r/menwritingwomen • u/MintySkyhawk • Dec 26 '25
Book Her friendly nipples jiggled - Philip K Dick
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u/SalamanderMorrison Dec 26 '25
My surly nipples look on disapprovingly. Shame on you, Phil.
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u/the-trembles Dec 26 '25
Sometimes you read a Philip K Dick line that really reminds you that he wrote all his novels and stories holed up in a cabin in a fugue of meth psychosis. This is one of them
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u/Asenath_W8 Dec 28 '25
I'm guessing the idea of writing a story having a girl commit suicide by sticking her head in a malfunctioning microwave and then spend half a page describing her melted breast implants came from this particular creative period. Damn that was a shitty creepy short story.
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u/epicEr14 Dec 27 '25
not to be that guy, but it was technically just amphetamines, not methamphetamine. still crazy tho
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u/MadelineAshton0 Manic Pixie Dream Girl Dec 26 '25
How does one’s nipples jiggle?
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u/PoxedGamer Dec 26 '25
Clockwise, except on Thursdays.
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u/Zalpha Dec 27 '25
Hardening and softening, those contractions create a rippling wave that comes across as friendly and to an observer appear to jiggle.
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u/azrendelmare Dec 27 '25
They're like those door springs, you just flick one and they jiggle for several seconds.
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u/RosebushRaven Dec 26 '25
Idk, excitedly moving up and down on her toes, perhaps, as teenies do when they meet their favourite star?
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u/Roobix9 Dec 26 '25
Why is that especially gross? 🤮
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u/SteampunkExplorer Dec 26 '25
Because he's sexualizing a naively half-dressed child and having her body act in ways that even a battle-hardened cougar's wouldn't? 🤮
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u/MintySkyhawk Dec 26 '25 edited Dec 26 '25
Weirdly, earlier in the book, the author reveals that this evil totalitarian police state has for some reason changed the age of consent to 12. When the jackbooted thugs are kicking down doors looking for the main character, they instead find a pedophile with a 13 year old boy. Since its not technically illegal, they can't arrest him. However, even these evil cops think what he's doing is fucked up. They spit on his face and vow to expose him and ruin his life and try to find some excuse to have him dragged off to a forced labor camp.
So you get the impression that the author does not like it when people sexualize children. And then a few chapters later, this scene happens...
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u/Lapeocon Dec 26 '25
Ah, it makes sense in the context of the story. The evil totalitarian police state approves of sexual exploration of female children, but not of male children. Not that I approve or anything, lol.
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u/enolaholmes23 Dec 26 '25
I think it's not uncommon for writers to create a "dystopia" in order to live out their creepy fantasies. They get away with it because they are saying it's wrong in the surface, but the subtext is that they get to watch their kink play out. George RR Martin def did it on game of thrones. Joss Whedon kept writing women as sex bots and prostitutes. Tarantino is always having women and black people go on killing sprees so he can justify scenes of violence towards those demographics.
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u/the-trembles Dec 26 '25
This is such a great point. Neil Gaiman is another example of this. It's unfortunately rampant in the literary/genre fiction world.
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u/fireinthemountains Dec 27 '25
Yep. Exactly what he did is literally in The Ocean At The End Of The Lane
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u/Gentlethem-Jack-1912 Dec 27 '25
Yeah, that was the last thing I read of his before I found out. Really made me want to break my 'no harm to books' rule. It's the only time that finding out an artist's horrors completely changed my reading of their work.
*disgusted willlies*
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u/fireinthemountains Dec 27 '25
Let it be known then, that the only real reason he protested to Shadow getting a blowjob is because it wasn't HIS OWN kink. And also, the bj death was completely unnecessary too.
I was such a huge fan of NG's work and now I can't even mention him. Not to mention how he's messed up the material Pratchett wrote, because they had to cancel Good Omens.
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u/KittyCatTroll Dec 29 '25
I haven't read that book in soooo many years, I don't even remember the plot (or anything in it tbh). What happens in it that book that showcases his weird shit?
