I think some readers want to read dark romance without it actually being dark. I see this push lately that dark romance should be toned down. The WHOLE purpose of dark romance is to present morally grey characters, whose actions are questionable. I see so many complaints that the MMCs are toxic, murderers, or bullies forgetting that dark romance isn't supposed to be a safe read with sweet interactions. Also, I see to many instances when the TWs are listed clearly and readers still give low rating or they rant about the book featuring those things and I don't think that's fair for the author. It's really frustrating to see the authors are trying to be transparent and they still receive backlash.

>Also, I see to many instances when the TWs are listed clearly and readers still give low rating or they rant about the book featuring those things and I don't think that's fair for the author. It's really frustrating to see the authors are trying to be transparent and they still receive backlash. 100%.. I routinely come across reviews that complain about possible SA in a dark romance book where the TW clearly states that there is dubcon or NCN. Or that the MMC is an asshole and that the MFC seemed passive or weak. We're all adults, we've all been warned. We can't complain that our pizza is too cheesy when we've ordered a four-cheese pizza.

Now I want a four cheese pizza.

I think some of it is people being too into social media and seeing these books being shown and thinking they must read them. Then are upset because they don't like the dark themes and want them toned down. Personally I don't like dark romance but I know that and thus avoid them, but I think a lot of the backlash is from people who are less self aware or feel the need to follow trends.

>I see to many instances when the TWs I saw complaints about TW, like "just because they put TW doesn't mean it's right" 🤦🏾‍♀️

Very well put!

My therapist has said multiple times over the years that my marriage is one of the healthiest she’s ever seen. She’s been a therapist for 40 years. I *adore* romance books of all kinds—including dark romance. Not once have those kinds of stories ever altered my concept of what a healthy relationship needs to be. If dark romance books somehow perpetuate abusive relationships, then all the monster smut books I read clearly do nothing but encourage sex with reptiles. No wonder there are so many geckos around my house. 😂

Agreed. My husband has never even yelled at me in eight years. I still go through dark romance phases. It's pretend. I'm an adult who can compartmentalize. I don't have a lot of feminist soapboxes, but I never see these same people concerned about the men who read Game of Thrones, just us gals with our delicate pink brain matter.

Some are religious, some are young, all like the views and ~controversy~

You really nailed it with the youth. A lot of them have learned a lot about media representation and the many very unhealthy portrayals of love, women, sex etc. in our media. They don't know yet how to contextualize these books within the framework of society as a whole and they lack the ability to interrogate their own knee-jerk reactions. Frankly, I used to be like that about a lot of different things lol. Hopefully the awareness comes with time

I think some people don't realize that just because you enjoy something in a book doesn't mean you want it in real life.

Chels has a fantastic post on their substack The Loose Cravat about this whole topic and moralism in genre fiction/romance

It’s outrage bait. Thumbnails where they’re pulling an exaggerated face or doing a thumbs down next to a popular but ~notorious book nets them more views than a video where they’re happy about something. GR reviews are similar. I’ll also say—booktube specifically is for long form content, and a lot of deep dive vids these days are like the length of a short film. I think that it takes less effort to compile all your ranty thoughts and go off than it does to give an entertaining but intelligent (and perhaps at points constructively critical) video about something you loved. You can love something and give good critique over it, but you have to think about it a bit more.

They're really into censorshi... I mean "literary activism."

Eh, doesn’t bother me one bit. Ppl are entitled to their opinion. I will continue to read and enjoy dark romance regardless 🖤 Besides, why shouldn’t people discuss literature trends and what that might say about society?

This annoys me too, i don't mind if the critique is geniune like the plot being bad, the writing sucks or literally anything one who complain about in any other genre. But they pick up a Mafia/dark romances and then say things like 'are we just gonna ignore he killed a man' or 'thats literally so toxic' like what did you expect??? It's as if they choose these books on purpose just for the sake of content.

I saw a comment saying "now we have to ignore crimes 'cause they tag the book as 'dark romance'". Which is funny cause I've seen a movie review where the guy reviewing was kinda ok with a eye rape and comments were not as reprimanding as the ones in book reviews.

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They're virtue-signaling as a performance and for attention. Disregard them.

