Do You Dare Read Romance if You're a Man?

If men didn't have a romantic inclination, our species would be a goner. But there's more. . .

Why don't men read more Romance books?

Maybe they think the books are primarily supposed to turn them on in the way that porn does, and it's a poor substitute for their partners, fantasies or movies. So, they think -- why bother? They want to see the images. They aren't as interested in the context and build up of desire as women are.

But that doesn't matter.

Why? Because that's usually not the reason to read a Romance novel. Sure, there's Erotic Romance that's primarily for that purpose, and men who prefer sexy images probably have no good reason to check those out.

Maybe reading Romance would make them question their masculinity. Or they worry someone would see them reading it.

Do you know how many women try to get their men to read Romance? How excited women would be if they knew you'd even read one book of that genre? You'd get so many more dates.

And you'd better know what to do on the dates to woo them, please them, inspire them, and keep them.

Maybe you don't realize how many men read Classic Romance. Or how many you've already read. No doubt you were assigned some in school. Do you think that was because your schoolmarm wanted to watch you squirm in your seat with lust?

Examples:

The Graduate

The French Lieutenant's Woman

The Great Gatsby

Lady Chatterley's Lover

The Time-Traveler's Wife

A Farewell to Arms Wuthering Heights Great Expectations

Madam Bovary

The Princess Bride

A Room with a View Doctor Zhivago Women in Love

Anna Karenina

Jayne Eyre

Far from the Madding Crowd

Rebecca

A Tale of Two Cities

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

My Cousin Rachel

The Story of O

So, you'd be embarrassed by being seen with those books? Not hardly. Romance is just a model for how to organize a narrative, which can be about all kinds of topics besides just the relationship. It doesn't mean it's shallow and predictable, trashy and delusional, a toss-away written in a month to read in a day before moving on to the next one. I mean, sure, there's a huge Romance audience addicted that way, but that's not what all Romance is like. Romance books can be funny, profound, with heavy-duty social commentary, have important warnings about futuristic science, be intertwined with Mystery or Suspense, immerse you in history, and they're often adapted into movies that are popular with both sexes. Men read my Romance novels as much as women do. The books are about vastly more than boy meets girl. Encore is about topics such as cults, feeling second-rate and wishing for someone else's life, insider trading, social engineering through the occult beliefs in Shambhalla and Atlantis, the violent history of Tibetan Tantric Buddhism, ancient alchemy and magick, hypnotism and so much more. Don't close down your choices, men. Open up to the joys of novels about so many things besides the relationship -- that is molded on the skeleton of Romance.