I Hereby Ban Men From Reacting to Romantasy on TikTok

I don’t need a bunch of 25-year-old dudes coming into my digital house and calling me a sexual deviant for liking what I like.

By Jackie Jennings | September 26, 2025 | 1:02pm

Photo: iStock Books Entertainment

I Hereby Ban Men From Reacting to Romantasy on TikTok

Fantasy Aisle is a monthly column from Jackie Jennings about everything related to horny dragon books.

Bestselling romantasy books like A Court of Thorns and Roses and Fourth Wing contain descriptions of hot sex. I feel like that’s common knowledge (if not kind of one of their primary purposes!), but in recent months, BookTok has become full of men clutching their pearls while “reacting” to steamy scenes from these popular, female-centered books. Obviously, this is all a massive performance: We live in the age of OnlyFans, and odds are that all of these men have seen actual porn that defies the laws of physics and God. So I don’t buy that they’re truly shocked by mere descriptions—however hot—of people having sex. It’s pretty clear that what they’re actually shocked by is the fact that women they know are reading about sex. And then they’re using that judgement-laced discomfort to co-opt a female space for attention (and probably money; the Creator Fund is alive and well). So, men, I’m sorry but you are hereby banned from reading romantasy.

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The videos follow this format: Man reads on camera, or claims to have just finished reading, a spicy part of a popular book. The video shows the man’s resulting giggles and gasps, then usually features him expressing something along the lines of “Wow, you girls are crazy!” In one video, a grown ass man declares “holy cannolis,” in response to the book Icebreaker, a romance novel about a figure skater who falls in love with a hockey player after their respective teams are forced to share a rink. In another, two grown men read a famous scene in Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Silver Flame where the male character commands his female lover to “put your hands on the headboard.” That scene is hot for sure, but for some reason, one of the dudes in the video declares, “I’ll never trust a girl who says she ‘reads for fun’ ever again in my life.”

This “I’m telling the teacher” vibe is common in these reaction videos. Another variation involves women capturing their boyfriends’ horrified responses to the “porn” their girlfriends read. Take this video, where a young woman has her boyfriend read Chapter 55 from Maas’ A Court of Mist and Fury. It’s a super famous scene in romantasy fandom (you can buy Chapter 55 merch on Etsy). In it, the main male character (Rhys) performs oral sex on his partner (Feyre) and then they have penetrative sex, but the way this guy is repeatedly exclaiming “dude” and “so gross,” you would think he was reading about the most obscure filth kink ever conceived by the human mind.

I want to be clear: The scenes these men are reading are, to many people (myself included), insanely sexy. But purely in terms of the acts being described, they aren’t all that lurid. And, as many of the comments on these videos point out, there is much wilder stuff out there. (For example, these men have clearly not yet discovered knotting, a popular trend in romantasy right now that involves werewolves whose penises get so swollen after sex, they have to stay inside their partners until the swelling subsides.)

In fact, books like ACOTAR barely even use proper anatomical terms. It’s a joke in the romantasy and wider romance community that every male character has a “throbbing member” of “considerable length,” instead of, you know, a plain old penis.

Plus, since over 90% of men between the ages of 16 and 73 watch porn in any random month, there’s statistically no way all of these guys are shocked by the sex itself. What they are gawking at is sex from the perspective of female desire, scenes that depict women coming first and frequently. And what they are surprised by is that the women they know love these scenes. In his video, Mr. Holy Cannolis declares, “Now I know why women enjoy book clubs and wine….” But his astonishment is, in itself, astonishing. Like…what did you think adult women were into?? Not having sex and drinking wine?? Grow up!!

And therein lies the justification for my totally theoretical and unenforceable ban. These guys aren’t here to enjoy smutty books, they are here to make fun of them. I’m an adult female nerd who has taken not one but two courses of Accutane in my life; I know when I’m being mocked. This mockery is, for the most part, light-hearted—but the undertone of these videos is consistently, “Cool book, you FREAK.” I’ve already survived middle school; I don’t need a bunch of 25-year-old dudes coming into my digital house and calling me a sexual deviant for liking what I like. So get out of here!

I know everyone in these videos is mostly kidding. And I hate to ban all men, because some of them are doing a great job on TikTok: You’ve got your thirst trappers—the guys who have been told they look like real world versions of popular “book boyfriends.” They don’t add to the conversation per se, but they do usually just film themselves standing there, looking attractive. Then you have the voiceover artists bringing beloved characters to life for free; these gentlemen are essentially public servants and I salute them. And, of course, you have the men who are just honest to god reading these books; one dude has apparently made reading Sarah J. Maas his entire personality. Sure, you can argue that they’re merely jumping on the bandwagon, but it’s a really fun bandwagon! They should jump on it. (And, if they have sex with women, they should—like this guy—take notes.)

So perhaps it turns out I’ve talked myself into decreeing that BookTok can keep some of the men. If you’re here to genuinely read and participate, there’s always space. But if you’re here to mock or judge, just remember, we are female nerds. We see you, and so do our dragons.

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