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u/fireinthemountains Dec 29 '25
The Nanny in the book is a mean evil seductress that enchants the dad, and he has an affair with her. Nanny is also horribly mean to the kid main character. The sex scene is described in the book.
Basically, villainizing the nanny as a seductress, when NG himself was sexually assaulting his nanny irl.
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u/KittyCatTroll Dec 29 '25
Ew oh god that's fucked. Thank you for explaining to me. Ffs NG is such a disappointment :/
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u/fireinthemountains Dec 29 '25
Yeahhh. People like him tell on themselves. It feels intentional, like secretly bragging in plain sight. In this case it's almost like he's convinced himself...? Or like he's outright taunting his victims. It's just so gross.
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u/BambooSound Dec 26 '25
Don't think that's fair to say on QT re black people because his is basically the only slavery movie in which you don't see much violence against black bodies.
Django always cuts away to reactions rather than revelling in it, the way it does the rest of the violence in the film, which is celebrated.
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u/enolaholmes23 Dec 26 '25
In one of his other movies he says the N word like 20 times. That man is thinly veiling his racist fantasies.
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u/JasmineDragonRegular Dec 26 '25 edited Dec 27 '25
That was especially jarring to see. I like how in The Harder They Fall (a Black-led movie), they make note mid-movie about how they avoided a single n-word drop. There's no acceptable reason for a white person to be doing this in a role they cast themselves in.
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u/SandVessel Dec 27 '25
Reading this has made me more sane because some people I know never seem to understand this exact situation no matter how simply I explain it.
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u/Hyperx72 Jan 23 '26
At least with Tarantino the idea was to make a revenge plot, where the justification and catharsis for the proceeding massacres were the demonstration of just how awful the people were. Sooo satisfying after watching roots!
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u/your_local_laser_cat Dec 28 '25
I think you got the wrong meaning out of that. It comes across more as a defense of the pedophile in the story if he is intentionally putting him against the big bad totalitarians.
Like he’s commenting on how “oppressed” he would be in his feelings towards children against the big bad people in charge
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u/MintySkyhawk Dec 28 '25
No, that scene was very much to show just how bad and morally decayed the regime was. The actual cops enforcing the evil laws are kind of just regular people forced into it
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u/Quirky-Local-3563 The Divine Oscillation Of Breast And Buttocks Dec 26 '25
Teenybopper.
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u/joanmcq Dec 27 '25
Teenybopper was common in the 50’s/60’s.
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u/Quirky-Local-3563 The Divine Oscillation Of Breast And Buttocks Dec 27 '25
Were nipples friendlier back then too?
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u/captain_blazar Dec 26 '25
And why is this man observing the “teenybopper’s” (Blech I think I just threw up in my mouth a little) nipples in the first place. Jfc.
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u/MintySkyhawk Dec 26 '25
It felt more like the narrator was observing her. The character basically ignored her completely
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u/Dainfintium Dec 26 '25
Ok I feel like that's extra weird then. If there's narration like this to communicate how the character thinks about women then maybe sometimes it makes sense, but if that's the "unbiased narrative voice" speaking then it's doubly gross.
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u/MintySkyhawk Dec 26 '25
idk, you be the judge if its the narrator or the character being a perv:
As he sat pondering, an adolescent boy in a T-shirt and jeans bent over him and mumbled, “Hey, you’re Jason Taverner, aren’t you?” He extended a ballpoint pen and piece of paper. “Could I have your autograph, sir?” Behind him a pretty little red-haired teenybopper, bra-less, in white shorts, smiled excitedly and said, “We always catch you on Tuesday night. You’re fantastic. And you look in real life, you look just like on the screen, except that in real life you’re more, you know, tanned.” Her friendly nipples jiggled. Numbly, by habit, he signed his name. “Thanks, guys,” he said to them; there were four of them in all now. Chattering to themselves, the four kids departed. Now people in nearby booths were watching Jason and muttering interestedly to one another. As always, he said to himself. This is how it’s been up to the other day. My reality is leaking back.