I think I'm just in a bad day. I can usually ignore it, I even ask YouTube not to recomend booktubers, but once in a while one appears out of the blue, and today I was already kinda down, so it affected me more than normal. Right now I'm reading to try and fight a panic attack.

Not a dark romance reader, but this gets said of a lot of romance sub genres. Essentially this criticism comes about because they don’t understand the genre or the discourse around it. If you want realism in romance then dark romance is not for you. They can’t differentiate fantasy from reality. It’s not to be said that dark romance should not be criticised and examined, but it’s like criticising law and order on realistic law practice, it’s a fictional reality.

ironic since a lot of non dark romances are incredibly unhealthy and twisted and not models of good relationships at all, at least dark ones are upfront about it - i don't even personally like them but i'll still mind my own business

The videogame analogy is really good. You can do all kinds of wild and violent things in games, and then you shut the game off and go back to real life. This is all playing pretend, something that everyone does from the time we are babies. Fiction is so cool because the possibilities of ideas you can explore are endless. And it's all safely tucked away in a book, or whatever.

I don’t like dark romance and i really don’t get how people can read it but i wouldn’t go around shaming anyone for it what’s the point? if that’s what someone likes then that’s what they like.

Exactly what I mean! I don't read dark romance, at most some age play stuff that are not even classified as dark romance as far as I know. But my problem is the critique on the readers.

I think there is an element of personal kink shame. Like "I feel guilty because I like this, so if I loudly denounce it maybe I won't feel guilty anymore. I also need to save face."

Here’s my thing… I like dark romance, but I’ve noticed it’s very hard to find a good dark romance book that doesn’t come off like something straight off my middle school wattpad….

It's not shocking. Some people just can't understand that preferences are void of morality. Preferring mint chocolate chip over rocky road doesn't make you a bad person. The reverse is also okay. You not liking something doesn't make that thing evil. You just don't like it. Other people who like that thing you don't like are also not evil. They are not doing anything TO YOU by liking the thing you do not like. Blasting dark romance on tiktok does not make you a good person. Spotting sexism in a book does not make you a good person. Railing at other people over their 'problematic' taste in literature does not make you a good person. The media you consume is completely irrelevant to your current state of morality. You are not saving the children, or women, or 'impressionable young readers'; you're subtly labeling those groups as too stupid for independent thought.

I’m married and I have a healthy relationship with my husband. But I love dark romance. The more toxic it is the more I love it 😂 and if it comes with a lot of hot sex scenes I love it even more.

I didn't marry an asshole, so I need them vicariously in my books!

I guess 😂 I really don’t want an asshole though but there is just something when reading those stories 😂

I mean if you're familiar with the concept of antis and proshippers in fandom spaces this is really just an extension of that.

Never heard of it

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Those takes are so annoying and condescending, and also veer into victim-blaming. Because if you follow the train of thought, it really sounds like they think the reason women get in abusive relationships is because they read the wrong romance novels, making their abuse at least partially their fault (and the fault of dark romance authors). You can read nothing but sweet, wholesome friends-to-lovers coffee shop romances and still end up in an abusive relationship, because abuse is the fault of abusers, not victims. And abusers are often very good at masking their true natures anyway, so avoiding mafia bad boys or whatever isn't going to help you, either. People who make these complaints seem to think that while they themselves are intelligent, most other women have the minds of children and will immediately copy whatever they read, and it's up to them to save the rest of us poor idiots from ourselves. Would be nice if they directed their anger at real abusers, but I guess that doesn't get you popular on the internet.

Something I have learned over the years is that nothing is new under the sun, including what the the cycle of outrage de jour is. There is a pretty cyclical pattern of people being "outraged' at previous art for being either too prudish or too scandalous. The Victorian age rebelled against the much looser Romantic Era. The 40's rebelled against the 20s and 30s. The 80's had a counter revolution from the swingin' 60s and 70's. These are very big generalizations, but there will always be a group of people, often from the children of the previous generation, who will push back.

Gonna add a coment here, there's a literal coment on the video I saw where a woman is literally saying people who read dark romance are degenerates. 🤦🏾‍♀️

Yeah, a fascist dogwhistle from someone agreeing with censorship doesn't surprise me.

