I have found that the writing of FTM stories are greatly more challenging than their MTF counterparts. By this, I exclude body/mind swaps and stories that include both MTF and FTM at the same time. I mean exclusively a story that features two straight female friends and one of them ends up a straight male by the end of the story. I will try to sum up the difficulty in writing this kind of story and why they are so rare.
1. Low Demand: FTM are in low demand and by my estimate 99% of stories on any given website will feature some kind of MTF. This is highly discouraging for writers but there is an opportunity to create a rare gem if the story is written well. My goal is to create that gem.
2. Mechanism of Change: A common feature in magical stories is that a man's "seed" can be used as a mechanism to change another man into a woman. Additionally, the penetrative act of a man on another man can also cause the change. With two women, the mechanism of change is more challenging to write.
3. Submissiveness problem: It's generally the case that the one being transformed is the submissive one being forced or inviting the change from someone else. Since women are generally submissive this works out well for MTF stories. However, its more challenging to narrate a women turned man becoming submissive before another woman. Therefore, a woman turned man will need to be both dominant and undergo a change at the same time.
4. Author's Personal Experience: It's difficult for a male author to narrate the thoughts and feelings of a female protagonist undergoing change. MTF authors may find it unsettling to write and discuss the very idea of a FTM as that would be the very opposite of their life goal.
5. FTM Cross dressing: In this day in age, women can wear fairly masculine clothing and not be remotely TG. Essentially a suit would be required in order to dress ultra-masculine. Women tend to have more unique and expressive fashion whereas men tend to have a very uniform fashion. This leads to less creativity in detailing the fashion in the story than with a MTF. Also, there is considerably more taboo with a man wearing a dress than a woman wearing a suit. Detailing the use of make-up and hairstyle is also subdued in a FTM story than a MTF.
6. Less Risk: There is considerable more risk, taboo, and potential humiliation in a MTF than a FTM. In today's society, a tomboy or masculine girl may even be praised and accepted by her peers. The same cannot be said of a boy acting and dressing as a girl. Less risk means less drama and consequence to the protagonist.
7. Sexual Chemistry: To put it simply, a man may put aside the reality that a MTF was formerly male if she is sexually attractive. The same is not necessarily true of FTM whereby a woman may judge the former female for the following attributes: intelligence, humor, looks, strength, personality, wealth, connections, academic record, professional record, and the list goes on. Simply put, an ordinary woman isn't going to have sex with a man just on looks alone. Therefore, the FTM will have to work harder to achieve the same goal.
8. Homosexuality: A MTF story involving a Lesbian relationship is going to be more accepted than a FTM story involving a Gay male relationship.
9. Humiliation/Pain Stories: These stories are more likely to be accepted as MTF than FTM because the mental and physical torture of a woman to make her a man risks being seen as misogynist and sexist.
10. Age Gap: An age progressive story involving a girl becoming a man and then having a relationship with a girl is taboo and socially unacceptable to many people. However, an age progressive story involving an older woman and a younger man is not as taboo. Even while being younger, the young man may still be considered the more "dominant" of the two. An older man and a much younger woman is excessive dominance by the man.
I am sure there are other reasons but these are my top 10. Honestly, I would like to find more FTM stories that exclusively focus on two women/girlfriends. I completed Linking Spell: A Woman's Desire as an example and I am working on a large novel size FTM to be posted in the near future.
Comments
I think
I think you are looking at the topic in a way that adds your complexities listed.
Try writing such where the focus is on the disphoria of being physically female yet mentally and emotionally male. You can have the conflict that grabs attention completely internal to the main character with the story being his journey to feeling 'right'.
Stupidity is a capital offense. A summary not indictable.
It's the patriarchy
The first thing to keep in mind is that the TG story sites I am familiar with are overwhelmingly AMAB centered. Their target audience is AMAB people (MTF TSs, CDs, or fetishists), and I would guess that most of the authors are AMAB, too. And Western society goes to a lot of trouble to discourage male-classified people from learning about what (cis-?)women's lives are like, and the voices of women are routinely dismissed and hushed up.
So the only people who are likely to be able to write really authentic FTM stories are FTM people themselves.
The second thing to keep in mind is that women's experience is not a gender-swapped or even role-swapped version of men's experience. This is something that the discussions I've seen on CD sites never clue into -- they expect the female equivalent of MTF CD'ing to be a gender-swapped version of MTF CD'ing. But it can't be -- it would have to be something quite different and probably something that most of us might not even recognize as such.
It gets even more complicated when you try to come up with an FTM version of the usual MTF forced-femme tropes. One has to not only have a gut-level understanding of what it is like to be a woman in our society, but also what kind of B/D/S/M fantasies might result from the oppression they suffer.
BTW, I have been told that there are, indeed, FTM story sites. I haven't visited them, though, and I've lost the URLs.
what about a "Normal" guy?
"So the only people who are likely to be able to write really authentic FTM stories are FTM people themselves."
Actually i think an open-minded, heterosexual, semi-domanant male (ie your average guy) could pull off a FtM story. I mean his problem is the opposite of what's normally written here.. he's a man in a woman's body, so all he's gotta write about would be how he imagines he'd feel in that situation.
At least that's my thoughts
Well #6
Well #6 might not be as much as a barrier as you think it is. For starters you could set the story in a very religious place. Even in my very, very liberal country there are towns where at least the local women better not be wearing pants. Alternatively if he passes well enough to be seen as male, but not enough to be seen as "a real man" that might cause conflicts and drama as well. (I know this latter bit from personal experience).
