No Fiction for Straight Men

How male readers are set up for failure

No Fiction for Straight Men

By Phil Rot

A Straight Man Reading A Book

"Every book contains a million little treasures, these treasures are sometimes referred to as ‘words.’"

— Phil Rot, Famous Author and Thinker

Recently, there’s been some discussion over the apparent lack of male fiction enjoyers, and given my own experience as a straight male reader who reads and is male, I was unable to resist addressing the topic in the most heterosexual manner possible.

My story begins in elementary school, perhaps as early as the second grade. After having been forced to read one too many girl-coming-of-age-during-(insert historic setting novels), I remember coming to the conclusion that my teachers, mostly female, had little to no concern regarding the literary interests of their male students. Nearly every piece of fiction they had us read was geared unabashedly toward feminine sensibilities.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with feminine literature; shockingly, women enjoy themes of complex emotions, the development of interpersonal relationships, and the subtle, sensual wonders of nature or some shit. I’m sure there’s a contingent of young men and boys who like this gay shit too. As for me, it was pure tedium.

Just look at this shit

The stories and novels we were assigned all seemed to fall under one of five categories:

1. Immigrant girl adjusting to life in America (parents can't speak English, girl gets picked on for eating rice for lunch etc. etc.)

2. Soft-ass boy forms a bond with an animal that his emotionally distant dad eventually kills

3. “OMG, I'm in a concentration camp, but my quirky family members somehow lighten the mood before they are killed while I miraculously survive to tell the tale (never again, goy!)”

4. The inspiring story of the first black _______.

5. The inter-generational transference of a family doll or dress (holy fuck, these were the worst)

This was a while back. God only knows what they make kids read nowadays. If modern consumer culture is any indication, things have only gotten fruitier.

Given what I was forced to read in school, I had every reason never to pick up a book again. According to my assigned reading, literature was merely a vehicle for women and minorities’ grievances with American society.

Fortunately, my dad read to me. He read us the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy (before the theatrical slopifications), the Narnia series, Dracula, Frankenstein, Roald Dahl, and Louis Sachar, and even made up his own stories about a nice pirate. I wish I could remember the pirate’s name; it was Kino.

Having been exposed to stuff that was actually fun to read, I knew that literature didn’t have to be gay. It could be about monsters, war, moral ambiguities, violence, redemption, principles, and time machines. Yet here I was, stuck reading this shit:

Gayyyyyy

According to various studies (MossadGPT), 50% of parents read to their kids every day. Do you believe this? I don’t. In my headcanon, 70% of parents in America sit their kids in front of a tablet with Cocomelon while they get ready for their Tinder dates. This means kids get most, if not all, of their literary experience administered through the public education system.

The State Board of Edu-GAY-tion*

Man-cels BTFO’d again

Literature selection for public schools is a state-by-state system. All one has to do is look up your state or county’s board of education to figure out how we got here. I guarantee you that whoever is appointed to determine the selection of literature in your state is a woman, and there is a 60% chance that woman is either a minority or 78% she is a Jewish lesbian; (all these statistics have been fact-checked as “mostly true” by the way.)

So it’s no wonder I was forced to suffer through books about girls on wagons, dolls, Mexican recipes, black baseball players, and holocaust survivors, all pushed through a uniquely feminine lens, one that put irreconcilable emotions and lyrical prose above a gripping story, hordes of axe wielding orcs, or even a good sense of humor, and due to this black hole of humor, there was no levity to offset the tedium.

I heard tales of kids getting to read books with a more male perspective, books like Catcher in the Rye and 1984. But alas, I had to read Cry the Beloved Country and The Diary of Anne Frank instead. I was thankfully spared the Color Purple, but still had to watch the Oprah-led theatrical adaptation.

As a result, many of my book reports became a combination of reciting the summary on the back of the book and bugging the ugly, smart girl next to me for the Sparknotes. I was still reading, mind you, but it was authors I found interesting like John Bellairs, R L Stine, and eventually Stephen King, James Herbert, and William S Burroughs (I refused to read Harry Potter based as I found precocious British children insufferable).

I’m Something of a Reader Myself

As an unrepentant Sigma Male Thought Warrior, I can appreciate being out of place early on in life, a boy who actually read non-assigned books. I believe things weren’t always this way, that at one point, unapologetically male authors featured prominently in the public education system. Why they would gladly hand over the reins of power to coastal lesbians, lort only knows. Perhaps they became convinced reading was for women anyway, better to pursue wealth/status accumulation than concern themselves with intellectual pursuits (something poors do to feel important). Whatever the reason, men have to take partial accountability for the part they played in their abandonment of the arts.

All is not lost, and everything plays out like a pendulum. With the advent of the internet, it's now easier than ever for straight boys to find something interesting to read, even if it’s just creepypasta, manga, or anthropomorphic Lit RPGs; I'm sure it is ten times better than the saccharine grievance slop they are assigned in class.

I've also noticed an uptick in the appreciation of literature in general (perhaps a byproduct of the oversaturation of mindless capeshit romps and studio remakes), and while the market and industry are unapologetically female-dominated, I see a cultural shift occurring, one in which straight men, despite the odds, break out of the Andrew Tate style grug box they’ve been relegated to by public education and the commercial publishing Industry.

There are serious thinkers emerging from the most verboten of male spaces, and I’m excited to see what emerges. Who will be the incel Tom Clancy? Or the transphobic Stephen King? Maybe it’s YOU, the transphobic incel reading this article! Yes, you have my permission to be a king. Who knows, it just might get you laid.

Postscript

I see a day when all straight boys and men buy my new novel, The Raft, available for preorder now using this link, print edition available January 6 (lol). Of course, women will also buy it, strictly out of intellectual curiosity or disdain.

So if writers like Georgina (Floyd) Elliott of Dazed are asking where all the straight male readers are, you can tell her to buy my new novel, The Raft, on Sale January 6th, wherever great books are sold (just Amazon and Kindle, currently).

*heh