Sometimes Normal Isn't Normal

 As a follow-up to Monday's entry, one thing people have complained about, like the person I mentioned on Monday with the Girl Power books, is that gender swapped characters don't act like "normal women."  They cry too much, they're not as strong as my daughter, and whatever.  Besides the review mentioned on Monday it's been brought up a few times with Chance of a Lifetime.

I don't really understand why people think that.  I mean, of course they don't act like "normal" women, because they aren't normal women!  In Chance of a Lifetime, Stacey spent 50 years (half a century!) as a man, so why would you expect him to instantly act like someone who's grown up as a woman?  Like I said about Robin in Girl Power, she just lost like 25% of her mass (most of it muscle) so why would she be able to do pushups like your daughter, who's been training for years?  

It's a really annoying criticism.  I'm sure it's mostly women who make this criticism because they see it as "misogynist."  But the other part of it is you have to give people the show.  Most people wouldn't like a gender swap story where the guy instantly becomes a "normal" well-adjusted woman.  I've gotten complaints, especially from "John Daniels," who fortunately stopped reading my books a long time ago, that the character adjusted too quickly.  A lot of people want the theater or pageantry of the guy stumbling around and learning how to dress and put on makeup and stuff like that.  For me the crying is part of that; with a guy like Steve Fischer who was a rugged cop, crying is something he hadn't done in years, so it helps to sell that he's changing.  And then of course you have the sexual discovery.  That's probably a lot easier and more satisfying than it is in real life.  Again, it's all part of the show.  

Often people claim to want something "realistic" until you actually give them realistic.  Then they whine and bitch about that and say it's boring or whatever.  

What is good is the person who reviewed the Girl Power series read Chance of a Lifetime and said:

Initially I was turned off by all the weepiness thinking it is not like girls I know, then I thought, 40 years of male hormones stopped instantly and replaced by high levels of females' hormones must be like instant cold turkey of one drug together with instant addiction to another - I guess I would get a little upset!

So at least she finally got it.  Or she was just humoring me.