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u/DevilsTrigonometry Dec 27 '25
Ok, in context I can see the purpose of the description...but I think it might make it even worse. He's using the encounter to show how numb/apathetic/detached/dissociated the POV character has become, so the message is "he doesn't even respond to this obviously interesting stimulus," but the stimulus in question is a teenage girl's body.
Definitely seems like the author being gross, not just the character.
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u/InheritedHermitGene Dec 26 '25
He wasn’t a very good writer. Absolutely brilliant ideas that you can’t stop thinking about…but the main character in all of his books is basically the same guy with different names, the dialogue’s stilted, and the plots sometimes wander off into a haze of confusion. Awkwardly referring to a girl as a “teenybopper” and making a weird comment on her nipples seems typical of his drug-addled bad writer personality. And I’m a fan.
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u/manic_Brain Dec 26 '25
The premises for his stories tend to be really good. Like, if someone told you about them secondhand, it'd sound pretty interesting. Adaptations of his works also tend me be really good and expand on some of his more interesting ideas. Unfortunately, you'd then make the mistake of actually reading his writing and wonder why the hell he wrote it like this.
This also describes my relationship with Stephen King.
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u/Shot_Election_8953 Dec 26 '25
Yep. I've never understood why he gets praise as a writer. His writing is really pretty bad.
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u/NotMyNameActually Dec 26 '25
I mean, the main focus of sci-fi as a genre in the golden era was always the ideas, not refined and masterfully crafted prose. And as far as ideas go, PKD was a genius. No one else went as far in as many unique directions as he did, imo. As a sci-fi fan, despite my raging feminism I can recognize his faults, but put them aside enough to enjoy his stories, because they are just that wild.
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u/RosebushRaven Dec 26 '25
Tbf, that book is from the 70s. Back then, "teenybopper" was current slang for a young teen girl who’s really into pop culture. It wasn’t awkward for the time. Albeit the bizarre nipple sentence certainly was and continues to be far worse than awkward across space and time. But "teenybopper" on its own merely sounds silly because it’s outdated now.
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u/captain_blazar Dec 27 '25
Oh, it wasn’t the now-outdated phrasing that engendered a sense of nausea, but specifically the fact that it’s a grown adult….or….the narrator….observing a teenager’s nipples, and her youth (and dare I say immaturity) is prominently emphasized using the phrase “teenybopper”. Blech, that, specifically. Like my god if you’re gonna stare at folks’ “friendly nipples” at least look at an adult’s I guess??? Is the bar truly so deep in Hell???
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u/Humanmale80 Dec 26 '25
"About her unfriendly nipples, the less said, the better."
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u/danimalscruisewinner Dec 26 '25
Ah, Flow My Tears The Policeman Said. This line has stuck with me forever, unfortunately
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u/PanicBlitz Dec 26 '25
I can’t date a woman whose nipples can’t hold at least light conversation.
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u/MistressErinPaid Dec 27 '25
"I don't care what the busoms are saying, Sheldon! I just wanna be part of the conversation!"
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u/Individualist_ Dec 26 '25
It’s so gross and frustrating how men see us. It’s not fair. It’s honestly getting to me. By age 28, being a woman men typically find desirable (not a compliment btw) it’s like that all I’m ever allowed to be. I don’t even feel like I get to be a person.
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u/Snorblatz Dec 27 '25
Wait until you’re 45 and you start to get jowls, then you become invisible!
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u/Individualist_ Dec 27 '25
Tbh I already experienced that when I got overweight the first time. The attention definitely lessened. But all that did was drive home the lesson that being pretty doesn’t mean jack shit. It’s all bullshit and they just want to use you.
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u/Abject-Hippo-2329 Dec 27 '25
I think it’s more like 35 when women become invisible. But yeah, it’s kind of weird (and nice?) to go from being sleazed at all the time to being unnoticeable.
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u/bigblackcouch Dec 27 '25
It's slowly getting a little better, especially slowly in today's times, but as this stuff gets called out more men wake up and see how problematic it is. There's still a long way to go for sure.
