Men reading female school stories are always going to be accused of paedophilia, regardless of how much they like the stories.

But then again, it's just the same as a woman liking men's stories - no-one would batter an eye lid to that.

Really? I wouldn't have made that connection at all - not unless he was reading said books in order to strike up a conversation with young girls. I think he's more likely to have his masculinity questioned - because heaven forbid someone like something outside their gender norms!

Really? I wouldn't have made that connection at all - not unless he was reading said books in order to strike up a conversation with young girls. I think he's more likely to have his masculinity questioned - because heaven forbid someone like something outside their gender norms!

Jem Russell, however, invents some phantom aunts (come on, they're never mentioned again!) rather than admit to Madge and Joey that he likes reading Elsie books ...

Foe me personally I feel very sorry for men, there are HUGE swathes of fiction that they are basically told are not for them, or not for them to admit to liking in public, and I am not talking about GO here. Any romance is pretty much going to get you judged as a male and not just the M&B type.

Why is it that we can readily admit to a liking of biggles and war stories and no body thinks a thing and yet men are still stuck in their boxes

(Larkin wrote a couple of vaguely kinky school stories that he never published during his lifetime - the only one that comes to mind is Trouble at Willow Gables - with lots of emphasis on schoolgirls, crushes and spanking, a kind of very 1950s smutty fnar-fnar affair. But I don't think that's in the least common - it says more about Larkin's own sexuality, and attitudes to sex of the period of his youth, than anything about men who read girls' school stories in general.)

However when we had a male who wanted to attend one of the weekend gathers (quite a while ago) we had a quite a lot of objections to them even attending as a day girl, from various members who didn't feel comfortable with them attending at all.

And as confident and "out" as I am, I'm still in the closet as it were about being a CHalet fan. Perhaps the 12 year old me isn't so far away as I think - but hey, I don't mind escaping back to that world now and then. Books - and especially the Chalet School - made it a good place to be.

I'm happy to admit to my friends that I have a collector's interest in the Chalet School, and that it's a series that I love, but I'm not yet ready to admit that I spend a serious amount of time plotting fanfiction/drabbles.

I have to say I find that rather shocking, and not really conducive to making me want to attend a gather myself!

I actually find it quite depressing that a couple of people have made links with how weird it is, possible links with paedophilia, and that people objected to males coming to gathers. I wonder what EBD would make of it all...I suspect she'd have loved to meet more of her male fans (in a literary sense!!)

I also find it very strange that any of the very nice and welcoming people here would have obected to another fan joining their gather - I can see how it might alter the dynamic of the group, but surely that's not a good enough reason to impose a ban?

No-one would bat an eyelid if a woman said she enjoyed boys' school stories, yet one could make a case for all sorts of fetishes lying under the surfaces there! Lots of corporal punishment in boys' school stories for a start ...

I don't think there's the evidence to back this up though tbf - there's thousands of schoolgirl sites on the internet for men and no schoolboy sites aimed at women!

I'm a firm believer in the existence of anything on the Internet

I don't think there's the evidence to back this up though tbf - there's thousands of schoolgirl sites on the internet for men and no schoolboy sites aimed at women!

Men reading female school stories are always going to be accused of paedophilia, regardless of how much they like the stories.

However when we had a male who wanted to attend one of the weekend gathers … There motivation suddenly came into question in a way it had not done previously.

Yet women have been liberated and would be the first to object if a career, hobby, colour, area or interest was labelled as not for us and yet we don't seem to have quite the same qualm about doing this to men, and some mothers I see are the worst for steering little boys away from anything pink, frilly or domestic in orientation!

There are a few blokes around the various GO forums, and that surprised me initially, but I never, ever thought it meant they were paedophiles. I find that reaction quite abhorrent, tbh.

I never thought it meant they must be gay either, though perhaps one or two are.

I don't think that's necessarily just because you're a guy!... I'm happy to admit to my friends that I have a collector's interest in the Chalet School, and that it's a series that I love, but I'm not yet ready to admit that I spend a serious amount of time plotting fanfiction/drabbles.

