So I’ll be honest I started reading erotica when I was 12, thanks wattpad. Obviously I had no business doing that. However none that I’m older I’m able to recognize that a lot of romance books today are only popular because of the sex in them and not the plot. The plots are absolutely horrible. For example I once saw a dark romance book in which the mmc slaughtered the family of the fmc yet he smiled at her and asked if she was OK and of course she fell for him. Everyone in the comments was just swooning over it too.
It’s genuinely concerning. There’s definitely layers to this but woman should not be finding men who assualt, yell, cheat, or abuse the fmc as romantic. I feel like calling it dark romance is just a disservice to dark romance. There is nothing romancing about someone putting a gun inside your vagina.
I used to live reading romance books. But I prefer to read manwhas and romance Mangas now. Or I’ll just read non-fiction.
It’s just a book. It’s not an issue to read about stuff that would not be acceptable in real life.
Is this really most romance books? Or just whatever weird ass section of Goodreads that you fell into?
agreed! dark romance helps normalize abuse. it’s not OK.
Romance novels have always been about the sex. There is a spectrum of how explicit you want to get, from vague and abstract to really explicit porn. Most famous romance authors are somewhere in the middle. There’s also a spectrum of how the characters treat each other. From super sweet to traditional hero/heroine to kinky to abuse / shock porn. If you are getting more of one thing than something else, then it’s probably got more to do with your choices than the genre. Read what you want.
People like books about fucking, Karen.
These types of books are very popular on TikTok and I have seen a few in bookstores as a result of that internet popularity.
I don’t mind people reading them as long as there is an awareness that this is purely fiction and not what a healthy relationship should be. I feel that for the most part the majority of readers understand that and only a very small minority don’t.
There’s a genre out there for everybody no matter how niche or weird it may be. There’s only issues when people begin blending reality and fiction. I think in my entire life I have only seen that once.
But honestly, it’s not just books that have seen an increasing popularity in that type of content. I feel that HBO is quite notorious for it too. I’m curious to see if this is a fad or something more long term.
This hasn’t been the case for decades?
I mean, when I served deployments in the military, porn was banned but since the majority of care packages sent via MWR (Morale, Welfare, Recreation) were housewives “donating” the old romance novels, it was the most porn we could legally get. There were so many romance novels sent, I always got super excited when actual fantasy and sci-fi books made it. Even the shitty ones. I did find some good romance novels too but … there were just so many to dig through. I always pointed out to my buddies that if they wanted legal porn, they had plenty to choose from. It just didn’t have pictures.
I read a lot of romance and have since I was a kid. Yeah, there were authors who preferred the fade to black or flowery words to represent s*x but there have always been plenty who go full smut.
You need to broaden your horizons. Lots of romance books do have problematic elements, but so do lots of non-romance books. A vast number of romance books contain no explicit scenes at all (and some are as explicit as the most explicit hardcore porn).
If you’re cherry-picking your examples from TikTok, Wattpad, Reddit, or Instagram, of course you’re running into the most heightened examples. But there’s romance out there that’s healthy, gentle, non-explicit (some is so closed door there’s not even kissing), etc.
As far as concerning? Do I worry when I see people want relationships they see in books that aren’t healthy? Sure; but believe me, the modeling of healthy family and relationship dynamics is a) pretty poor in most books and b) have you actually talked to readers who read mostly genre romance? They read it for the same reasons people who read thrillers, horror, mystery, and sci-fi do. Heightened emotions, drama, an escape from real life. And most people are able to separate fantasy from reality.
I might personally prefer romances that embody healthy relationships, but I in no way think that means other people aren’t as capable of differentiating what’s in their books from what they should want in life as I am. Romance readers aren’t less intelligent than lit readers or fantasy readers.
This isn’t a new development. Trashy romance novels have always just been basically porn. The only difference is now stuff that used to be “trashy” is more socially acceptable and thusshed the trashy moniker.
Personally, I think there is nothing to talk about.If people want and enjoy reading that type of book, that’s their business. I’m not gonna lie. I read these, and it’s just a bit of fun. I am old enough to know that the men in dark romance need to stay in the books and not someone I would want in the outside world.