On a week when Fifty Shades Freed is smashing box office expectations, we’re hearing a lot of about bored housewives, and women’s penchant for erotic fiction. We’re not sure why it’s acceptable for men to watch porn, but women are castigated for reading erotica, but that aside it seems that that isn’t even the case as it turns out that men read a lot of erotic fiction too!
Research this week from the Canadian company audiobooks.com has shown when it comes to downloads, and audiobooks, men are reading/listening to almost as much erotica as women, and account for around one third of erotica audiobook downloads!
Men now make up a third of the market for erotica, and are also responsible for about one quarter of all audio downloads of the Fifty Shades series. And what’s more, while the entire genre is often judged and looked down on, this study shows that around one in eight users of book and audio download services is reading erotica.
The study also found that the daily commute is the most popular time to listen to audio books, and so if you see a man with headphones on and a faraway look in his eye, maybe he’s reading Fifty Shades of Grey!
What this study really showed is that erotica is not the realms of the bored housewife, thankfully most of us already knew this, but erotica has its place in the literary market and it looks like it’s becoming as popular with men as women.
The top two audiobook downloads for men from the erotica genre, are shown below.
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Would you read aloud to strangers online?
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