Forum: Story Discussion and Feedback

Sex usually includes an emotional interaction between two people. A gratuitous sex scene that displays no emotional bonding is telling you things about the two characters. The most likely messages being they are incapable of expressing emotion or they are so into themselves that they have no feeling for others.

When it's being used to show an aspect of the characters it's not gratuitous. I actual use some sex scenes in the start of Finding Home to show the main character's attitude to life at that time, and some later sex scenes show his changed attitude. The whole purpose of the sex scenes was to show those changing attitudes, and why.

When it's being used to show an aspect of the characters it's not gratuitous.

If the reader sees no aspect, then to the reader, it appears to be a gratuitous sex scene; at least, until it is explained to them by other characters.

The only other source of information I can asses about an author's motivation is this forum,

I recall EB's comment coming up in the forum on several occasions in the past 2-3 years. It is also not the type of comment that an Author is going to put in their blog.

When I first started posting on SOL, I felt sex scenes needed to be added to a story for that is what the readers expected. I quickly realized that was not true. Since then, I only add sex scenes when I feel they are appropriate for the storyline. When I do add a sex scene, it is typically an emotionally based scene rather than two people looking for sexual pleasure.

It wasn't my intent to imply how anyone should handle a sex scene or any other scene. The intent of the post was the topic has been discussed in the Form, but you weren't a participant.

I handle sex scenes like every other scene in my stories. I don't know why I should watch them differently, or handle them with special caution. I don't want to imply that's what you said. It's just the course of these discussions in general.

The problem isn't so much the authors handling sex scenes differently, but with readers treating them differently, which eventually pressures authors to change how they write sex scenes, either making them 'easier to bypass', or limiting the total number of sex scenes to cater to a select (and vocal) market, though it runs counter to the general demand on the site.

But I agree with you, Ernest is expressing the ideas badly, suggesting authors are merely including material which has nothing to do with the story, rather than authors trying to 'please' readers by segregating material they may have trouble with. (my example of this are the readers who've just had sex, or just broken up with someone, who have NO interest in reading a sex scene skipping over any sex scene they encounter, and then bitching when the story no longer makes sense because they also skipped over a key element in the story.)

When I do add a sex scene, it is typically an emotionally based scene rather than two people looking for sexual pleasure.

No pun intended, but everyone likes happy endings, so even most stroke stories prefer focusing on romantic entanglements (i.e. most "much sex" or "stroke" stories focus on couple engaging with multiple partners, or some searching for their ideal partner, rather than the casual hookup story).

or some searching for their ideal partner, rather than the casual hookup story

Most of the stroke sex scenes I've encountered have nothing to do with the participants looking for their ideal partner. Physical attraction and lust brought them together, the encounter is about who is doing what to whom, and when it is over they get on with their lives. There is no emotional bonding during the encounter, but there is an agreement, spoken or unspoken if they enjoy themselves, to do it again sometime in the future.

Most of the stroke sex scenes I've encountered have nothing to do with the participants looking for their ideal partner. Physical attraction and lust brought them together, the encounter is about who is doing what to whom, and when it is over they get on with their lives. There is no emotional bonding during the encounter, but there is an agreement, spoken or unspoken if they enjoy themselves, to do it again sometime in the future.

Again, I think I'm conflating "stroke" with "much sex". It seems what I think of as "stroke" stories feature COUPLES having sex with hundreds of women, or single dudes who screw hundreds of women before or while finding their perfect mate. Guess I've been reading the wrong stories!

Guess I've been reading the wrong stories!

More likely an unconscious assumption that the single dude is using sex to look for a relationship (or the couple is looking to form a threesome). A Stroke Story could be about either - just sexual pleasure or a potential long, or short-term, relationship.

Guess I've been reading the wrong stories!

More likely an unconscious assumption that the single dude is using sex to look for a relationship (or the couple is looking to form a threesome). A Stroke Story could be about either - just sexual pleasure or a potential long, or short-term, relationship.

