is it ok for men to enjoy trashy women's fiction?

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i genuinely love reading crap like sarah harvey books, my canape hell, and things like that, just cos i can whiz through them in no time, and well, i like reading about women. i cant be alone, can i? *crosses fingers*

― ppp, Friday, 21 January 2005 11:06 (twenty-one years ago)

yes you must always be alone

― Stevem On X (blueski), Friday, 21 January 2005 11:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Jaunty Alan to thread!

― RickyT (RickyT), Friday, 21 January 2005 11:09 (twenty-one years ago)

Only if you are staying over at someones house and it's all that's in the spare room with the bed that has the duvet thats okay but not quite right and the bedside light is too bright and there's a clock that has a really loud tick and those pigs from the Natwest are on the window sill.

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Friday, 21 January 2005 11:25 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm a woman and I feel bad reading this stuff. I far prefer mens trashy fiction. Unless it's Katherine Neville because that's trashy womens romance crap about female Database Analysts running around shagging double agents and the like, far more enjoyable than "Blah blah, should I buy these shoes?"

― Masonic Boom-Boom (kate), Friday, 21 January 2005 11:27 (twenty-one years ago)

yes.

― toby (tsg20), Friday, 21 January 2005 11:31 (twenty-one years ago)

I think its ok, but frankly i have given it a bash and havent liked most of the ones I have read

― lukey (Lukey G), Friday, 21 January 2005 11:49 (twenty-one years ago)

yes.

ha ha!

― colette (a2lette), Friday, 21 January 2005 11:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Jaunty Alan to thread!
-- RickyT

I was just about to say that, although the above posts surprise me slightly.

― Anna (Anna), Friday, 21 January 2005 11:56 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't have anything against trashy womens fiction, I just wish that they did more intersting stuff in them! More fiendsish popstars, more Freemasons, more international jewel thiefs, more death defying chases on skiis, that sort of thing. You know. More like a conspiracy theory novel.

― Masonic Boom-Boom (kate), Friday, 21 January 2005 11:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Kate if you think there's a niche you should write it yourself

― beanz (beanz), Friday, 21 January 2005 12:00 (twenty-one years ago)

I tried. It was unpublishable.

But wait, maybe I should have added less popstars and more FREEMASONS.

Now that is an idea. Hrrrmmmmmmm.

I just have to think of a good conspiracy theory first.

― Masonic Boom-Boom (kate), Friday, 21 January 2005 12:01 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, it is a bit 'bought shoes, slacked off work, met bloke, ate bad food and fely guilty'. This is why you need proper bonkbusters, rather than chick lit.Louise Bagshaw, Jackie Collins, Susan Sussman!

― Anna (Anna), Friday, 21 January 2005 12:03 (twenty-one years ago)

i've not ready any in a while - i read the last Jenny Colgan. It was OK, but annoying (so pretty much par for the course) with it's DO YOU SEE-ness fun.

YES IT IS OK. It gives us an insight into how their little fluffy minds work. In the same way women read High Fidelity and get to find out what a load of sleazy underhand bastards men are.

― Jaunty Alan (Alan), Friday, 21 January 2005 12:04 (twenty-one years ago)

but i think the genre we are talking about is defined by it's soap-style/ordinariness anyway. THAT COULD BE ME. If you could combine an, ahem, convincing chick-lit central character and then somehow get them involved in uncovering a plot to destroy the Vatican with dark matter, that WOULD be something

― Jaunty Alan (Alan), Friday, 21 January 2005 12:06 (twenty-one years ago)

(But women are sleazy and underhand too, we are just in denial or try to use psychobabble to justify it, hence chick lit.)

― Anna (Anna), Friday, 21 January 2005 12:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Jesus Anna, do you want to be drummed out of the club altogether?

She didn't mean it guys. Fluffy kittens. Shoes. Yes, that's right. That's all we care about. On your way, now. Nothing to see here.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Friday, 21 January 2005 12:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Is it fair to say that trashy chick-lit is more formulaic than trashy bloke-lit? Or have I not read enough?