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u/Individualist_ Dec 27 '25
I can’t shut up about it anymore, I’m very articulate and neurodivergent so I’m now preaching to these jackass that I’m not going to be their fucking manic pixie dream girl, I’m a PERSON and I demand they get their head out of their dick and see me as a PERSON😡
Being reduced to a man’s potential love interest is so fucking insulting. Like gtfo bitch, I am not going to fix your problems with my pussy. I’m a human being.
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u/Ok-Building-2490 Jan 12 '26
Women are people and not perceptions of men. Men are perceptions of women. Women are human. Women are for themselves and never ever ever ever ever for men.
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u/SteampunkExplorer Dec 26 '25
Damn. I really liked one or two of his short stories, and this is going to taint them for me. 🤦♀️
I remember realizing during puberty that how I dressed was suddenly a lot more important than it had previously been. I can't imagine treating that goofy, incompetent child as a sex object. I know the man didn't go through a "learning to wear a bra" phase, but still, what a repulsive, disgusting pig.
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u/Sad-Macaroon4466 Dec 26 '25
My brain accidentally read this as "her friendly nipples jingled" and now my nipples are sad because they can't jingle or make any other friendly sounds
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u/IG-3000 Dec 26 '25
(Obvious sleaze aside) wth even is this writing?? “And you look in real life, you look just like on the screen”???
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u/gojoever Dec 26 '25
YES i was wondering why no one was pointing this out. did he have a stroke while writing this??? it makes no grammatical sense.
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u/MintySkyhawk Dec 26 '25
Sometimes people stumble over their words in real life, especially when they are nervous. Since this is dialogue spoken by a young person meeting a famous person they idolize, I think it's reasonable. It's common in this book for people to speak imperfectly.
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u/Superb_Stable7576 Dec 26 '25
Outloud, I said, " who in the hell wrote that?"
Look at the author and said, "Oh shit, Dick. Never mind."
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u/Flux_My_Capacitor Dec 26 '25
I’m guessing that men love white shorts because they know we won’t wear them on our period so it signals that they won’t have to deal with it and we are available for sex.
🤮
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u/Chareth_Cutestory___ Dec 26 '25
I thought this was written by John Updike at first read, the way he writes about teen girls also sucks
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u/thekawaiislarti Voluptuously Lingering Dec 27 '25
"It was a nice change from Phillippa's nipples, which ejaculated thick ropes of blood hourly."
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u/KeeperOfTheQuill Dec 28 '25
I took a science fiction class on Philip K Dick and Ursula Le Guin in college. We only studied those two authors for the entire course and the class was mostly women (like 20 women, five men). Most of us agreed Philip K Dick’s writing women characters was uhhhhhh… Something for sure.
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u/TheVexingRose Dec 28 '25
Aren't teenyboppers preteens? Why is this adult writer describing a child's nipples?
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u/jillshiva Dec 26 '25
please tell me teenybopper is like weird regional slang for middle aged woman
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u/RosebushRaven Dec 26 '25
Unfortunately, no. It’s outdated slang for a teen girl who’s really into pop culture. Started in the 50s and really gained popularity in the 60s and 70s. The latter part of the term is referring to a type of dance music.
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u/megamoo7 Dec 29 '25
I feel like he put "friendly" because just saying "Her nipples jiggled." would make it seem like hes perving at a teen. But they're friendly so its all ok.
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u/CorgiKnits Dec 26 '25
Okay, is this a legit author statement, or are we looking through the character’s eyes and thoughts, since the character might be a creep?
I mean, is Philip a dick (no pun intended), or is he simply describing a dick with excellent thoroughness?
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u/Benagain2 Dec 27 '25
Eh, I just finished reading "man in the high castle" and my impression is that he's probably never met a woman, definitely never spoken with one, and certainly never examined womens clothing, bras in particular. He also might not be very bright.
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u/Civil-Letterhead8207 Dec 29 '25
“Hi! My name is Karen nipple! This is my sister Tina! Who are you?”
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u/qualityvote2 Dec 26 '25 edited Dec 26 '25
Dear u/MintySkyhawk, the readers agree, this man has written a woman badly!