No. Rather, I've NEVER spent much time on the "New Stories" page, instead spending ALL my time on the "Story Updates" page. Thus I tend to bypass the majority of Stroke stories and instead focus on the long, multi-chapter (50+) sex stories that revolve around a specific plot.

I very rarely read either short stories or anything less than 10 chapters, at a minimum. Even then, I mostly rely on authors I recognize and expect to write longer stories.

That's caused 'selective' reading, causing me to make assumptions about what's a "Stroke" story.

So how do you know that "some authors stick in gratuitous sex scenes because they feel they have to have sex scenes to post a story at Sol"?

I said it because some authors have said in forum posts they only included the sex scenes because they thought they were expected to have them.

It's only an issue with some authors, because only some authors include gratuitous sex scenes. Some authors use the sex scenes to show aspects of the characters, and some authors use the sex scenes as the story plot - common in stroke stories.

I don't know where you got that information.

It's easily discernible from reading the stories. When done badly, the chapter's tick box sex scene sticks out like a sore thumb. Even when done well, it can be boring and repetitious, especially in long stories. There are several authors where I know I can safely skip a chapter's tick box sex scene and not miss anything.

AJ

Statistically there's a very strong correlation when an author includes precisely one gratuitously explicit sex scene per chapter.

Or did I misinterpret your meaning?

AJ

Correlations don't actually prove anything, unless you're a UN soapbox scientist. ;)

AJ

The problem with sex scenes in a lot of stories at SoL, but not all of them, is some authors stick in gratuitous sex scenes because they feel they have to have sex scenes to post a story at Sol. Thus they look for creative ways to include a sex scenes in the story to try and make it fit better.

I don't know where you got that information. I've never read a blog of an author where something like this was mentioned.

I suspect Ernest's comment was based on a few of my comments over the years, where I get fed up because readers would often skip over sex scenes—even when the entire story revolved around the scene. Many authors response to that type of situation (which is mainly isolated to my writing, since I dump so much non-sex content (discussions about the characters and what's happening in the larger stories) by limiting sex scenes to nothing BUT the sex and romance aspects, isolating it so, if readers decide to skip over it, they won't be lost and then complain to the author.

Aside from that being isolated to only a few authors, it illustrates a couple major issues. Stories with romantic sex scenes ARE popular, so the strongest stories WILL have some romance in them. Those of who who've decided to avoid or limit the sexual content do it at the cost of decreased popularity.

In the end, neither the 'limited sex scenes', isolating the sex scenes or constraining the number of sex scenes makes much sense, as it hurts both the author and readers only to please a few readers who like to bitch when they're simply not 'in the mood' to read a sex scene.

The other point, is that sex is what first brings readers to the site (mostly older white men), who immediately focus on the stroke stories, but once here, they eventually gravitate to the more complete stories with more involved plot and (hopefully) better writing. Thus you'll see more and more highly rated non-sexual stories.

Thank you so much for another example of your condescending opinions.

Sorry, I honestly don't mind the stroke or much-sex stories. I was just trying to note how many readers first come to SOL for the sex stories, but eventually switch over the more traditional stories (while never losing their appreciation for what brought them here, but no longer focusing on it exclusively).

I surmise that's also what happens to the scores over time. That the no-sex stories start off with lower scores, but they increase over time as more readers eventually discover them.

If it wasn't for this gradual transition, my stories would NEVER get noticed.

That doesn't make much sense to me.

Some readers won't start a story until it is finished and others don't find the story until sometime after it is completed.

It is the 1-bombers and 10-fan boys who rate a story as soon as the Author starts posting; in addition to other readers who find the story and don't object to reading it as it is posted. Assuming the story is more than a couple of chapters in length, the score stabilizes while the story is being posted at some rating; assume 7.0.

I suspect the people who wait for a story to finish like the Author's other stories so they will likely rate the story at more than 7.0. I also suspect that people who find the story after it has been completed are looking for particular types of stories, which they enjoy reading. They are likely to rate stories that please them at more than 7.0.

