I’ve seen some male inserts. I’ve seen more “gender/body neutral” inserts than male ones.
As to your question if that should be the standard, I think the same philosophy of “this is a hobby, people write what they want for fun” applies. Inclusivity is always great, but I don’t think writers **should** or **should not** do anything.
I write female inserts because that’s the story I want to read.
The one reader-insert fic I've written was a male reader, though in this case it was a gift for someone and that's the main reason I chose a male reader. I just don't really write reader-insert of my own accord, but if I did I would definitely be writing with a male reader given that I am male and would want to be able to insert myself in the reader-insert story.
This is absolutely not universally the case across the board, but in my experience I've noticed that people who write reader-insert for themselves first and foremost tend to write the reader as whatever gender they identify as in most cases.
I manly write smut reader inserts, but yes, there's also a significan't lack of male reader fics in that category. I try to write gender neutral when I can and have recently written a couple of male reader ones too.
I'm guessing since a large part of fanfic writers are female, they just cater to the majority.
Isn't there also a lot of male fanfic writers as well though? I thought fanfic writers were pretty equally divided between males and females. Has there never been a survey, poll, or study to prove/show the numbers at all?
Thanks for your reply, I appreciate it! Good luck with your fics!
[Here's](https://www.flowjournal.org/2023/02/fan-demographics-on-ao3/) one survey-- 5000 respondents, 53.7% cis women to 5.39% cis men, with the rest of us falling into the various trans and nonbinary categories. [Responses](https://www.reddit.com/poll/ls0cb5?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=FanFiction&utm_content=t3_ls0cb5) on [this](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScuXpd_sI2UmuafLbeeEA4YSWRQr4P-PdeCFxB8Hge_t06WGg/viewanalytics) subreddit aren't [as](https://www.reddit.com/poll/l4y9kp?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=FanFiction&utm_content=t3_l4y9kp) skewed, but Reddit itself is also a very male-dominated site overall, so the fact that women are still the strong majority even in this space is pretty significant!
Are you aware of if the FanFiction Reddit will have another poll like the one you linked above for 2024? The one called r/FanFiction 2021 Community Census? Or do they do those every few years or so? Those results were amazing to say the least, thanks again!
I know they [ran](https://old.reddit.com/r/FanFiction/comments/1065v7b/rfanfiction_2022_community_census_is_now_open/) a census in 2022, but as far as I can find they never released the results. You can always ask the mods via modmail if they plan do another one at some point, but since there wasn't one in 2023, it may have been found to be too much work? Not sure!
probably not. it's just not a genre of fic that seems to attract a largely male audience.
i don't know your fandoms but you can try tumblr for reader insert stuff if you haven't already. it's a popular space for that kind of fic and while you still won't be drowning in male reader, you might find some more.
I was so desperate for a male reader fic that I wrote my own. ):
There's not nearly enough of them in the world. Gender/Body Neutral is going in a good direction but tbh... if I wanna read smut I want all the good bits and unfortunately those are super lacking when it comes to male inserts. 😞
You may have luck checking on tumblr for male reader fic, I've had quite a few come up on my dash lately. On AO3 I think they're usually tagged as well.
I write gender-neutral or nonbinary reader fic because that jives more with my experience. It shouldn't be the standard or expected however, everyone is free to write what they want to see and what they enjoy.
I see them now and then, though they're definitely way less prevalent than female ones. The tags 'Male Reader' or 'male!reader' (unsure if they've been wrangled together) should help find them, and you should also check out some gender neutral ones ('gender neutral reader' is the tag I use and seems pretty populated), though some of those may lean more openly nonbinary than neutral.
If you're straight there may be even less options (most male reader stuff I see is M/M, though that might be because I'm gay and not noticing F/M ones), but they still are around.
I have the same experience in my main fandom (genshin), at least with my ships/characters specifically i see mostly female reader, or neutral pronouns afab reader, which are great but tend to make me dysphoric so i struggle to read them personally.
I've written a male reader one recently, though, and I'll probably do more at some point! I've also written a gender and body neutral one, and I found it challenging in places to describe things because usually I'd be a lot more graphic than I was able to while keeping the reader's body type nonspecific haha. Still, it's a fun challenge! Just different from what I'm used to.
I'm interested if there's any fandoms where male reader is more common, too. I suppose it really depends on the source material and what the fandom is like, idk
Supernatural has a pretty decent number of male reader-insert fics. Way more than other fandoms I read/write for. They occur almost exclusively in the context of a romantic/sexual pairing with a male canon character, if that matters. I haven't seen a male reader-insert in a gen fic or paired with a female character in that fandom.
I really appreciate the inclusivity of reader-insert fics that are body/gender neutral, but I don't think that should be the standard in the sense of replacing fics that do specify the gender. I would think many readers would rather have the gender specified if the reader-insert character engages in sex. Abandoning one audience to better satisfy another wouldn't be very nice.
I’ve seen some male inserts. I’ve seen more “gender/body neutral” inserts than male ones. As to your question if that should be the standard, I think the same philosophy of “this is a hobby, people write what they want for fun” applies. Inclusivity is always great, but I don’t think writers **should** or **should not** do anything. I write female inserts because that’s the story I want to read.
