After plot, pace, consistent themes, apt word choices, titles, openers, and resolution, one thing I’ve always struggled with is writing a believable female character, writing in a credible female voice.

On the one hand, some people insist there’s no difference. Write a strong male lead, then rename her and correct all the pronouns. What’s so hard about that? And yet a knowing, experienced reader can read that story and frequently think, Oh, a woman would never say/do/think that.

Same goes for size fetish erotica. When it’s just male porn, no, character depth has no weight. It’s just a tiny guy busting his nut with the help, or despite the intent, of a large woman. It’s the literary equivalent of staring at a porn image. And that’s fine.

But if you want to write a credible story with characters readers care about, with obstacles that have readers on the edge of their seat, with victories the reader will celebrate—even in size smut—it’s not that simple. More sympathy is required, more insight into human nature.

I’m not a woman and I’ve never felt like one. I’ve been lucky to receive a couple glimpses as to what it means to be a woman in a patriarchal society. There was the time a friend of mine, a woman, and I were bundled up in heavy winter coats, walking up the street in deep snowfall. I was on the street and she was on the curb, so we were roughly the same height. A couple guys were walking into their frat house when they thought this would be a perfect time to hit on us. And what better line than, “Cold night, ladies?” Even my knees went weak. I thanked them for their concern and they hustled inside with “oh shit, that was a dude.”

Or when I played a female mage in Warcraft, and a recent divorcee in Wisconsin introduced himself to me by describing how he masturbated. Because that’s how adults talk to each other, apparently, not to mention every player must naturally resemble the characters they run in the game. He was very receptive to my follow-up advice on interpersonal conduct, to his credit.

Or, frustrated that I couldn’t meet people to talk with on a MUSE when representing myself accurately, I created an account named “Breasts” and found myself overwhelmed with thoughtful and entertaining men who just wanted a moment of my time. They each insisted it had nothing to do with my handle: they merely thought I sounded genuinely interesting. All my bio said was that I was the owner of a pair of breasts, unlike my prior account that described my music, hobbies, etc. I was surprised, and educated, by the hostility I received when I declined these conversations.

All of that gives me limited insight into what many women have thrown at themselves every day of their lives, in cyberspace or meatspace. I can use it as a sting in a regular story as the plot winds along, but I can only guess what it does to someone’s perspective and expectations when entering unknown situations.

Now that I’m a tiny little man, interacting with giantesses, I’m still learning more and more about gender relations. I see the sniffers, other tiny little men like me, who root around and beg for sexual interaction with anything that resembles a larger woman. They are single-minded and relentless in their pursuits. Often they’re generously written off as “harmless pervs.” They can’t hold a conversation, but are always offering to “worship” a giantess via gratifying themselves at her expense. Or if they’re spoken to negatively, then they insist on being punished via gratifying themselves at her expense. This kind of carrying-on doesn’t make me want to announce my presence very loudly.

I’ve tried asking sniffers what giantesses want. Reportedly, and amazingly, giantesses all want exactly what the sniffers want: they want to be worshipped with tiny little penises all over their skin. Giantesses experience a special thrill in satisfying the lusts of tiny men, I’m informed, because that kind of control makes them powerful. Their breasts are better, due to squeezing little men between them; their pussies are even pussier, for swallowing little men whole and suffocating them, crushing them, drowning them. The more a giantess uses her sexual gifts the way a tiny man thinks she should, the more powerful she actually becomes. That’s what they tell me.

I’ve had opportunities to talk with a few giantesses. Picture her in a large cavern, picture me on a rocky ledge around head-height to her, and all we’re doing is talking. Clothes on. Not even touching. The easiest split-screen stunt. From my perspective, that of a drop in a sea of tirelessly horny little men, I’ve wondered what the world looks like from a giantess’s viewpoint. A few have bothered to let me in and share their stories.

Giantess Tina phrased it attractively: “The story of the giantess is a story of loneliness.” Another giantess walked me through the saga of one’s life, like a Mary Westmacott study: imagine being born to a normal family, having friends, relying on your family. Then you start growing, and the house you grew up in can no longer contain you. Your friends treat you differently because you no longer resemble them. And then men come traveling from other cities to look at you, touch you, impose their desires upon you. You just want to go back to your normal, comfortable life, and strangers are demanding sexual acts from you. Did you play an instrument? Were you an artist, a dancer? Doesn’t matter: you’re large now, and these men inform you that you owe them sex. Somehow you’ve grown into a debt due to no fault of your own.

Receive this messaging long enough, and your old world begins to fade: maybe this is all you’re good for. Certainly, you can no longer sit in a chair at a cafe and chat with friends. You can’t see a movie, you can’t walk down the street to clear your head. Your life is nothing more than men informing you what you’re good for.

A giantess can go down two paths at this point: she can lash out in fury, in self-defense, and rampage the civilization that entraps and abuses her; or she can snap and succumb to these desires, learn to play this game for a new form of power, or simply lie back and think of… nothing. Just let the little sniffers crawl inside her and leave stains on her body, just to get it overwith. Because what if you do rampage? Where will you retreat to? Where can you go that people won’t treat you like a freak, reacting to you with terror or lust and entitlement?

Of course, you don’t have to be a giantess to have society impose its desires upon you, when you’re a woman. You don’t have to be 100′ tall for men to start informing you what you’re good for, what you owe them, what you’re no longer allowed to do. “You’re prettier when you smile,” they say, and “Look at how you’re dressed, you’re asking for it.” In that sense, the giantess myth isn’t really escapism: it’s another analogy.

The difference is that, when you’re 100′ tall, you can pick up that little runt and crush him in your fist or snap him in half with one bite. You can stomp him in his car like a soda can.

But the story of this power is still a cautionary tale in the hands of some men. The New World Order, in which militant radical feminists receive empowerment in the form of giantess proportions and dispense justice via vore, crush, domination/humiliation, etc. (Of course, some guys are into that, informing women what they’re good for.) Or the shrinking analogy: while some guys (like me) are into that, others use it to derive pity for the loss of privilege. Scott Carey, shrunken by a radioactive cloud, retains his skin color and gender, but all of his social worth is tied up in his physicality: he shrinks, and he loses the respect of his family, gets bullied by neighborhood kids. Who he is and what he thinks don’t matter, in this paranoid masculine vision—if he can’t stand over someone’s head, if he can’t punch someone and make it count, then he has no status. The man who needs help is no man at all, is the lesson here. Men who lose power can only expect to have that used against them… that’s the fear.

And so they work hard to prevent women from attaining that power. And when women get it anyway, through becoming a giantess, they collaborate to dictate her narrative: “If you exploit your power, you’ll have no place here. But if you accede to our desires, with no thought of willfulness, then we’ll suffer you to exist among us.”

I write this, knowing I’ll receive some protest. Whatever. Some people will squawk meaninglessly, communicating that they haven’t understood a word I’ve said. Others will come in with weightier alternative opinions and information I didn’t have, and I’ll learn from that. I look forward to that.

All I can do is call it like I see it.