I've found a lot of the same things in writing for FtM stories.
And I really, really want more community variety here even if folks gotta reach a little past "writing what they know." That said there's a lot in my experiences writing it and research that kind of show lots of levels in FtM communities that are pretty great writing wise and there's a good deal towards the personal issues and dysphoria that you can see in FtM support groups or pages on social media.
I'm still learning and will be looking to writing another FtM story/Character soon.
Bailey Summers
I tried this
As one of the Anmar tales I wrote Armsman of Joth to fill out a side issue in the main story line.
As someone who was born physically male you would think that writing something like this would be easy but it is not. I just don't have the mental viewpoint of any kind of male nor the experiences.
I can well believe, as others have commented, that the experiences of a FtM are likely to be very different in many respects than those of us who travel the other way.
I can't offer any deep insights; however, you might find my tale interesting as part of your researches.
Penny
Think of it this way
A woman trapped in a man's body is a common starting point but here it is just the opposite it is the end point. Think about having the body you should have and suddenly it is taken away leaving you in a male body. You already know that feeling so you know the anger and despair of being in a body you don't fit. It is the external forces that are different.
Crossdressing isnt getting in touch with one's feminine side but rather a reassurance and return to what's comfortable. Body image is much more important to females in general so there will be a lot of self hate of the new body, the hair and of course the male genitals. Most writers tend to think women would find it freeing and exhilarating because they project how they would feel in a woman's body. You would think they would realize that just as a man who never desired to become a woman is unhappy with becoming one that the same would be true for most women upon becoming a man.
Just some thoughts
Commentator
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I'm "lucky" in that I have an
I'm "lucky" in that I have an FtM friend thatI've known since a while before he figured out he was TS.
One telling incident (that I've got permission to use as an example or in stories) was one morning before he started on hormones.
He was half awake and coming out of a vey "good" dream. He reached down to his crotch to fondle himself and couldn't find his cock, but there was something sticky and wet. He pulled his hand out, looked at it and saw the blood. His first thought was "Oh my god, I've been castrated!"
Then the panic finished waking him up and he realized his period had started early.
Not the sort of thing that would occur to most of us.
Breasts are a lot harder to hide than male genitals are, unless you are pretty flat. And if you are well endowed, binders are a *major* pain.
Hips can be a problem too. And there's not much you can do about them.
At least the T will give you body and facial hair, and lower your voice.
Alas, unless you are using magic or medical techniques a lot more advanced than anything we've got, you won't get a functional penis.
I've heard it described as being like a permanently attached dildo. No sensation worth mentioning, and it's either always hard, always soft, or you have to deal with pumping it up...
You might want to read Lois McMasters Bujold's book "A Civil Campaign". It's SF, part of her Miles Vorkosigan series. One of the major characters is FtM. And there's a major subplot about the problems Barrayan society has dealing with a man who used to be a woman.
Note that they *do* have access to the advanced medical tech to do a *complete* change.
Brooke brooke at shadowgard dot com
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Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
"Lola", the Kinks
I've Met
Quite a few F2Ms and seen them interacting in the lesbian community. I've also had one for a lover for a while. The problem was he was on the rebound and still in love with his exGF; it was also long distance which was no good for me. After we broke up, he sort of got with the real world, got over his ex and got together with an M2F he'd had his eye on locally in CA; I guess they're great.
I have no knowledge of teen transition F2Ms, but I guess they'd be like regular teens or be a little more gender fluid. I know may adult F2Ms transition right out of a het marriages, but many also start out as butch lesbians. Many butches I've know say they are female, but not wimyn. Probably many of them consider transitioning. If they go F2M they are in a fairly different situation from het males that go M2F; these are more like gay (guy) Tgals that start in drag or as femme gays. Looking somewhat like TGs then become more and more fem; except these Tpeople could only survive in a gay enclave or have to dress as a guy part time.
Very butch dykes (diesel dykes, maybe) basically dress as guys full time and have typical male working class jobs or very tolerant employers. Less in your face ( and possibly less gender dysphoric) butches might wear business appropriate clothes, either men's or wimyn's, which ever fits, but always pants and non fem blouses/shirts, jackets if necessary, short or guy like hair cuts and have middle class or professional jobs. (these are stereotypes and don't include everyone).
Some of these people don't have to change their appearance much when transitioning, especially if they have smaller breasts. They probably get on T, start getting facial hair, often work out a lot to have more upper body bulk and lose fem distributed fat. The facial hair might be the most obvious sign along with some that might get male pattern baldness. Often parts of the lesbian community are tolerant and the F2M might keep associating then slowly withdraw. If their work mates are fairly laid back, their transition at work could be much easier than for an M2F. The Tguy might gradually get more of a guy haircut, wear a lot of the same clothes as pre transition and take a while to get thick enough facial hair to grow out. That's a lot different than wearing gals slacks and blouses and then one day appearing in a dress.
A common problem, similar to that of a het married Tgal, is how will his partner cope. Many lesbians don't want the het relationship that happens as their SO's body goes from F to M. Much of their identity might be tied to being lesbian just as het gal spouses only think of themselves as het and do not want to become lesbian.
For info you could look at butch lesbian sites or lesbian fiction. There probably are some F2M support sites that could give you a feel for their problems/issues.
OK, I'm rambling; maybe this info is of some use.
Hugs and Bright Blessings,
Renee