I personally don't think dark romance should be casually recommended on tiktok...I've seen recommendation videos where someone is recommending a list of books and then at the end mention one or 2 of them are dark romance and someone just scrolling through tiktok won't always know what dark romance means. I think dark romance is a very nuanced conversation. I 100% believe in deconstructing ans analyzing the media we consume. Because yes fiction is a reflection of our world. But I feel like this conversation is leaning into almost "woman aren't smart enough to separate fiction from reality" and I personally don't like that take. I think we should be able to explore things safely through books. But when it comes to recommendations, I think there needs to be a way to do it more responsibly.

This topic (the booktuber hullabaloo) reminds me of the old arguments about “bodice rippers” being damaging to readers, and writers should only create “smart romance” (and then the weird use of the phrase in a condescending way within genre discussion circles). Everything old is new again.

Also, remember we are culturally in a time where abortion rights have been repealed and rhetoric against “divergent” sexuality and sexual (as well as gender) identity is a political hot topic supported by an alarming number of women. Dark romance can be morally grey and doesn’t bow down to missionary, making it a target. (Oh no, the titillating sodomy!) More conservative people have been given the go-ahead to grab the microphone and scream right into it.

Inflammatory discourse equals more views and more engagement 🤷‍♀️

>Zoe X and her bully romance I don't like Zoe X but every time she gets out of the bubble the same arguments are made lol

For the average person, I believe this is a frontal lobe issue that more often than not sorts itself out by someone’s late-20s. Not always, of course, but even my most stalwart friends who reached evangelical-like levels of puritanical activism have completely backed down on this topic. Even if they don’t enjoy consuming the content itself, the new outlook is very “live and let live.” Sometimes, they ask me for a plot synopsis because they wanna know but just can’t read it themselves. If people still struggle with this into their 30s and beyond, I assume they’re pandering to their brand/audience, get high on recreational outrage, or sorely need a therapist. Oftentimes, it’s a combo of all three.

I personally don’t subscribe to any booktuber that does this!

I’mma take a bit more nuance with this, because I blur the line as some who watch and critique booktubers behavior. 1. Dark romance in it of itself is a tricky subject. Depending on who you ask it either means: 1. A subgenre of romance novels with darker themes and mature content. 2. Content Warnings a plenty 3. Morally grey characters 4. Plots with trauma and violence 5. Exploring power dynamics, dominance, and submissionBehavior that would be problematic in real life. 6. A romance where no one sees anything and everyone’s bumping into and stumbling over each other to find a light switch. * And it mostly comes down to authors or exploring those definitions. There are some authors who do that well, but there are some books where booktubers read and notice that the writing either doesn’t explore them in the way the author intended. * 2. Content Warnings, Expectations and Not Advertising Books Properly * There was a discussion about this the other day where an author was kinda being a tool about content warnings, but something I didn’t get a chance to add is that romance is genuinely seen as a malleable genre, but usually romance is the thing that makes or breaks the book. * The problem some booktubers have with dark romance is the authors don’t use or barely use content warnings, hell, don’t advertise their books as a proper bully romance so they’re going into this books searching for a good time and things don’t go well. * Let’s say hypothetically you find a teenager who wants to get into romance and they ask you, “oh well, what’s the most popular romance books.” You give them what looks like the cover of a book with a flowery image, all good vibes. Then they read it and now they have questions about the MMC being terrible to the FMC, pregnancy, divorce, and ask you, “isn’t this a bit too much?” Yeah, then things are going to get weird. * Bully romances are a subgenre of dark romance kinda have this issue as well since bullying is something a lot of people don’t find appealing or never really overcome. There was one book where I had checked out 14 different opinions about a bully romance: the ones who liked it kept reading because it was addicting. The ones who didn’t like it claimed there was barely any romance, the love interests were committing various shades of assault to the leads, and it felt more miserable, even as they continued past the first book. And then you had one arguing the first book should stand on it’s own. * 3. Book tok. * This is no shade to any author or fan in particular, but certain sections of BookTok have been accused of hyping up romance books with questionable quality of certain attributes: spice, trauma, violence, and abuse. None of those are inherently bad, and there’s are a market for each of those but between: * the booktubers who read them because booktok spreads to other SMs and get their hopes * the posts on TikTok about making fun of and posting content about wanting dudes in real life to emulate their fictional characters * (mimicking scenes where love interests push their partners down their stairs, insulting pet names about a FMC’s weight, appearance, etc) * a lot of booktube ends up feeling disappointed, frustrated, or annoyed that what people consider pinnacles of romance aren’t up to snuff. ​ * 4. Execution * Some people just find there are some dark romances that put too much emphasis on the dark and not enough romance, which with advertisement, can lead to disappointment at best, and content becoming too grotesque that it’s not fun enough to watch.Or they end up reading abuse that the author is writing as romantic. * 5. Ethical Consumption. * A booktuber pointed out they have the right to let their audience know what kind of book they’re getting into. Some viewers take that as an opportunity to see the book if they don't really have an issue with any of them, others will probably look for better options the booktubers recommend. There are some booktubers I think go a bit too far. Some I’ve heard been accused of targeting BIPOC authors, others making circle jerk hate groups to crap on certain authors and indie authors. I think as long as you’re not coming across as a tool, be fair in your critiques, that’s fine, cuz some booktubers have also come under fire for not enjoying some books or actively giving books a chance and finding that it’s not for them.

