People have been asking why men don’t read fiction. It was invented for women, it was always targeted mostly at women, and it’s consumed mostly by women for the past 200 years. (Before that, very few people read at all). Why is it so?
Because of their different physiology, men and women have a different relationship with time. A woman’s greatest work happens when she isn’t doing anything. Pregnancy is mostly waiting around. We don’t actively build a child. Our bodies do that by themselves. Of course, labor itself is hard labor but everything before it kind of just involves existing.
This is why women are physiologically more adapted to non-utilitarian pursuits. We know at a very deep level that it’s not necessary to do anything useful or productive to render our crowning achievement. Not only pregnancy but also taking care of a child involves a lot of just waiting around.
Men, on the other hand, never gained any evolutionary advantage from doing useless things. Just lying there for hours as a happy recipient of art with no goal as to how to use it in practice doesn’t feel right. As a boy, yes, because you are waiting to grow up. As a man, though, it just feels weird.
Men will read if they find a practical, utilitarian explanation for why they are doing it. When N started reading Demon Copperhead, he wondered what the purpose of doing it was. Then he decided to put the activity into his productivity time tracker under the category “Personal Betterment”, and he’s now fine with it. Men are much likelier to read non-fiction because they can see it as something useful. “I’m reading this to understand how things work” makes more sense to them than “I invested 23 hours of my life into finding out how these non-existent people met, courted and married”.
Of course, men who read fiction after adolescence and before retirement exist. But go to the nearest bookstore, observe the entire carrels of Colleen Hoover’s books at the entrance followed by several tables of mommy-lit, pink beach reads, and the extraordinary number of novels with the words “wife” and “mother” in the title, and tell me if you honestly believe these men aren’t a small minority. A great minority. A minority I love. But a minority, nonetheless.
Men are made to feel bad about not being “more like women” in this respect but this is unfair. People simply follow their body rhythms. Physiology is not a moral category. Nobody is better or worse for relating to time as their physiology prompts them to do.
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Many of the ones who do still enjoy fiction are reading space opera stuff. You don’t have to put up a nice display and advertise it to them, though– they’ll find it on their own. I like a good space opera myself– currently reading Corey’s Cibola Burn and enjoying it immensely. I think it is not nearly as huge a market as mommy lit and romance, though.
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Science fiction on the other hand is mostly a manly affair.
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The other “mystery” is why the gender gap has gotten much bigger than it used to be. But looking at bookstore shelves, it’s easy to figure out. There used to be a lot more fiction targeted at men. If you’re a man and you’re not into sci fi or thrillers…good luck. Men who do read fiction tend to retreat into those genres, or the classics if they’re especially literary (but usually still alongside sci fi ime.)
I like your theory here but I’m not sure I buy it. Men don’t seem to struggle to watch TV shows, and in fact are far more obsessed with The Sopranos, etc. than women ever will be. It also doesn’t jive with my particular difficulties, but that’s only about me.
I think my problem is I struggle to read a novel gradually, in short chunks of time (ex. the length of my lunch break), which means I have to set aside special time for it. I have discovered some novels work for this though.
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Are you a man or woman? I’ve read your comments for years and have always thought you were a woman, but apologies if I’ve been mentally misgendering you, ha.
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Man, but gay and therefore more androgynous
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Screens are a completely different story, though. We can compare screens among themselves but with no other activity.
I don’t talk about this much because people have abnormal reactions but screens are so strong that they tear every evolutionary skill to shreds. Millions of mothers willingly stick a screen between themselves and their newborns. The screens are short-circuiting our brains and we don’t even notice.
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I don’t disagree, that’s why I spent many years reading stupid, repetitive blog posts and articles online before giving up that waste of time. Medium is definitely relevant here, both in the sense of print vs. film and screen vs. non-screen. Women seem more adapted to print for whatever reason.
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French men read (and write).
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Writing is a productive act, so completely different.
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I think you’re onto something. I know a number of men who only read nonfiction, but those same men will also watch plenty of TV as it’s low intellectual engagement. My husband does read fiction, maybe 1-2 books per month, tops. He does watch much more TV shows than I do and he loves podcasts (which I cannot stand). I’ve almost completely stopped watching shows. I watch one evening a week with him (some dramas and sci-fi), and I read or write the rest of my free time while he watches shows/listens to podcasts.
I know a number of fiction writers, and even among them I would say I read more (the sheer amount) and more varied fare (in terms of genre) than almost all of them, certainly more than those men I know who are writers and who, like me, don’t have literature as their main career. I also read every genre of fiction and can (and do) beta read thrillers, mystery, sci-fi, horror, fantasy, etc., but the male writers I know read much more narrowly in terms of genre (for instance, only horror and fantasy, but wouldn’t touch literary fiction or mystery).
