Books with female POV protagonists, from classics like Jane Austen and Jane Eyre through more recent fiction like The Hunger Games or The Fault In Our Stars, do have male readers (though they’re probably in the minority)—I, a male, have read all of these.
But when you’re talking about “romance fiction” in the narrow, genre sense, you’re talking about books that are specifically designed to arouse certain feelings in the reader. The reader is supposed to identify with the viewpoint protagonist and vicariously experience what she experiences, and if “what she experiences” is mainly intended to be feelings of love, lust, infatuation, sexual desire, etc. toward a male character, that’s not going to appeal to heterosexual male readers.
I specifically avoided trying to define the genre because it’s tricky to do. For instance, a book mainly about the female protagonist’s feelings of “love, lust, infatuation, sexual desire, etc. toward a male character” would be pretty boring to me and I wouldn’t read it. And yet, I read books that folks would probably call “romances” and I enjoy them.
Regarding male authors of romances, Laura London was a pen name for the husband and wife writing team of Tom and Sharon Curtis. Jude Morgan is a male author who pens elegant romances. Oh, and back in the day, Fabio took a break from modeling for the covers and wrote a handful of bodice rippers. Ah, yes. There were pirates. (He did have a female co-author.)
Citing Jude Morgan and Fabio in the same breath is very disturbing.
I agree with **Spice Weasel **that the outcome is usually a healthy one – two people truly in love who settle down and make a life together, usually with children. It’s the getting there that is artificial. Both romance novels and a lot of romcoms start with the eventual lovers hating one another or having resistance to being together. This might make you think that when a woman says no, you should just keep trying because deep down she wants you. Or you should use a little bit of force to get her to make out with you because she just needs to get over her inhibitions and realize what she really feels. Can you see where this could go wrong?
Yeah, unfortunately I suppose, I already have that part covered, to the best of my knowledge. I didn’t think it made sense for her to recommend such books in order to learn about the “getting there.”
Yes, I do see where that can go wrong. In the case of the former scenario, it also meshes with cultural messages about how “you can do/get/be anything if you only try/want it hard enough/remain persistent…” I think that a reason that many people don’t seem to grasp that someone is “not that into them” is because if one has rarely or never experienced what it’s like when someone is “that into them”, one doesn’t know that such a response from someone is even a possibility, and may be unable to recognize it.
I don’t imagine romance stories accurately depict people without anyone into them, and/or people who are unable to perceive that interest when it does exist.
So, the conversation has moved on but I can’t pass up an opportunity to recommend the author Madeleine Brent, aka Peter O’Donnell. “She” wrote (chaste) romance novels, my favorite being Moonraker’s Bride, which is set in China and England during the Boxer Rebellion and is actually, legitimately, really good. One of the reason it’s so good is how real and likable the main female character is, and I was positively staggered to learn that Madeleine Brent was really a man, because how could a man have written the inner life of a girl so believably and well?? Will wonders never cease.
Even if that were true, grabbing one and assuming it holds true for every woman is akin to grabbing the manual for a particular dryer and assuming it holds true for every dryer there is.
None of them has ever had a period, though. Not a particularly good example.
One of the biggest differences between me and “men” (i.e., most other males) is this sex vs romance thing. I had a rough time of it between ages 12 and 21 because I was oriented at least as much towards romance as towards sex, at least as much as the girls were, that is, but it was difficult and complicated to operate against a backdrop in which it was assumed that malebodied people wanted sex in what was assumed to be an exploitative manner. I very actively wanted a girlfriend, wanted to fall in love, although yeah definitely I was as intrigued and fascinated by sex as any other young person.
Adding my mite, as a heterosexual male who reads and enjoys the occasional romance novel: I’m aware of anyway one male British author, romance-writing under a female pseudonym, a perfectly fine “mainstream” romance novel (set just-post-WWI) by whom I pretty-well enjoyed (unfortunately I forget both the title, and the author’s name – Louise something??).
Brought to mind by the discussion of male authors who attempt female POV characters and the relative rarity of same: another British male-author-writing-under-female-pseudonym re whom that situation strikes me as particularly quirky, is one Roy Clews: a former Royal Marine Commando, and French Foreign Legionnaire, who however chooses to write fiction under the pen-name of Sara Fraser. This bod’s novels are historical, rather than romance as such: they are numerous, all set in a particular small area of the English Midlands in the early 19th century. I find them seemingly knowledgeably researched, and good reads; if occasionally quite bizarre. His most popular cycle has a sympathetic and believable female protagonist (third-person narrative) – remarkably emancipated and daring for an 1830s Englishwoman of working-class background. Her love-life does feature in the novel cycle; but basically social conditions and strife, are what is to the fore there. Sara Fraser has written other novels in the same milieu, with male central characters.
Never worked on a dryer, eh? Not a lot to them and if you have the basics and don’t mind getting electrocuted a little any repair manual will do. As for their operation, the “instructions” are by the knobs to set the time and temperature and “push to start” is pretty self-explanatory.
I didn’t read all the replies, so what I say has likely already been said before. For men I think porn and music are the main outlets for romance (and I wouldn’t call porn romantic). Many popular songs written by men that men like are about love, loss and relationships.
The old dryer in my apartment building did not have a water bottle that needed to be emptied. The new one does. The “warning” light only says “warning”. Reading the old manual wouldn’t indicate that it comes up if:
the lint filter needs to be emptied,
the water bottle needs to be emptied,
the condenser needs to be cleaned.
In fact, the current one’s manual also does not indicate that, once the light comes on, it won’t go off until all three tasks have been done. Figuring so took someone who couldn’t even RTFM in the original but who had worked on a dryer before (I can also change the toner in photocopiers, resize photographs and put chains on tyres).