Overall, the story's rating is likely to increase after the last chapter is posted.

ETA: CW was referring to the score/rating getting better. Granted the story may also get better as additional chapters are posted.

Let me propose a different scenario.

Yes, that is a valid scenario and I suspect it happens. However, it doesn't fit or explain CW's remark about the rating rising over time, which is what you didn't understand.

True, and I rather doubt its validity.

Which? My observations, or your alternate theory?

There are two things that come into play on longer stories

Neither of which explains WHY the rating increases as CW said. The only thing you address is factors that draw more readers, who may rate the story higher or lower than the current rating.

ETA: The same thing applies to your post to CW. What you are addressing is how readers find the story. You are assuming the readers will like the story and give it a higher rating and that is not true in all cases.

That is true in some cases, but 'word of mouth' advertising is not to be trusted.

My wife and I learned to not trust other people's recommendations for places to eat. We found most of the places people recommended to be lousy. Their taste and ours were very different. The same is true in reading material.

That is true in some cases, but 'word of mouth' advertising is not to be trusted.

My wife and I learned to not trust other people's recommendations for places to eat. We found most of the places people recommended to be lousy. Their taste and ours were very different. The same is true in reading material.

I would especially not trust the recommendations of where to eat that you pick up on a site featuring 'diaper', 'crap' and 'watersport' fetishes! Shudders!

the recommendations of where to eat that you pick up on a site featuring 'diaper', 'crap' and 'watersport' fetishes! Shudders!

Nor would I. Ours came from friends and business associates.

The same thing applies to your post to CW. What you are addressing is how readers find the story. You are assuming the readers will like the story and give it a higher rating and that is not true in all cases.

I never (at least initially, until everyone started jumping up and down on individual word choices) suggested that more readers equals higher scores. Instead I kept insisting that 'stories eventually find their intended audiences', meaning that, over time, the people who like a particular story will discover it, and the scores—from those readers—will tend to boost the story. However, a shitty story will remain a shitty story, and even the shitty-story fans won't be able to save it from the poor scores from everyone else.

I must say, whenever I try to describe the discussions we get bogged down and waste weeks of time arguing about here, no one can believe that ANYONE, much less authors whose sole job is to convince people of ideas and concepts, would waste their time arguing about such unimportant things of isolated misapplied words.

ANYONE, much less authors whose sole job is to convince people of ideas and concepts, would waste their time arguing about such unimportant things of isolated misapplied words.

Unless of course the reader of that isolated word feels in has a significant bearing on the idea or concept.

Unless of course the reader of that isolated word feels in has a significant bearing on the idea or concept.

Oh, don't get me wrong. As authors, we all care very deeply about the importance of words, concepts and presentation. However, what I was saying is that the outside world simply can't grasp just how much effort we waste on something with so little actual application to the wider world. After all, it's not like this is a major source of income for any of us, and even though it's an important hobby for us, it's our published efforts that generate the praise, not the online discussions about the minutia of writing.

Sometimes I just need a gentle reminder that, although it seems monumental at the time, these too will pass, quietly into the night, to mix my literary metaphors.

although it seems monumental at the time, these too will pass, quietly into the night, to mix my literary metaphors.

Or as my wife tells me from time to time about the Forum - "You are just a bunch of grumpy old men who like to argue with each other over things that don't matter." :)

Or as my wife tells me from time to time about the Forum - "You are just a bunch of grumpy old men who like to argue with each other over things that don't matter." :)

Yep, she's got your number! 'D

Let me propose a different scenario. A large part of the first readers of a new story are readers who know and like the author. Another large part are readers who like the genre of the story. Both type of readers are likely to give the story high scores. Now other readers without such biases get atrackted due to the high score of the story. But without a positive bias the score will drop.

That makes sense, as does the fact that many stories finish better than they start, so scores tend to rise over time. But again, your theory doesn't seem to correlate as strongly with the behavior I'm observing (the 2-day rise, the week or two decline and the several weeks or months gradual rise in scores).