An interesting discussion came up regarding romance, that is a primarily a women’s genre, albeit 18% of the readership are men. One of my male writer friends used the term “the theater of the mind” as something that works for women much better than for men, which is why women love to read about sex (and get turned on by reading), while written sex doesn’t do much for most men, who prefer to watch other people having it instead. Even beyond romance, I feel like “the theater of the mind” argument might hold water, and women simply find it more engrossing and emotionally satisfying to create whole worlds populated by fictional characters in their minds than men do. It seems to go along the same lines as playing with dolls, which helps little girls develop facility with real-world interpersonal relationships, which are largely women’s domain. Men don’t seem to be nearly as interested in or invested in real-world relationships, so it makes sense they wouldn’t crave to read about fictional ones, either. As someone said, “Women care about people; men care about things.” Oversimplification, of course, but not entirely without merit.
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Oh, I remember how when I was much younger we had a conversation about pornography in mixed company. The male participants were stunned when they discovered that women preferred pornographic stories instead of visual imagery. It was so funny because they just couldn’t get it. It went on and on, with guys asking somewhat helplessly, “But how can it be? But where do you find these… stories?”
As for creating a world in your mind, I have one that I created when I was 7 or 8, and I still play it every day. Are there men who do it? Just for themselves? With characters and sceneries?
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The men who do this are often into fantasy and sci fi novels with complex worldbuilding. Think Lord of the Rings. Not that everyone who’s into those is doing their own worldbuilding.
I’ve always been imaginative, and it’s probably partially because I was raised to be. When I was very young, my mother and I would tell a long, ongoing story about “adventures in Junk Food Land” together. Whatever I used to imagine when I was 8 is likely no longer appealing to me though. It’s hard to say because I barely even remember what I thought about then.
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Haha! I once referred to a friend’s drawer full of romance novels as her “porn stash”. I have never seen her so flustered. Dang. I thought everybody knew that.
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“romance novels as her “porn stash””
When did that happen? Many years ago for complicated reasons I ended up reading a half dozen or so harlequin type books. What I noticed was that the oldest ones were very… non-physical… they didnt so much as kiss… they barely even spoke to each other before finally confessing their love on the last page.
Later ones used hilariously awkward indirect language ‘firm and strong, he found himself enveloped by her tenderness’…
It’s my understanding they’re much more… explicit now….
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15 years, more or less?
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…but I wasn’t referring to the content. I don’t read the things, so I have no idea how explicit or nonexplicit they are. I just knew they served much the same purpose for women as visual porn for men.
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Well, romance isn’t the counterpart to (video) porn — erotica is. Erotica is usually shorter than romance (typically short story or novelette length, occasionally novella, virtually never novel length) and the goal is to turn the reader on and get them off quickly. There is no requirement of relationship development or anything like a real conflict or dramatic arc. Btw, the readership for erotica is evenly split in terms of gender; plenty of men both read and write erotica.
Romance is typically longer (novella and novel length) and the development of the romantic relationship (and associated conflicts, internal and/or external) is central to the plot. Also necessary is a HEA (happily ever after) or HFN (happily for now) ending, and anyone who says HEA/HFN isn’t critical isn’t writing genre romance; they are writing something else (women’s fiction; literary fiction; whatever else) with a romantic subplot. Romance readers constantly get annoyed by people trying to sell them (’cause they want the sweet sweet romance dollars) books that aren’t genre romance. Again, genre romance has the relationship arc as absolutely central to the plot and must end in HEA/HFN. It mixes very well with other genres, like horror, mystery, sci-fi, fantasy (there’s a romantasy subgenre) etc., but again — relationship development culminating in HEA/HNF. Only 18% of the readership are men, and there are very few male romance writers.
As for so-called levels of spice (explicitness of sex) in romance, you will see it denoted on Goodreads and sometimes on Amazon with the number of chili peppers. You have a lot of variety these days, from 0 (religious, Amish, clean—no touching whatsoever), to 1 (maybe a kiss at the end), 2 (some kissing, closed-door sex), 3 (some explicit sex, but relatively tame, not elaborately written and probably no more than 2-3 scenes, and the language isn’t too profane), 4 (several explicit sex scenes, swearwords and colloquialisms used for body parts, but generally just on-page sex between the main pair, maybe the use of some more mainstream toys and maybe some light bondage), to 5 (taboo, BDSM, various other kinks, multipartner sex, etc.). Btw, if you were to rate erotica on the scales of romance spice, it would be 4 or 5, but erotica is basically stripped of all relationship building and conflict and drama that are central to romance. (And the best romance novelists are simply excellent writers, period. Many write in other genres, often under different pen names.)
Anyway, clearly we have stumbled upon my area of interest LOL. Here’s a good guide regarding levels of heat/spice:
https://www.romancerehab.com/chili-pepper-heat-rating-scale.html
The blog author also gives some good recommendations in different subgenres and/or using different tropes, although I personally don’t always agree. However, her blog is a great place to start if you’re interested in various subgenres, tropes, etc. I’m also always happy to chat more.
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That is… way more than I knew about it previously. Thanks for this handy guide 🙂
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