Tropes that became problematic

[u/KalzK]

The Persistent Suitor: A guy who is after the girl and just wont take no for an answer. Nowadays we just call stalking and harassment, but it used to be romantic. Example: The Notebook (2004), Noah asks Allie out while she's on a date with another man. She refuses, but he threatens to let go and fall unless she agrees to go out with him.

Comedic Woman On Man Violence: Mostly seen in anime, recently it has decreased a lot but years back every show had a woman hitting a guy and showed it as funny. Example: Toradora!, where the quintessential tsundere, Taiga, beats up the MC regularly.

Kid Bags Adult Baddie: I remember a few of these, sometimes it was to show how cool and awesome a kid was because an adult woman fell for him, now it's just seen as problematic shit. Example: Blank Check, the woman likes the kid and kisses him telling him to look for her in 10 years.

[u/Agitated_Insect3227]

The "not if they enjoyed it" trope where the idea is that rape stops being rape if the victim physically enjoys the experience, which is obviously horrible and stupid.

A somewhat similar & equally dumb trope is the "having a female character raped so that she can feel pleasure without guilt and getting her 'used' to sex," which was weirdly popular with some female authors, of all people, during the 1960s and 1970s. I know I sound like a crazy incel mentioning this, but I promise you it was a thing.

This book is one such example. I only knew of its existence because the author is from the U.S. state Louisiana like me and it's apparently a revolutionary book for the historical romance genre.

[u/Deep_Department_8942 → u/Agitated_Insect3227]

This is unfortunately very popular in "romance" books atm

[u/ThisVegetable6485 → u/Deep_Department_8942]

Yeaaah I was gonna comment this. This rape glorification shit is still everywhere. from women writers. I get we all process in our own way. But fantasizing it was okay is regression and avoidance, not processing. Not even to mention the extreme social harm from these stories existing. I wish it would just dissappear already.

[u/Llayanna → u/ThisVegetable6485]

..are you completely ignoring though that Authours are also allowed to enjoy what they write? What with the audience, who loves it?

It's kink. Nothing more, nothing less. And it's currently mainstream, yes, and too much for my own taste as well, believe you me.

Dark Romances don't try to be healthy though. They are trying to stretch an itch.

Hemce why I think books should have warning lables as much as movies and ratings.

It probably would help a lot if young readers avoid them, before they are ready to know that this is not meant to glorify but to be tittelating.

[u/ThisVegetable6485 → u/Llayanna]

Nothing more, nothing less.

Well, my opinion and what I was saying in my comment is that I believe the exact opposite of that. And I was talking about the authors.

I watched this discourse for awhile as someone who has been through therapy for SA. From the writers themselves, many said they write this genre to try to help them process. Readers say the same. That's what I'm talking about.

Regularless, popular culture has impact on society. There are grey areas everywhere, but I firmly believe these pieces of media that glorify or in any form "make okay" abuse, including through genre alone, are overall much more harmful than helpful or harmless. I believe it is just a harmless kink for some. I believe people who say it helped them. But I also believe it's a gateway drug to or ground into escapism, glorification, or otherwise minimizing their own experienced abuse - instead of the much harder reality that it wasn't okay (believe me, MUCH harder reality). Aside from victims themselves, I also believe theyre pepuating abuse through normalization/sexualization/glorification. The old "he only hits me because he loves me". Getting people into this who don't have prior knowledge that this only exists because it isnt okay, why it isn't, and what is okay.

Yeah it can be done well, for good reason, and be harmless to some. That does not mean its always that. And I personally believe it is largely outweighed by harm.