Yes, clearly those who like a particular author will read their stories, often regardless of the subject matter, and will score it because it already suits their tastes, but I don't consider them 'fanboys', they're simply getting the kinds of stories that they appreciate. If they dislike the story, for whatever reason, they'll definitely let you know about it soon enough! That isn't blind loyalty, it's an interest in the kinds of stories a particular author writes.

It is the 1-bombers and 10-fan boys who rate a story as soon as the Author starts posting; in addition to other readers who find the story and don't object to reading it as it is posted. Assuming the story is more than a couple of chapters in length, the score stabilizes while the story is being posted at some rating; assume 7.0.

Once again, I've never seen that assumption play out in my story stats. Instead, the initial score tends to remain fairly steady. Readers WILL rate each chapter individually, so a particularly exciting chapters will show up in higher scores for THAT chapter, but the score won't really change much.

However, that changes once a story finishes. Once the story wraps up, several things happen. First of all, everyone gives the story a 'final score', so the overall score will jump, for only a day or two, and then the score will drop, as more readers who never cared for the story in the first place try it out and discover that it still doesn't interest them.

However, over time, as enough people discover it, that initial 'downvoting' trend tends to get overwritten by larger numbers of readers who 1) won't read anything but completed stories, and 2) simply didn't notice the story the exact instant it completed.

That's why I tend to poo-poo the whole '1-bomber' and 'fanboy' inflation theory. I just have never seen it occurring in actual practice. But then, I'm making these assumptions based on what I see in my own stories. If you see different results, please, let us know what you're seeing so we can gain from your experiences.

And while more and more readers discover the story it gets better and better, so the score rises? That doesn't make much sense to me.

The story doesn't get any better, but stories that don't get much attention at first, simply because they don't contain the tags that readers are most interested in, eventually find their target over time as more readers search out other stories and discover new authors to appreciate, rather than only restricting themselves to the genres they're looking for.

By the way, you're really resorting to stating the obvious today. What? Nothing to bitch about from actual comments, you have to invent complaints out of things not actually said or implied?

Nothing you said explains the rise of scores you claim. A score doesn't rise because a story gets more readers.

I can't believe that I have to explain the obvious. MORE READERS = MORE VOTES. Also, MORE READERS typically means a wider VARIETY of VOTES, whereas early voters tend to vote consistently, one way or another. Thus, over time, you tend to get 'truer' scores than you do while the story is STILL POSTING.

The story doesn't 'get better', but as I explained (REPEATEDLY), it 'finds its audience'.

Just like I don't both with the "New Stories" page, many readers never notice my stories. However, over time, they're bound to encounter one or two.

The first batch of votes are somewhat circumspect (people who already like or dislike the work), while the later scores end to be more representative of how readers actually feel about a story.

Now, we can shout and argue about this all week. After all, it's clear that you're convinced that I have NOTHING OF VALUE TO SAY ON ANY matter, and would argue with me if I stated the moon ISN'T made of green cheese. SO let's just drop the topic.

Rather than discuss topics, you seem primarily interested in making relatively minor objections and then shutting down the entire discussion, simply to silence any opinion which you don't like!

And yes, sometimes people don't get to every single reply within five minutes of their being posted! That's why I reply to five posts at one time. CLEARLY the posts have accumulated over time! Get over it, already! Geez!

If you REALLY dislike me that much, then just tell me to leave SOL and never come back. I will never do it, but at least I'd respect you for speaking the truth, rather than merely using passive aggressive techniques to hide your agenda.

And yes, I'm a very STRONG cup of tea. MANY people don't appreciate my strongly stated opinions, but I'd respect you more if you simply suggested I phase things more delicately than if you attack EVERY FRIGGIN' WORD I SAY!!!!

more readers = higher scores.

I'd say more readers is probably more votes. More votes = more accurate score because the statistical pool is larger.

I'd say more readers is probably more votes. More votes = more accurate score because the statistical pool is larger.