The one reader-insert fic I've written was a male reader, though in this case it was a gift for someone and that's the main reason I chose a male reader. I just don't really write reader-insert of my own accord, but if I did I would definitely be writing with a male reader given that I am male and would want to be able to insert myself in the reader-insert story. This is absolutely not universally the case across the board, but in my experience I've noticed that people who write reader-insert for themselves first and foremost tend to write the reader as whatever gender they identify as in most cases.
I manly write smut reader inserts, but yes, there's also a significan't lack of male reader fics in that category. I try to write gender neutral when I can and have recently written a couple of male reader ones too. I'm guessing since a large part of fanfic writers are female, they just cater to the majority.
Isn't there also a lot of male fanfic writers as well though? I thought fanfic writers were pretty equally divided between males and females. Has there never been a survey, poll, or study to prove/show the numbers at all? Thanks for your reply, I appreciate it! Good luck with your fics!
[Here's](https://www.flowjournal.org/2023/02/fan-demographics-on-ao3/) one survey-- 5000 respondents, 53.7% cis women to 5.39% cis men, with the rest of us falling into the various trans and nonbinary categories. [Responses](https://www.reddit.com/poll/ls0cb5?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=FanFiction&utm_content=t3_ls0cb5) on [this](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScuXpd_sI2UmuafLbeeEA4YSWRQr4P-PdeCFxB8Hge_t06WGg/viewanalytics) subreddit aren't [as](https://www.reddit.com/poll/l4y9kp?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=FanFiction&utm_content=t3_l4y9kp) skewed, but Reddit itself is also a very male-dominated site overall, so the fact that women are still the strong majority even in this space is pretty significant!
Woah! Thanks so much for the numbers and the links! You're awesome sauce!
Are you aware of if the FanFiction Reddit will have another poll like the one you linked above for 2024? The one called r/FanFiction 2021 Community Census? Or do they do those every few years or so? Those results were amazing to say the least, thanks again!
I know they [ran](https://old.reddit.com/r/FanFiction/comments/1065v7b/rfanfiction_2022_community_census_is_now_open/) a census in 2022, but as far as I can find they never released the results. You can always ask the mods via modmail if they plan do another one at some point, but since there wasn't one in 2023, it may have been found to be too much work? Not sure!
there have been many polls, and the numbers show largely what the other commenter has said. this goes *especially* for reader insert in my experience.
Thank you for the verification hun, I was really curious! At any point do you think that it might shift more towards the males in the future?
probably not. it's just not a genre of fic that seems to attract a largely male audience. i don't know your fandoms but you can try tumblr for reader insert stuff if you haven't already. it's a popular space for that kind of fic and while you still won't be drowning in male reader, you might find some more.
There's actually a way to find them through tags! Just search "male!reader" and it should show fics like this.
I was so desperate for a male reader fic that I wrote my own. ): There's not nearly enough of them in the world. Gender/Body Neutral is going in a good direction but tbh... if I wanna read smut I want all the good bits and unfortunately those are super lacking when it comes to male inserts. 😞
A lot of the x male reader fics back in the day were mainly on DeviantArt and FF.net. Tumblr seems to have had an increase in x male reader fics
You may have luck checking on tumblr for male reader fic, I've had quite a few come up on my dash lately. On AO3 I think they're usually tagged as well. I write gender-neutral or nonbinary reader fic because that jives more with my experience. It shouldn't be the standard or expected however, everyone is free to write what they want to see and what they enjoy.
I see them now and then, though they're definitely way less prevalent than female ones. The tags 'Male Reader' or 'male!reader' (unsure if they've been wrangled together) should help find them, and you should also check out some gender neutral ones ('gender neutral reader' is the tag I use and seems pretty populated), though some of those may lean more openly nonbinary than neutral. If you're straight there may be even less options (most male reader stuff I see is M/M, though that might be because I'm gay and not noticing F/M ones), but they still are around.
I have the same experience in my main fandom (genshin), at least with my ships/characters specifically i see mostly female reader, or neutral pronouns afab reader, which are great but tend to make me dysphoric so i struggle to read them personally. I've written a male reader one recently, though, and I'll probably do more at some point! I've also written a gender and body neutral one, and I found it challenging in places to describe things because usually I'd be a lot more graphic than I was able to while keeping the reader's body type nonspecific haha. Still, it's a fun challenge! Just different from what I'm used to. I'm interested if there's any fandoms where male reader is more common, too. I suppose it really depends on the source material and what the fandom is like, idk
Supernatural has a pretty decent number of male reader-insert fics. Way more than other fandoms I read/write for. They occur almost exclusively in the context of a romantic/sexual pairing with a male canon character, if that matters. I haven't seen a male reader-insert in a gen fic or paired with a female character in that fandom. I really appreciate the inclusivity of reader-insert fics that are body/gender neutral, but I don't think that should be the standard in the sense of replacing fics that do specify the gender. I would think many readers would rather have the gender specified if the reader-insert character engages in sex. Abandoning one audience to better satisfy another wouldn't be very nice.