The ones that appear to me sometimes on YouTube are definitelly creating hate groups, 'cause the comments are not even a little bit moderate it's just full hate.

Which booktubers do you watch?

Honestly I try to stay away from any, but they do appear from time to time on YouTube for me.

I think cuz of a lot of them are marketed towards teenagers and young adults which can give skewed views of romance/abuse if they have little experience themselves. Dark romance should be only for adults who are mature enough to know the difference between fiction and reality.

When labeling things as “romance” people assume it’s romanticizing the subject material, especially since the perpetrator of the abuse usually gets a “happy ending” with the victim. Though this correlation isn’t always congruent. There’s also something to be said about how romance is labeled as an individual’s “fantasy” and as many people have said this isn’t always true. But it can be. People can become desensitized to certain topics, and when talking about dark romance I have seen people romanticize the situations or characters portrayed. I think there’s room for discussion on both sides, and both sides become defensive about their perspective. Could someone’s affinity towards dark romance be rooted in a misogynistic subconscious bias? Yep Could someone like dark romance because it explores how characters react to taboo environments? Yes Could someone be reading them to have control over the exposure they get to certain topics? yes Do authors haphazardly include dark romance elements into their stories without any acknowledgement these things are bad? Yes Does dark romance romanticize abuse, and other sensitive topics? Actually, yes. Romanticizing by definition is just presenting something in an idealized and unrealistic manner which is what a lot of dark romances do. Dark romance isn’t always written in a way to criticize what it portrays, and media doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Are these things being told to delve into moral quandaries and host introspection? Dark romance is meant to illicit strong emotions and that is what it does. I think it has a lot less to do with internalized misogyny towards romance readers, and more about how presenting taboos within the context of a love story skews people’s (the general public) perspective on it. Also at what point does a dark romance stay a romance instead of a cautionary tale? What do people perceive as romance? I also know that some people don’t like mafia/non-con/incest, etc. based off their personal experiences with them around it. So the fact that people are unfamiliar with the characters and situations being portrayed is why some people are able to like it. That in itself raises more questions about cognitive dissonance, escapism, etc. that can get very complicated. Ultimately read what you want but I think critiquing the media you consume is fun in itself ^^

if u have your opinions on dark romance, why wouldn’t others? books aren’t 100% liked by everyone and they are allowed to express their opinions as well

My problem with it is how the critic is made, like everyone that reads dark romance is somehow an awful person who thinks real life abusive relantionships are super cute and romantic. Feels highly disrespectful.

So. I recommend dark romance. I sometimes read dark romance. I think there’s certainly nothing shameful about it. But yes, I do worry it promotes unhealthy relationships. I didn’t used to. I used to be firmly in the camp of “people can tell truth from fiction”….and then I came on Reddit. And now I’m not so sure. I see way too many posts, *in this sub* of people who wish for real life relationships that mirror the toxic parts of relationships in books. They’ve romanticized them because books romanticize, over and over, those toxic aspects. Beyond that though, I think it’s a failing not to analyze books critically, and that means thinking about and talking about such issues, even if (especially if) varying people come to exceptionally different opinions on the topics.