Thank you, Switch. Once again, I was typing too fast and didn't notice the "readers" instead of "votes". I was saying that the initial scores are probably unreliable because there's simply too small of a sample size, from too limited of a pool (i.e. everyone voting already either has a vested interest, or specific expectations).

Again, it has nothing whatsoever to do with a story getting better, and everything with the initial scores being questionable.

There are many gratuitous sex scenes in movies that add nothing to the plot or character development. They're there because the director believes their audience wants them. My guess is that's true for romance novels as well. Their target audience likes hot sex scenes.

It's not quite that superficial. The typical plot is girl sees someone they like, guy approaches, they flirt and 'work each other', something happens which distract them, and they eventually get together and have their happy ending (i.e. they become 'romantically attached). That sounds suspiciously like a PLOT to me!

It's not quite that superficial. The typical plot is girl sees someone they like, guy approaches, they flirt and 'work each other',

You're defining a certain genre. I think it was the second episode of "The Ranch" where Ashton Kushner went into a back room in his mother's bar with a girl who's supposed to be 18 in the show. He pushes her shorts down and shoves his hands inside the back of her panties. Then he lifts her onto the table and gets between her wide spread legs while she's going after his pants. His father walks in so it stops.

Sex for the sake of sex. There was some humor to it, but she didn't have to be in her panties with his hands inside them for the scene to work.

I hate to think what I write is as bad as the scores indicate, but hey, what do I know?

I've seen your stories posted and I recall reading some of them, I just don't recall their storyline or what I thought of them.

Overall I agree with what you say. No Sex and Minimal Sex stories do not score as well as stories with a lot of sex. I look at my story ratings and think part of the less than 8 ratings is due to my writing skills and part of it due to readers not finding as much sex as them want. My personal opinion is Authors need to be true to themselves. If you are happy with what you posted, then don't allow the subjective opinions of readers to ruin your satisfaction.

That sounds very true to me.

With sex stories you get the asshats who 1-bomb any story with content that is a squick for them, and the fan boys who will give a 10 to any story that feeds their kinks.

I don't think it's a few pervs registering all the 10 votes. Instead, I think that certain fans just like certain stories and vote them 10. Thus certain authors just get a LOT of 10 votes. No one is 'rigging' the system.

On the other hand, most times I've watched the behavior of 1-bombers, they post the 1-votes because they have a specific political issue with it (such as the inclusion of gays or politics they don't agree with), even when they continue reading each chapter (I get so few 1 votes, it USED to be easy to track them, before Lazeez started hiding the outermost 5% of scores).

I've always taken exception to the '10 vote fan boy' theory, because it includes MOST of my most loyal fans. I suspect that most simply don't read any of my stories they're not interested in, but the amount of 10 scores DOES vary over time, although the 1s rarely do (once you earn a 1 vote, chances are they'll vote 1 for EVERY story you ever post, just because you crossed an imaginary line in their 'political enemies' list).

I think you have it right DS. When or if one does not enjoy writing then there is little alternative but to stop.

Minimal and no sex seem to be the Kiss of death for SOL. A few(4) other writers still on SOL have similar opinions based on what they have told me.

This issue was well covered recently in a thread - Penalty for No Sex Stories

https://storiesonline.net/d/s2/t2584/penalty-for-no-sex-stories

Where a lot of research was done about the stories on SoL and the stats provided. In one post is the following:

There isn't enough data to give any definitive information, but they good indicators of some trends.

based on the 40,395 stories 10.13% are no sex stories. 6.16% (no sex = 1.44% - - sex stories = 4.72%) of stories score more than 8, and 3.87% (no sex = 0.09% - - sex stories = 2.92%) of stories score more than 9. When you split that as a percentage of the scoring group you get 23.38% of the 8+ scores and 25.36% of the 9+ scores from the no sex stories which are 10% of the total number of stories - - Which indicates the no sex stories score (on average) higher than the sex stories by a significant margin.


