Men Discover Romance Exists, React Poorly

a YIKES attempt at the anti-intellectualism discourse

This week, a TikTok creator called ReadtoFilth @GrahamUsedBooks decided to aim his frustration with publishing at romance and romantasy readers.

In a three part (so far) video series framed as a continuation of an anti-intellectualism discourse, Graham argued that because romance and romantasy are wildly popular genres —genres which by the way are overwhelmingly read by women— they are crowding out better genres like literary fiction. According to Graham, if people would simply stop reading these low quality books and pick up literally anything else, publishers would be forced to produce the serious, elevated literature he wants to read.

“We need people to be reading things other than romance or romantasy not only because those books are starting to just be kind of pumped out the way that they are and nobody cares about quality control or grammar. We need publishers to keep publishing a wide range of books…”

Disclaimer: Graham is a small creator who forgot the internet was public. Please be cool and do not flood his social media.

When the book community came to discuss this very wrong take, Graham doubled down saying “You know what f*ck all of you.”

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So let’s dig into an argument that is both so exhaustingly old it has dust on it, and so wrong in nearly every respect.

We need publishers to keep publishing a wide range of books…

Publishing is not a zero-sum game. Romance and Romantasy do not steal oxygen from literary fiction. In fact, the opposite is true. The commercial success of romance, fantasy, thrillers, and other mass-market genres is what keeps publishing houses solvent enough to take financial risks on literary fiction at all. Literary novels are sometimes published at a loss. They exist because prestige, prizes, and cultural capital still matter, but not because they make money or because they’re popular.

Art that is popular and sells well, makes it possible to explore art that takes more resources. For example, think of digital art— print on demand stickers and prints, which help an artist fund their multi media pieces that take longer to produce.

Likewise, romance readers are literally subsidizing the publication of other genres.

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On the topic of quality…

One of Graham’s arguments is that Romance and Romantasy are printed with errors and are generally poor quality.

But how does he know that?

He would have to meaningfully engage with the genre —reading multiple books, across publishers and imprints— to substantiate this kind of a claim. Nothing in his content suggests he has.

But if Graham’s issue were truly about quality, market forces, or artistic ambition, there are dozens of other anti-intellectualist targets he could have chosen. He could have critiqued corporate consolidation. He could have interrogated how algorithm-driven marketing narrows what gets visibility. He could have gone after celebrity memoirs, ghostwritten airport nonfiction, or the endless churn of male-dominated “bro lit,” military thrillers, or low-effort franchise tie-ins that rarely receive the same level of contempt.

He did not.

He chose romance.

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History of Misogyny…

Historically, anything women love at scale is treated as suspect, unserious, indulgent, or low quality. This has been true of novels, of soap operas, of fanfiction, of pop music, of YA, of BookTok in a pattern when women create meaning, pleasure, or community outside of male approval, it is framed as a problem to be corrected.

What Graham was expressing was not concern for literature, rather resentment that the cultural center of gravity is no longer oriented around his tastes.

That resentment became even clearer in his “apology”.

Because yes, he did “apologize”, but in the most familiar way possible. He said he “shouldn’t have attacked the genre,” and then immediately followed that with a but, a list of excuses, reframing, a we-misunderstood-him, and insistence that his underlying point still stood.

What he did not do was interrogate why he aimed where he did.

I want Graham to think about why he didn’t choose non-readers a focal point.
I want Graham to think about why he didn’t critique men consuming endless cycles of disposable media as a focal point.
I want Graham to think about why he chose romance and romantasy.

In an uncomfortably simple answer… its because of misogyny, because of patriarchal influence, because of white supremacy. Its because Graham, like many men, holds women at an inferior value whether consciously or not. He too treats male readership as neutral and default while female readership is indulgent and suspect, and in desperate need of justification.

Graham, like many men, has some deprogramming to do. And I don’t want to pick out just Graham, because most of the people attacking women in this anti-intellectualist “discourse” are women themselves.

I have seen so many booktokers platforming “authors they won’t support” in a post without a single man listed. But that’s for another article/rant.

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Romance readers are not asking to be canonized. They are not claiming their genre replaces literary fiction. They are reading what speaks to them— stories about intimacy, resilience, desire, and emotional labor. Skills that many so-called literary novels handle far less deftly. Skills that also seem to be lacking from male readers.

If readers want more literary fiction in the world, they are welcome to support it. Buy it. Review it. Teach it. Write it themselves. Advocate for arts funding. Critique publishing structures instead of punching down at readers.

But blaming women for reading too much is misogyny plain and simple.

And until that is actually addressed —without excuses, without buts, without you-misunderstood-me’s— we are dancing around a real problem while pointing at one we made up.

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What do you think about the anti-intellectualism discourse? Let me know in the comments.

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