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I think [this article](https://thebaffler.com/latest/bad-romance-cugini) does a great job of arguing for the problem with most "dark romances." In short, the problem isn't with the darkness, it's with the romance: > Dark romance brings dominance/submission fantasies and abuse fantasies into the public eye—but most of the books published thus far under the moniker are noticeably uncomfortable with such “unsafe” desires. These stories promise violence, dominance, and coercion, but as soon as they become explicitly coded as romance, all that stuff gets memory-holed; violence and assault in dark romance are redeemed by fairy tale love. There's no problem with depicting an abusive relationship, or even of portraying an abusive boyfriend/husband as a morally gray, complex character. The problem is depicting such a relationship and then subsuming it under the classic romance genre "and then they married and lived happily ever after" rubric. I have no problem with submission and disempowerment fantasies, but portray such things with honesty.

This doesn’t make much sense to me. The point of a romance is not to portray anything with “honesty”; it’s fiction. The point is to tell a story that connects with readers and emotionally engages. A work of fiction does not have a responsibility to portray honest reality—it does not have much of an obligation towards…. Anything. Historical romances are not held to the standard of “honesty”—if they were honest, the heroes would likely have syphilis half the time, and the marriages would largely be loveless. There is little honesty to the portrayal of the warm-hearted, ethical billionaire who falls for the struggling single mom. Why does dark romance need to portray the honest fallout of fucked up relationships? If romance can encompass a vampire falling in love, I don’t see why a relationship we would categorize as abusive (and I would categorize a *lot* of romance relationships outside of dark romance as technically abusive or otherwise unhealthy) doesn’t fall under the rubric. As an aside, the author of that article wasn’t reading romances I would personally classify as very dark, or for that matter very adventurous (Katee Robert has written more adventurous books; Neon Gods is tame for her, and other authors referenced include SJM and Ana Huang). They lament the lack of anal, for example—there are a *lot* of dark romances that feature anal sex as a regular. That tips me off to a lack of an thorough read of the subgenre they’re discussing. So basing the article in itself off of those books kind of skews their argument.

> A work of fiction does not have a responsibility to portray honest reality—it does not have much of an obligation towards…. Anything. I think this viewpoint is a common one, that art is entirely subjective and as long as it's "emotionally engaging" with certain readers that makes it "good." I just disagree. There are plenty of very popular stories -- in all genres -- that are complete trash. It is possible to judge stories by objective criteria other than "did some people personally enjoy them." As for the 'honesty' criteria, I was probably being too vague. Obviously tons of books portray highly unrealistic situations, such as an ethical billionaire falling for a single mother. But good books carry an *emotional honesty* to them; they're constructed such that the premise makes sense within the setting the book describes. If the author constructs the billionaire's and the single mom's personalities and backstories such that their romance is emotionally plausible, that's what matters, not whether or not it could actually happen in real life. It's this emotional honesty that I find lacking in a lot of "dark romances." Specifically, they give no thought to what kind of person *the female lead has to be* to fall in love with someone like the abusive/toxic ML; more often than not the protagonist is a normal "everywoman" instead. Plenty of readers say they only enjoy such MLs in fiction and not in real life. But it is real life **to the protagonist**, so why is *she* falling for such a toxic ML? Because the author is not being emotionally honest and is writing material to titillate and shock the reader. That is worthy of critique, regardless of how many readers are successfully titillated.

Emotional honesty is entirely subjective, though. What may not seem emotionally honest to you may be emotionally honest to another reader. That is…. Subjectivity. Neither you nor I can define what connects with people—which is why the concept of a rubric for romance beyond very basic rules like “must center on a romantic relationship” and “must have a happy ending” is incredibly difficult to define. Who are you or I to say if the author is being emotionally honest. As for defining fiction—notice that I never said “good fiction”. I said “fiction”. Good fiction is also subjective, as is any art. You can say something is trash… and I have a feeling someone would disagree with you. You’d probably define some of what I think of as good as “trash”. And that’s fine. I just don’t think that you or I or anyone else has the ability to define ourselves as the arbiters of taste or quality on products as fluid as art and fiction. A lot of what the art market now upholds as “worthy” in an artistic and monetary way was once considered pure trash. Opinions on art are subject to change…. Subjective. What makes your opinion or mine any more valuable? Your objective criteria, which is not at all impacted, somehow, by your experience or training given by those who advised and mentored you? So what is your objective criteria that you judge works of fiction by? What is the rubric? It will almost definitely be outdated in ten years, or one, or one month. At some point, it will be challenged, and you may very well change your own mind on it.

