*Warning: this is more so a rant about the Dark Romance genre in general (which usually includes the romanticization of triggering topics of S.A., grooming, Stockholm syndrome, and abuse in general, plus many other topics). If these kinds of themes are upsetting to you, feel free to skip this chapter.

Finding out more and more about the dark romance genre makes me wonder if the authors are okay- like, girl, none of this is okay, why are you trying to make this appear hot and sexy and say that its great when its basically s.a.... plus, putting "dark" before "romance" doesn't mean you can justify really grotesque scenarios by having a conventionally attractive male lead that "knows its wrong" but "can't help doing it anyway" and especially if you write the female lead to be borderline child-like and "easily distracted by massive d*ck" (and usually a virgin, making "popping her cherry" a f*cking reward for the ml in their mind). It's gross. Why is the erasing of a woman's autonomy and character seen to be okay so long as its in response to an attractive, powerful man in these books? I don't care how hot a guy is, if he is assaulting and torturing the female lead, they should not be end game!!! But no, this behavior is romanticized because its "hot" or "forbidden," meanwhile I can't understand how people are able to separate themselves from the literal crimes happening in the book.

While yes, these are fictional stories taking place between fictional characters, the amount of times I see people, usually women, promoting and loving these stories and saying "God, I wish (male lead) was real," "I'm literally a mess after reading this book 🥵", etc. makes me feel so uncomfortable. I can understand people having their guilty pleasures, and hey, the toxic love affair/relationship trope can be well done, but it is not well done in these books. Its clear that these characters and stories are often poorly written/developed and simply an excuse to write smut with taboo subject matter.

Here is a list of things that I have seen come up in these books that booktok likes to promote under the "dark romance" genre:
S.A./R*pe
Graphic S*xual Violence
General Assault
Non-Con that authors claim to be Dub-Con or CNC
Necrophilia
Incest (Including Step-Relatives, even though its not their relatives by blood, its still family & still incest)
Torture under the guise of BDSM
Somniphilia without consent
Oral S*x w/o consent
Grooming/Bordeline Grooming
(Female lead *just* turned 18, so its "okay" despite the "romance" starting before they reached 18 & is usually with a Male Lead that's 10-20+ years her senior)
Stockholm Syndrome
Brainwashing
Manipulation
Obsession/Possessive
Stalking
Power Imbalance
Frued & Oedipus Complex
Terrible depictions of mental illness
S*x being used as a punishment
Homophobia
Marking/branding without consent
Forced/accidental pregnancy, often because ml lied about the birth control implant really being a tracker
+ probably any other upsetting subjects you could think of

And I'm just like... why? Why are these things glanced over because of the promise of smut, despite it often being really gross and not even well-written? I'm not saying that the people who write or read these books are bad people... but I am saying they have bad taste. I only watch reviews of these books because while I am cursed with morbid curiosity, I could never directly support these works of fiction. I am often left feeling so upset after watching reviews/summaries of the novels that I can't imagine people finding these books good.

And listen, not all of the dark romance books have all of the things I've mentioned, some are even tolerable with the occasional cute moment; but only because those ones actually incorporate some romance into the dynamics between the main characters. Despite the genre being "dark romance," there's rarely any romance to be found. It's just: here's a creepy male lead that's obsessed over a female lead, watch her maybe be into him after he finishes being creepy and maybe respects her opinion at the end! Like, how am I supposed to believe that these people actually "love" each other if the authors don't even show them falling for each other? There is more to romance than just s*x, for crying out loud! And half the time, the female lead is portrayed as strong-willed and independent, but they become submissive to the male lead so easily it feels like the authors don't actually care about the female lead, making it feel like some sort of weird self-insert story instead of established, complex characters with their own desires and goals outside of getting hot and heavy with their "enemy".

Would love to hear if y'all have come across dark romance stuff and your thoughts on it. Apologies for how messy this chapter was written, I just don't really know how to organize how I'm feeling as I write this lol