What's important to keep in mind is the scores aren't dependent on how well a story is or isn't written, but on how the story appeals to readers, which is more based on the plot and how the story itself unfolds. The writing quality is a part of that, but not as big as some people think.

BTW: The weighting takes into account a lot longer period than just a day, but I'm not sure exactly how big the period is - but some past periods covered years.

Most story sites insist on either no sex at all in the stories on the site, or stories on the site must have sex in them and all the characters are over 18 - some sites even insist every character must be over 18, even those not involved in having any sex. Some sites that insist on sex in the stories will reject minimal sex stories. SoL is the only site I've found that will allow the full range - other than Project Guttenberg, and they only accept Public Domain stories.

I would think those stats do not consider those stories written long ago or by authors who had gotten high scores before the changes in 2013 or so.

Don't mean to be negative but Most of the time my stories got a 1, 2 or 3 rating was before Laz let authors 'hide' their stories behind the 'paywall'. Don't recall any pay stories getting the 1's.

by authors who had gotten high scores before the changes in 2013 or so.

When I did those stats I wasn't looking at the dates they were written or posted, so you're right in they don't take their age into consideration. The option to have Premier Member Only stories has been around since the site started, I've got a sex story I posted behind the paywall back in 2010. The only change with the restricted stories is the recent decision to move the stories of inactive authors behind the paywall to encourage people to buy memberships by increasing the size of restricted stories.

About stats, I'm going with the intent of the section quoted being about stories posted since the last change in the scoring system around 2013. I'm fairly certain all the story votes since the last change are what are used for calculating the current weighted scores. Going from my story stats page, and keeping it to the stories posted in the last since February 2015 (the last 30 months) I've got 51 stories of which 27 are Clan Amir stories written years early and delayed in posting here which are no sex stories and score between 6.89 and 8.56 - most are short stories. Of the other 24 stories one is a very long much sex story with a score of 6.90 and the remaining 23 stories are mostly novel length no sex stories with scores between 7.02 and 8.57. Of my 105 stories posted during the last ten years my highest score is a no sex short story at 9.23 with the lowest being a much sex short story at 5.88. 89 stories score 7.00 or higher. & of my lowest scoring stories are much sex, while 2 of them are series information files and not real stories. The first of my highest scoring stories to have sex in it is in 14th place with 8.15 for a some sex story and the next story with sex is a short story in 47th place at 7.64 - which isn't surprising because of the 105 stories only 18 have sex in them. Time wise most of my top stories are from prior to 2015 with 9 being from 2015 and since, and the first of them is in 4th place.

I don't think my stats are typical of the site, but I don't think they're too far off the mean, either.

the usual typo edit - yes I use a 104 style keyboard variant.

Obviously there are 2 typos "*9" and "&". It's clear you used the keys above the character keys

thanks for pointing out the typo, I've a small key keyboard and sometimes hit multiple keys because my fingers are bigger than the keys - not sure why that combined og shift 8 happened.

Don't recall any pay stories getting the 1's.

If true, then 1-bombers don't want to pay for the privilege of 1-bombing all stories.

It's not uncommon for a chapter to have 20k words and no sex (just teen drama.)

That's one long-assed chapter (or long-pants chapter if there's no sex involved).

Minimal and no sex seem to be the Kiss of death for SOL.

Actually, story length plays a bigger role in score. Long stories have the advantage more-so than the amount of sex in it.

Actually, story length plays a bigger role in score. Long stories have the advantage more-so than the amount of sex in it.

I agree with that. It's true on all levels, but especially for the 50+ or 100+ stories, which might explain why so few 100+ authors continue writing. I'm guessing that they're either afraid to start with a new story, or start and immediately get discouraged that no one 'likes' their new stories as much as their older (longer) one.

I was told by a web helper, not Laz, that the reason none of my 120 stories get a score of 8 or more is because they are not erotic and have explicit sex in them. I have to think either my stories are really bad or that Asst was on to something since readers have scored some 8-10 85% of the time but SOL rates them 6 or 6.5. I had 2 editors for them, now 1 but other stories he has edited in the past were 8-9.

