Features Section Editor Sophie Poredos puts down her vibrator to question the phenomenon of ‘dark romance’ and its normalisation of violence against young women.
TW: This piece discuses examples of sexual assault and violence
Today, I am kidnapping you on an adventure full of violence, corrupted men, and hot, heavy sex. That’s right, Y/N – hold the lube and get ready for the ride of your life, perhaps your last, with the ‘dark romance’ men of Book-tok.
Dark romance, a sub-genre of romance, focuses on relationships with explicit or heavy themes, often including violence to some degree, dominance or power, and lots of passionate sex. Common dark romance ‘BookTok boyfriends’ include, but are not limited to: Nicolas Russo from The Sweetest Oblivion, Michael Chris from Corrupt, and in my opinion the most morally debauch – Zade from Haunting Adeline.
Whilst smut predates modern literature, and has and will always exist in some capacity; the evolution of dark romance into its counterpart of degradation and manipulative behaviour creates an unhealthy standard for young women to look up to.
As an avid romance reader myself, I often find myself giggling and kicking my legs at any romantic interaction in novels. I crave passion and intimacy between the pages, feeling just as breathless as the main character in those spicy scene. But dark romance does not idealise the ‘perfect man’ or ‘perfect relationship’ – instead it idolises a power structure held over women, oftentimes nonconsensual.
Dark romance is not simply hand-cuffing, the occasional whip or using a paddle in the bedroom. Its evolution into a twisted and heavily abusive kink genre, which often features mafia or some type of violent man, has strayed far from its purpose to create pleasurable and erotic fantasies for women.
Haunting Adeline was one of the first dark romance novels I was vigorously recommended by BookTok experts. Before I even delved into the true-crime-esque world of Adeline Reilly, here is its list of trigger-warnings:
Child sex trafficking
Rape, sexual assault, and dubious consent scenarios (hello?)
Torture, blood and gore depictions
Stalking and kidnapping
Murder
This novel was deeply disturbing to me as it normalised a pattern of violence and ‘non-consensual’ (CNC) dominance against the lead female character, who was stalked by a psychotic man. Its trigger warning of ‘dubious consent’ creates a dichotomy – consent is not dubious, it is not something that is 50/50 or half-promised. As a reader, I found that her consent was not ‘dubious’, for the concept of ‘consent’ as ‘dubious’ implies forced coercion and therefore rape. Its sequel, Hunting Adeline, has a particularly ‘rapey’ scene that expects readers to swoon over this overtly violent man:
Zade: “Forcing a gun into that pussy and making you come all over it? Or all the other times you told me no, and I did it anyway?” he volleys back. The flush in my cheeks deepens, and my face burns from the reminder of that stupid gun.
Zade: “Did I know it was wrong? Of course, I did. But it clearly didn’t stop me from doing it.” (H.D Carlton, 121) [1].
But it’s not just CNC that the genre loves to romanticise – the fact that kidnapping has become idealistic is absurd to me. The men in these novels are not bound by the plot to kidnap these women. They often are kidnapping them because of their uncontrollable lust or desire – wanting and subjecting these women to rape under the guise of ‘kink’:
“I could only blame almost going down on Mila on the fact seeing her naked, tied up and at my mercy really fucking turned me on” (Danielle Lori, 115) [2].
It’s no surprise that rough, violent sex is often for the male gaze: “Women receive 97% of physically aggressive acts in porn” [3] according to a 2020 study by Niki Fritz et al. and a 2019 study found that “15% of videos on PornHub contained non consensual sex” [4]. We know porn is normalising violence against women, and this normalisation seems to be bleeding into romance.
It's also worthwhile to note that women who do not find BDSM or kink-play attractive are labelled as ‘vanilla’ or ‘boring’. Particularly online in the BookTok community, there appears to be a lot of judgement towards readers who veer away from inherently kinky novels. But why are we denying women their sexual autonomy, when the purpose of the romance genre is to reinstate women’s pleasure at the forefront?
This is not to say I am without kinks – believe me the list is long and hard – but why are we subjecting young women, often underage, to read about violent and painful sex? Why are we modelling aggressive men, fighting and yelling, physical abuse, spanking and tearful sex as admirable?
For those who are reading this and do engage in all levels of BDSM, CNC or the like – this is not a target at you, your lifestyle or your sexual desires. What we should all feel worried about is the lack of research encouraged before engaging in degrading acts. In particular, it is inherently dangerous for young women to jump into intense kinks such as BDSM, without exploring their feelings and perhaps what is making them drawn to that. Constantly desensitising ourselves to any violent depiction of women, novels or porn, blurs our own consent by placing these false rose-coloured ‘kinky’ glasses on ourselves. It’s okay to refuse or partake in any level of kink – but not when our synapses are fired with the media coercing us too.
FYI, If I see another comment ask “Does this book have smut in it?” in a young adult fiction book, I will personally cast a plague of STIs down upon you.
Safe travels, dear reader, in your fantastical of passion, intimacy and kinks. But if you ever do encounter a Zade in real life – run for the hills, dear God.
ENDNOTES
[1] Carlton, H.D. Hunting Adeline. H.D Carlton, 28 Jan. 2022.
[2] Lori, Danielle. The Darkest Temptation. Danielle Lori, 15 Feb. 2022.
[3] Fritz, Niki et al. A Descriptive Analysis of the Types, Targets, and Relative Frequency of Aggression in Mainstream Pornography. Archives of sexual behavior vol. 49, 8. 2020. doi:10.1007/s10508-020-01773-0.
[4] Shor, Eran. Age, Aggression, and Pleasure in Popular Online Pornographic Videos. Violence against women vol. 25, 8. 2019. doi:10.1177/1077801218804101.
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