I believe there should be more male MC stories. I would like to believe that authors are adding these options out of the goodness of their hearts, but it’s possible it’s something less than that. I truly don’t mind playing as a male protagonist, and it’s interesting to do so. For the question about feminine male characters - I think this is actually a good thing! Toxic masculinity is a major drain on our social world, and to have a male character who embraces their femininity is refreshing! What’s not is if the author just switched out their female MC with a male one and changed nothing - not even the pronouns. That’s just lazy and tokenization. I don’t think every story needs to have a male option, as you even stated, this is a female dominated app. But I think more stories with this would be awesome, and if Episode made a featured story with a male MC, I would play the heck out of it, even it’s still like Episode Featured level story (i.e. not great 
)
Hope that helps!
bump
i’m currently about to write a short story where the reader can choose their gender, but i’m kinda stuck because the codingggggg is exhaustinngggg. I’m trying, but other than that, i feel as if it’s a good idea to have a choice, but that really depends on the author. if they don’t wanna code all that and do all the branching and stuff then okay, if they have a male protagonist and the plot of the story is good, i’m down to read it.
i applaud the authors who have the time and patience to code all of this stuff 
a story that gives you a choice is **Have You Seen Monday?: @Rubyllee **. i totally recommend it if you haven’t read it yet. 
Thank you so much for mentioning my story! Yes I agree that the coding can get exhausting since we need to have different branching for male and female MC, plus some animations might only exist for either male or female character so a lot of fine-tuning are needed. It is still worth the work and time though as I feel that readers may be happy to know that they have the freedom to choose their gender. Some female readers can also choose to be a male for a change. 
Thanks again and all the best to you in writing your story! 
aww, you’re too kind 
Why do you think authors started adding the option to play as a male. 1. Why do you think authors started adding the option to play as a male.
I can’t say the exact reason why authors decided to follow this route, but it could be because more people are showing an interest for it.
Do you like to play as a male protagonist?
Admittedly, I’m only reading one story with a male MC currently, but I am enjoying it a lot. One of the Girls by Amber Rose, fyi.
Is a story truly different if the protagonist is male?
If the story is written from the male mc’s perspective? Then of course. I think it’s bound to be a different experience, but an enjoyable one nonetheless.
An argument is that even if you are a male, the character still acts ‘feminine’ thus is still technically a female lead story. This usually happens when the author just replaces the MCF with MCM without changing any dialog. (Main Character Female / Main Character Male)
I haven’t personally experienced this but I am quite surprised. I mean, if you’re dedicated enough to offer a gender option I’d sure hope you’re also dedicated enough to alter the storyline as well. Eh.
Should every story include an option to play as a male?
I don’t think it should be a requirement per se, but I think it’d be a really nice thing to have. It takes a considerable amount of coding to branch out two different storylines especially if you’re a beginner. Not to mention, some people just write their story centred around a female mc and that’s okay too.
What are the benefits / disadvantages to writing a story with a male option.
Already kind of answered this…oops. Benefits: I think a lot more people would feel represented, there are more males reading on the app than we think. I also think it’s a refreshing experience for readers who are so used to reading from a female character’s perspective. Biggest disadvantage I can think of is the coding, it is a lot more work compared to a story with basic directing.
Does Episode equally represent males in their own featured stories?
Ahahahahaahahahhahahhahahahaha.
Does Episode equally represent anything?
Should Episode write a Gem - Featured story inwhich you can play as male. (Or if they have one, write more?)
Absolutely they should. Every and any story I can think of with a male mc is a user story. I’ll be very impressed if this were to ever happen.
Bump 