I'll admit, my earlier stories, which included frequent sex, incest and harem themes, had MUCH higher ratings (8s instead of 6s and 7s). The same is true with FS. My stories traditionally score higher on SOL than they do on FS (possibly because of the no-sex content allowed?).

I've been wondering all this time whether my readers have tired of my stories, or my more recent writing is weaker than my original work, but I'm now thinking it's simply that I no longer include nearly as much sex, and when I do, I only include it when absolutely necessary for the plot (largely because of complaints from a few readers, even though they're STILL my highest rated individual chapters).

Another aspect of completed stories that have been around for a while is that they're more likely to be recommended. The stories people like, they'll recommend to other people who will likely also like those stories. This can lead to some score increases, I figure.

Whereas abandoned stories, or those which frustrate readers because of a poor ending, rarely get recommended to anyone (Cmsix is excluded, as he stands in a class of his own)!

I have no idea how the decision is made to recommend which stories, but there seems to me to be a method that tends to recommend the same stories and authors over and over again.

The 'Similar Stories' is based entirely on story codes. Thus, if you write most of your stories along a similar line, those related stories will most likely show at least a few of your own stories—especially if there are any sequels. Otherwise, it'll show those which aren't too far off the mark. Unfortunately, I don't believe it takes the score or total number of downloads into account to adjust for the quality or popularity of the writing.

Please note "he" and "his" include she and her for authors without a Y chromosome.

Or a couple of them. I recall that, for those who have more than two sex-based chromosomes, it only takes two X's to be classified as female, though there are also several XYX males who are thoroughly cisgendered, even with two X chromosomes. In the case of multiple chromosomes (which is much more common than is commonly believed) it's a matter of the predominant chromosomes.

There are XY females. See, for instance, androgen insensitivity syndrome

It's no longer a simple two-chromosome world. Simple answers formed in a world without any conflicting evidence are falling before actual experimental data. Just as gays are not an 'abomination before God', so too is one's sex not determined by whether or not they have a "Y" in their chromosome.

Where medically validated situations, which are held to have odds of happening of 1 in ten(s of thousands) or even hundreds of thousands seems to become more common than the lifetime risk of contracting some form of (any) cancer.

You're quoting some very OLD studies. Recent studies (from say the last ten years) shows the number of multiple chromosome individuals (XXY, XYX, YXX, etc.) is much higher than ever previously guessed. That's because, as usually happens, they used to base their estimates on 'medical cases' (i.e. someone either has significant medical issues it gets shoved to the research department of major hospitals and someone writes articles about it in the medical journals.

That was also where the assumptions that being "gay" was a mental disorder, because the only people the medical establishment ever encountered were disturbed for other reasons, and only happened to be gay.

Now, however, with DNA sequencing being largely automated and producing relatively quick turnaround, they're discovering much more variability in sexual chromosomes. This includes multiple cases where certain 'parts' of a person's body will have a completely different DNA structure, so they might have twenty DNA tests, see nothing, but someone will draw blood from someplace unusual, and suddenly they're classified as a different sex! (By the way, that's thought to be the result of the egg splitting into two individuals, and then 'refolding' back into one, with part shunted off to the side by the predominant DNA.

With more and more kids coming forward, acknowledging that they're trans, the odds of running across one in most schools is definitely on the rise. It's certainly nowhere near 1%, but many high schools will have at least one and sometimes several openly trans students (while the others will be 'in the closet' about it, or only discover it later as adults).

@robberhands

I think the comparison between 'God's will' and dna-strands or genes is a bit problematic, to say the least.

That's why Einstein stated "God doesn't play dice with the universe". Instead, the mechanics are set up, and they unfold according to a specific set of rules, although they occur seemingly randomly.

That's why Einstein stated "God doesn't play dice with the universe".

Einstein was expressing his conviction that Quantum Mechanics was misguided.

AJ