By Alyssa J. Montgomery
My husband is an avid reader. He's frequently
asked whether or not he reads my novels and the answer is a resounding ‘No.’
Now, he’s a pretty romantic guy who has penned me quite a bit of verse over the
last 30+ years for special occasions (birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine’s
Day) and they’ve been better than any Hallmark Card he could’ve bought.
I have never asked him to read my contemporary romances because I know if he did he’d simply shake his head at them—wouldn’t be able to relate to all the emotional push-pull and would probably have a very cut and dried unemotional way to get the hero and heroine together on page 1. (Men are from Mars and Women are From Venus!!)
I insisted he read my
medieval romances (after all the first is dedicated to him and he is the Knight
of My Heart!) and his comments were that it was ‘pretty good’, that I wrote ‘hot
sex scenes’ and that ‘there was way too much introspection’. He explained that
men don’t think like that—they don’t ‘go back and forward and think about all
the things that could be’ they just ‘pick a course of action and go for it’!!
Well, there’s one male perspective.
According to the Romance
Writers of America, 18% of romance readers who took one of their recent surveys
identified as male. Of course it may be that an even greater percentage of
romance readers are men and aren’t RWA members. Maybe there are some who do
read romance and don’t admit it?
I know I have male readers
and reviewers. I also know that there are many women who would never pick up a
romance novel just as I know there are plenty of male romance authors and that there have even been romance books written by a husband and wife team. But why
don’t more men read romance?
Here are a few reasons
that have been suggested in a plethora of articles on the topic ...
1. Some may be afraid of
censure for reading romance because romance is stigmatised and many believe the
novels are associated with femininity or they simply don’t understand what
romance novels are about. This may tie in with societal conditioning with
subconscious conditioning that they shouldn’t read romances?
2. They may be daunted by the
fabulous qualities of the hero in romance novels and believe it is too much to
live up to?
3. They may feel that the
female protagonists are too strong and too independent?
4. The majority of romance
books are written by women and so men may feel that the male POV is skewed?
(Below image courtesy of Giphy)
5. Reading may be too
cerebral and not visceral enough for some men?
6. Fewer men than women read
novels regardless of the genre?
7. They may feel that romance
novels are unrealistic?
It’s funny to me, though,
that so many other genres have romantic elements to them. Tom Clancy’s character
Jack Ryan developed a romance with a doctor who became his wife and there’s
plenty of romance in Ken Follet’s Pillars
of the Earth and in George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones. I wonder if male readers skipped over the
development of the romances in these novels? To my mind the developing romances
made them much more interesting and realistic!
Love to Love: Men who
are proud romance readers!
Love to Laugh: At
some of the disparaging comments I’ve heard men (and women) make about romance
novels. (Gotta laugh!)
Love to Learn: Why do
you think that the number of female romance readers far outweighs the number of
male romance readers?
