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I know it's acceptable for pretty much either gender to read any kind of books these days but I was wandering what you think of people reading books that were written with the opposite gender to the reader themselves in mind?

I'm affraid I'm lacking in many examples here but one that comes to mind is a male reader picking up a book in the chic lit genre for instance. I'm a male reader of chic lit and although it's by far not my favourite genre I still enjoy some of the more well written books and feel that gender has no impact on my enjoyment of the book.

Do you think that gender should effect what genre you read?
Do you also read and enjoy books intended for the opposite gender?

I agree; gender should have nothing to do with what we read.

But unfortunately, this is the way society is. For example, if a girl were to pick up the Twilight series and start reading, no one would think anything of it (except that she has poor taste in books. But that's not what we're talking about here). But if a guy were to read Twilight, people would think he's gay or strange or make fun of him.

But seriously, people shouldn't read Twilight, regardless of their gender.

Anyway. That's just the unfortunate reality of it. But actually, there's kind of a double standard; girls can get away with reading things that are directed towards male audiences (I can't think of any specific examples), and no one will really say anything, but if a guy is browsing the romance section of Barnes and Noble, then he's pinpointed as being gay, even though that might not be true.

And maybe I'm just dumb, but I can't think of any books that are more directed towards male audiences. I'm guessing like action/adventure/sci-fi? I read those kinds of books all the time. Fantasty/sci-fi is my thing.

Gender doesn't affect my reading. It makes no difference to me. However, with my school being an all girls school, we are forced to read mostly girl protagonist books. Most of the people in my class prefer that, but it gets boring after a while. You really do need the diversity that different gender protagonists provide.

I think if someone were to be asked to go through my personal library and classify every book as either being for men or for women, the majority would end up in the pile for men. I read and own a lot of sci-fi, both new and old, and most of it is marketed towards men, if anyone. The older sci-fi especially is marketed specifically towards men. The majority of my fantasy would probably be classified as for men also, if it had to be classified, since I lean more towards the swords and sorcery style than the magic, unicorns, faries, and whatnot that's typically stereotyped as being fantasy for women. The number of typically female books, like chick lit and romance books, that I have could probably be counted on one hand... with a few fingers chopped off. I'm just not a fan of them.

I'm definitely against expecting people to read books based on gender. When I was younger all my teachers in school would try to get me to read more "appropriate" books, by which they meant gender appropriate. I had several teachers tell me that I'd much rather enjoy reading some nice gender appropriate books like The Babysitter's Club or Black Beauty that they'd picked out for me than what I'd chosen to read myself. Apparently little girls aren't supposed to read Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Animorphs.

Well that was a greater responce than I expected, but I'm glad of that.

It seemes most people think you should read whatever you want no matter of gender. It also seems a lot of you had problems with teachers trying to make you read gender appropriate books in school. I can't say I had much of that but then again I tried not to read too much in school and when they told us to read, the whole class had to read the same book anyway.

That's a really good point as well celesi about the term 'chic lit' (forgive my usage of it, I have no idea what else to call the genre and had no idea it was such a bit turn off for editors and publishers lately) I had no idea that publishers and editors found it such a big turn off these days. I used the term for lack of a better word to call the genre. It's probably a good thing that editors see that by calling the novels they publish 'chic lit' they are halving a potential audience and that men do in fact enjoy the books. I'm interested to see what they decide to call it now.

I can see why the whole naming of Lisbeth as a girl thing might irritate some people. It's good the series pushed on reguardless. I haven't read the books myself but I am interested in reading something by Larsson when I have the time.

As for books that are aimed purely at males I'm having the same problem of not really being able to think of any right now. Though as Infinite Outlaw said I think sci-fi and fantasy are the closest I can think of. The old sci-fi especially as he said seemed to be aimed at a male audience.

I'm actually blown away by the idea that someone would discourage someone from reading a book 'cause it was non-narrative or 'gender-inappropriate'.