This article originally appeared on the Daily Caller News Foundation and was republished with permission.
Guest post by Natalie Sandoval
Men usually get the brunt of the fingerwagging about porn use.
For good reason, too. Men are (unsurprisingly) more likely than women to watch porn. And those who consume porn to the point of obsession and ruin — as Daniel Kolitz chronicled for Harper’s Magazine — are overwhelmingly male.
An asterisk for that last assertion: Men are more likely than women to become addicted to porn in video form. Millions of American women are cripplingly fond of porn in written form.
Women have long been the target audience for romance novels. As the 20th century drew to a close, the “chick flick” found a counterpart in “chick lit”: Formulaic, commercially successful fiction, identifiable in bookstores by a cartoon woman on the cover. These books were usually silly, not smutty.
Then occurred some synthesis between zero-calorie “chick lit” and sordid fanfiction. Fanfiction, fiction written by an amateur author based on an existing work of fiction, became enormously popular thanks to the internet. FanFiction.Net was launched in 1998, permitting those inclined to publish their own stories and read the stories of others. It saw over 69 million visits in November 2025, according to digital marketing platform Semrush. Wattpad, another fanfiction sharing site, claims to have over 90 million users. Highly sexual pulp fiction predates the internet, of course, and was popular among men (often those stationed overseas).
The first installment of “Twilight,” Stephenie Meyer’s immensely popular vampire-fantasy romance novel series, was released in 2005. There’s much speculation that the series began as a My Chemical Romance fanfiction, though Meyer has only publicly confirmed she was inspired by elements of the band’s music. Regardless, “Twilight” is perfectly tailored to drive young women crazy: A fairly bland but attractive female protagonist, two supernaturally powerful men who immediately fall in love with her, sparkles, school dances, and a whole lot of “quivering.” Meyer omits overt descriptions of sex — unlike some of the authors we’ll discuss — favoring, according to reviews on Common Sense Media, hints at “physical longing” between characters, intense kissing, and wink-wink-nudge-nudge allusions to eventual sexual activity. The “Twilight” books were years-long bestsellers, selling more than 160 million copies worldwide as of 2020, according to USA Today.
Now, for something much more sexual and which indisputably began as a fanfiction: “Fifty Shades of Grey.” E.L. James’ novel began as a “Twilight” fanfiction, originally titled “Master of the Universe,” according to CBS News. It was originally published as an e-book.
“Fifty Shades” appears to be nothing more than hardbound smut. The novel, which spawned several sequels, concerns a fairly bland but attractive female protagonist, a super rich guy that immediately falls in love (or something) with her, and their burgeoning BDSM … relationship? “Fifty Shades,” like “Twilight,” got the Hollywood treatment, and was immensely commercially successful. The “Fifty Shades” trilogy sold 35 million print and e-book copies between 2011 and 2019, according to NBC News.
“Fifty Shades” and “Twilight” are the early 2010s predecessor to the sort of slop peddled on “#BookTok.” BookTok, for the uninitiated, is a TikTok subculture dominated by young women.
“As of 2025, #BookTok has accumulated 370 billion views,” according to Forbes.
On #BookTok, you’ll find recommendations for books like “Game Changer,” by Rachel Reid. “Game Changer” is the first in a six part series of “male/male queer hockey romance” books, according to Reid’s website.
The covers, of course, feature bright, cartoon art that — except for the suspiciously tender glances exchanged between the hockey players — wouldn’t be out of place in a library’s pre-teen section.
If your tastes run more to the heterosexual, try “Icebreaker” by Hannah Grace. “Icebreaker” concerns the romance between a competitive figure skater (female) and hockey team captain (male). The book is a “#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER,” according to its Amazon description. “Over 1 million copies sold!”
Not having read “Icebreaker” myself, I defer to a review by “Laurie Is Reading,” a blog which regularly reviews BookTok-esque books. If not for themes like “toxic relationships” in the book, says Laurie, “[I]t was just plain smut.”
“Because oh, the smut guys, the smut. I had a feeling that there’s more of it than in any other books I’ve read within this subgenre … [T]he plot is paperthin and the smut is a bit too fast.”
There are plenty more examples of BookTok-approved reads that are, judging by reviews, more smut than plot: “A Court of Thorn and Roses” (fairy smut), “Onyx Storm,” (magician smut?), “Ice Planet Barbarians” (ice planet barbarian smut). Yes, I promise those are real (and popular) titles. Honorable mention to a book with the worst title in existence, “Morning Glory Milking Farm,” which has over 67,000 reviews on Goodreads, and a slightly higher cumulative rating than “Beowulf.”
Watch out for the early 20s to late 30s women in your life. If you see them reading a book with suspiciously homoerotic cover art, and smiling a little too surreptitiously to themselves, slap the book out of their hands and give them some knitting needles. Or “Crime and Punishment,” or something equally Russian and grimy.
Copyright 2026 Daily Caller News Foundation
Well, thanks for this.
I know what I'm doing this afternoon, starting with “Morning Glory Milking Farm”
People are weird.