― beanz (beanz), Friday, 21 January 2005 12:13 (twenty-one years ago)

IT IS ALL FORMULA. and that's a good thing

sadly i once had an idea to write a blog that was chick lit for geeky ladies - this was some time before the fashion for such things you understand. the idea would be to plot it all out, work out the times that things had to happen in the "front story" and then write it actually as a blog. the story started as two male friends move in to a flat together in $fashionable_town_not_london$ with a new flatmate who is TEH GURL. they start up a blog to keep in touch with their old uni mates back in $less_fashionable_backwater$, and it would probably have copied the old "make a bet you can get a date" route at first. then she finds out about their blog. OH CALAMITY

― Jaunty Alan (Alan), Friday, 21 January 2005 12:15 (twenty-one years ago)

There's a nearly-good piece about Tim Rogers trying to explore his enjoyment of the gay-male-anime-for-pre-teen-girls videogame genre here. It's not revelatory or anything, but, y'know, Tim Rogers.

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Friday, 21 January 2005 14:09 (twenty-one years ago)

It is perfectly fine for men to read these books as long as they have a vagina (afterwards).

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 21 January 2005 14:40 (twenty-one years ago)

(You know those times when you can't decide which joke you want to make so you incoherently try to make both of them at once?)

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 21 January 2005 14:40 (twenty-one years ago)

...and it comes out as a fag-hag predilection.

― Autumn Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Friday, 21 January 2005 14:43 (twenty-one years ago)

I read one "chick lit" book while dating a girl who devoured them at the rate of one a week. I think it was called "Good In Bed" (there was little if any actual sex if I recall).

To me it read like a screenplay, I can't believe a film version hasn't already come out. There wasn't anything wrong with it and I've certainly read worse books, but it wasn't really my thing.

― Ash (ashbyman), Friday, 21 January 2005 18:42 (twenty-one years ago)

anna otm, i just read chances and lucky again only this week! jackie 4 life

― hold tight the private caller (mwah), Friday, 21 January 2005 19:50 (twenty-one years ago)

http://wildcat.arizona.edu/papers/96/4/04_6_1.jpg

Not as bad as it should be.

― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Friday, 21 January 2005 19:54 (twenty-one years ago)

My (male, heterosexual) schoolfriend brought this book to school:

http://www.conniemason.com/books/book_images/big/pirate_prince.jpg

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Friday, 21 January 2005 20:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Virgin Treasure
She was a jewel among women, brighter than the moon and stars. Her hair shone like newly minted gold, and her skin was as smooth and iridescent as an exquisite pearl. Her lips were lush and pink, made for kissing. . . and more erotic purposes. She was a pirate’s prize, yet he could not so much as touch her.
Virgin Trouble

Destined for the harem of a Turkish potentate. Willow wondered whether she should rejoice or despair when her ship was beset by a sinfully handsome pirate. Already, she’d been probed, prodded, dressed indecently and sold to the highest bidder. Now it seemed she was a helpless pawn in a power play between two brothers. Fortunately, for Willow, neither Ibrahim nor Dariq realized that a cleaver woman is never without resources. She certainly had no intention of becoming the sex slave of a sultan; and no matter how much he tempted her, she would teach her captor a thing or two before she gave her heat to The Pirate Prince.

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Friday, 21 January 2005 20:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Ha! Shelves of Mills and Boon books in the Foundary bar to thread.

― Anna (Anna), Friday, 21 January 2005 20:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes, sitting there while you, Colette, Kate, Cis and others read out all the dirty bits was quite an experience!

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 21 January 2005 21:06 (twenty-one years ago)

She certainly had no intention of becoming the sex slave of a sultan; and no matter how much he tempted her, she would teach her captor a thing or two before she gave her heat to The Pirate Prince.

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 21 January 2005 21:27 (twenty-one years ago)

I used to read the dirty bits aloud to guy friends in college to make them cringe. And then they made fun of us girls for not just watching porn instead. Oh, I found one at the library the other day that was a *Werewolf* Regency Romance novel. It was a treat.

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Saturday, 22 January 2005 00:43 (twenty-one years ago)

is it ok for men to enjoy trashy women's fiction?

no. under no circumstances is it ok. it is so far from ok that the alphabet has not two letters diametrically opposed enough to 'ok' to express its non-okness. do you understand me? now go to the NSFW thread for the rest of the day and meditate on your sins.

― Aimless (Aimless), Saturday, 22 January 2005 04:35 (twenty-one years ago)

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