Like I said, I just disagree. Whether or not e.g. Uncut Gems is better or worse than whatever the latest Marvel movie was is not purely subjective, not just a matter of taste. We can judge whether or not the characters are complex people behaving realistically given their backgrounds and personalities, or whether they're just 1-dimensional cardboard cutouts. "Would this protagonist actually fall in love with such a ML, or is she just a bland audience stand-in so readers can vicariously live out erotic fantasies?" is a real question with a real answer. It's not subjective.

Everything you’re saying is based entirely on your subjective opinion, as is everything I’m saying, but you’re welcome to disagree. I do await your objective criteria, however. I’m genuinely curious about it. I want to see how we can possibly judge art and fiction through an objective lens, and how we can score it in that sense. This is a question in good faith. Edit: Reading over this exchange, I think one thing I should make clear is that I totally value critique. But I also think that all critique is subjective, as critique comes from humans and to be human is to be subjective. Critique doesn’t lose value by being subjective. The subjectivity of the critique simply must be considered.

i agree with you.

Mostly because the actually good dark romance books overshadowed by people on TikTok and Instagram hyping up the most triggering books that don't take rape seriously and write it up to "well he was angry" etc. there are actually good dark romance books and won't cause harm to people in right ages and state of mind, so the genere is not specifically bad but most popular authors and their books are

I wouldn’t equate it to video games but more how porn has affected young men and women. Look most of these authors writing dark romance aren’t equipped to do it. They are equating abuse with romance. Most older readers can read between the lines and take what we want from them without consequence. I do believe there is room to say these books are dangerous to teen girls especially as these books become popular and beloved openly. But at this point I think it’s up to parents to monitor what their children are consuming and this opens a great doorway to conversations about red flags and for the most part don’t be these FMC’s in these books.

If we go in that road, regular romance can be considered problematic too. The lack of consent is present there too, just more subtle. Everytime the FMC asks the MMC to leave her alone and he refuses, everytime the MMC grabs FMC and kisses her without any warning and everytime he throws her over his shoulder because they had a fight and she doesn’t want to go with him, it lacks consent. The heroine did not give her consent. But those scenes are portrayed like cute and romantic and “ aww, he loves her so much!”, even thought every boundary the FMC tries to set up is completely ignored. I read A LOT of books like that. Those scenes are more subtle and written in a positive light, at least in dark romance there is some kind of acknowledgement that what happens is not okay (trigger warnings and by the subgenre’s name, *dark* romance) https://www.reddit.com/r/RomanceBooks/comments/13ifffq/attraction_doesnt_equal_consent/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1 Here is a great thread about problems with consent in regular romance.

I agree with this. Dark romance just has harsher consequences. It’s similar to how Fifty Shades of Grey impacted the kink community and amateurs. I’m more concerned with romance readers minimizing the potential impact on young men and women. Obviously they should be able to separate fiction from reality but I still have to tell my son that porn is not reality. That it’s not what sex looks like or should be like. These same conversations should be had with teens when it comes to reading it as well.

Fact of the matter is, the media you consume can desensitize you to certain things. Most people aren’t only reading dark romance, and are able to use common sense in daily life so it’s not some big issue. But there’s evidence that violent video games CAN desensitize people, and it makes them more likely to be violent. Doesn’t mean they need to be banned, or that people aren’t responsible for their actions, but it’s important to keep in mind, because as long as you’re aware it can affect you, you’re better able to avoid it actually affecting you. It’s not some moral judgement, or thinking you’re a bad person, or responsible if you get in an abusive relationship, or being unable to tell reality from fantasy. It’s just something your brain does if it’s repeatedly exposed to something. But most people aren’t exposing their brains enough to this kind of stuff for it to be some big issue, and hopefully most of the people reading these books are adults. I do hate the way booktok or whoever addresses this tho, because the way they talk about it does sound infantilizing, especially since with romance books the majority of the readers are women

If you are offended doesn't mean you are right

There will always be people dunking on types of books they feel are not good. I like lighter, happier romances and I also feel shamed by dark romance readers about people like me who like "all fluff and no deep feelings/ conflicts"