bit like the A-levels or what ever they are now called). Second would be what other people think about them (mostly that means their peers of both sexes, and at this time of the year includes college admission types.) Don't underestimate the level of anxiety these people are capable of. After that comes video/computer games or sports or anime or make up or the mall or etc; escapism is a powerful thing even for the young. Then would come sex, but that is mostly at the escapism level too.
The (maybe) surprising thing is is that these kids think that the third thing, games -sports -etc, is the only one they can control or even influence. Not academics, not reputation, and very much not getting layed. If it happens, it happens. I don't know if that is a age thing (I felt like that at that age myself certainly), or if it is just the way we raise these creatures nowadays.
But saying they are testosterone driven is a big mistake, and the equivalent to the statement, that I also recently saw, that women are chemically controlled because of the menstrual cycle. Both are just bull. OK, maybe we are all just a mass of electrochemical reactions to random stimuli, but I don't want to be that and so refute the only possible way, with stubbornness.
Gender and sexuality are very complicated and no adolescent understand it. They are confused and self conscious and real scared. That goes for the future heterosexual uber jock, as well as everyone else (and I think is a driving force behind most assholes.) But gender and sexual roles do not all come from within, they are inflicted on us by others, and that includes the ones doing the inflicting. (Once you are out of punch and rock throwing range, give them some pity. They aren't free.)
I think that a lot (not all) of young adolescent boys would but flowers in a little sisters hair, but most that would, would first look around to see who was watching. (I also think a larger number of girls the same age would be annoyed by such a request from a sibling too.) So sure, Heather, Carl can hug Brianna, and Dave can embrace Gaby. And they can still be straight males while doing it, but the flack will come to them too. We all have to fight to be free.
Hugs, Joy
Jan
After re-reading Shoes & Brianna's Big Brother
I’m not sure what age Carl is. But I do not see him as your average guy, if by average, you mean fitting in the exact center of the bell curve.
But dear, humanity is just that, a wide bell curve. it swings from the tough guy macho types to the more sensitive types, even somewhat 'effeminate, without being transgendered, and beyond in both directions.
Carl is doing his darndest to try and come to grips with his sister's transition. I didn't see anything unusual with his trying to help her feel pretty, especially, as mentioned, when they were alone. I can see him doing it with his friend Terri around, as he seems to be able to speak freely with her about the situation. But he probably would not have done this with most or all of his male friends anywhere in the vicinity.
So don’t worry about whether his actions are ‘average guy’, because he is not in a situation the majority of young men would ever expect to be in. It is going to make a change in his world view and they way he reacts to many people, not just his sister. And in particular it will affect the way he interacts with his new sister as his views and understanding evolve.
Possibly a year or two from now he will have moved back towards ‘average guy’, but he won’t drift all the way back. His viewpoints will have changed.
I see Carl as still puzzled, still uncertain what this will mean to him now, and in the future, but doing quite well overall. He has not rejected his sister, and is making an effort to understand and adjust. Re-reading ‘Shoes’, I don’t think he originally rejected her as much as he pulled into himself and ignored her as he tried to make sense of a startling new development that had blindsided him.
Someone the same distance on the other side of ‘average guy’ might still be fighting it, and might never be willing to understand, leave alone, accept.
Aunt Holly
One of the most difficult things to give away is kindness.
It usually comes back to you.
Holly
Thank you!!
I just wanted to thank everyone who's posted responses to this topic. There's a lot to think about here, including some things I hadn't really considered. I have a better feeling now that I'll be able to portray Carl in a realistic way. While I still see him as a pretty average 14-year-old (about the same age and in the same grade as his friend, Terri) guy, I think (and hope) there will be enough difference for him to be able to deal with the challenges he's currently facing as well as those coming up.
{{{warm huggs}}}
Heather Rose Brown :)
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Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.
Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.
Groucho Marx
Another thing about "Average Guys"
Before I got married, I didn't think I was the average guy in a lot of ways...more sensitive and nurturing or whatever....
Living with my wife, I came to find I'm MUCH more regular male than I ever thought before..at least compared to her :) It made me see how male I truly was even if I thought I was above certain things...and I don't mean in a macho or negative sense either.
Huggles!!
Alexis
Average Guy?
Remember Voltaire, French Philosopher and Lawyer. Remember he said "I may disapprove of everything that you say, but I shall defend, until death, your right to say it!" Pretty good, huh? Well, there is another saying that he is given credit for. One that not too many people know. According to legend, Voltaire said, "If for a moment you think that you understand women, you have just about timed it right." So. What is an average guy. I am older that dirt and I don't know. And I should. But I will tell you that I would do as you wrote RE: the flowers.
Thank you, thank you very much (Elvis has left the building)