I think possibly the reason for this is that whilst women have fought for the right to break down male bastions and be accepted as equal in male dominated areas, men haven’t done this with regard to the traditionally female areas of society; the few that do are therefore seen as deviants rather than pioneers. Perhaps if men could be ‘liberated’ from their self-imposed views on macho-masculinities and male gender norms, then men and women would be more equal in society!?

I think that assuming a man is either a paedophile, or indeed gay, because of his taste in (admittedly random - even for a 29 year old woman!) books is something with which I would take very great issue, and I most certainly do *not* want myself associated with such an idea.

That coupled with his misogynistic views which have been revealed since his death does add a slightly different colour to his interest.

I'm not quite expressing this right, but what I mean is, rather than coming out of a sexy-school girl fetish, perhaps he leaned towards smuttiness because that was the only way he felt he could express his relationships with/attitudes to women.

"Where’s all this porn they talk about? I’ve seen three bummes and two payres of tittes [sic] since slapping my money down. Why can’t they show naked women or pros and cons of corporal punishment in girls’ schools?"

Obviously it's difficult to know what goes on in anyone's head but I think it all links in with wider questions of the extent to which GO (to use a term that I'm sure Larkin wouldn't be familiar with!) presents an idealised version of girls/women.

Day by day your estimation clocks up
Who deserves a smile and who a frown,
And girls you have to tell to pull their socks up
Are those whose pants you'd most like to pull down.

and it's actually nice that this topic has flushed so many male CBBers out to contribute.

I find it hard, in general, to understand why *anyone* would read GO (or BO) as an adult, if they hadn't read them - or at least that genre - first as a child. My re-reading of these books as an adult fits perfectly with Matthew's justification. Some are, of course, excellently written and classics in their own right that don't deserve to be classed as purely children's fiction. But most of them aren't, and I need my rose-tinted childhood love of the books to get past some of their inadequacies. I would love to hear from people (male and female) who first picked up a GO book as an *adult*: What led you to them? And what kept you reading?

sorry, I wasn't entirely clear in what I meant... I understand why if you were a childhood fan of GO (or whatever), I can see why as an adult you would also read title in within that genre. But coming to it 'cold' if you like (and I suppose this would be more likely for men) would possibly be unusual.

But ultimately I guess it is just as simple as you say Fiona: you like an author, that liking is shared by a friend colleague, they pluck up to courage to admit they like an unlikely children's series by a different author and recommend that to you... and so on.

I've wondered if there might be an indirect effect on GO from Harry Potter, as adults who would never normally read children's books did read JK Rowling without embarrassment, or a feeling they were doing something 'niche', on a regular basis...? But possibly HP counted as some kind of major cultural phenomenon, rather than just a kids' boarding school story, so unlikely to end up with more adults, men or women, picking up the CS or Malory Towers for the first time...?

Plus boys love all the details of other worlds - gosh I just had a shudder rememebring the tortuous long conversations about Hobbits and Dungeons and Dragons that I endured just to belong in a certain gang - its not too far away from what happens on here, is it (which I contribute to with much more enthusiasm of course!!!)

It might seem strange, but sometimes I've thought that my interest in the CS is more 'male' than 'female' if we're looking at stereotypical gender characteristics

I wasn't aware of the Larkin/Amis GO association but perhaps they were actually asserting their masculinity, rather than anything else?

I would love to hear from people (male and female) who first picked up a GO book as an *adult*: What led you to them? And what kept you reading?

And SLOC and I fundamentally disagree about how a bookshelf should be. I ike to have order. Either by author, by genre (then by author), or by colour, or by size. He likes everything to be purposefully muddled, and can't bear having more than two books by the same author together.

This has gone very OT!

Has anyone else read Trouble at Willow Gables?

I have to say, though, George in the Famous Five was a bit of a heroine for me and was definitely instrumental in forming my refusal to accept whatever I'm told about how women are "supposed" to behave.

...although I fumed at those ghastly "only a girl" comments in the FF books, it didn't stop me reading them and I too idolised George. For a time I refused to wear anything but trousers, and wore my hair short, and I absolutely loved it when people thought I was a boy! Now, ironically, I just want people to think I'm a person!

As a philosophy student, I also find the theory that logic is a male preserve bizarrely entertaining.

For me that's up there with men being able to read maps better too. I can out logic, out read a map than my husband I take perverse pleasure in it too!