The Dark Reality of Dark Romance
Blog Writer // Jenna Totten
TW: discussions of rape, abuse, murder, and stalking
“She’s mine. I will do anything to have her and claim her as mine.”
This is one of the phrases that men in the dark romance genre commonly say to their love interests, usually the main character of a novel. In the publishing and bookselling world, dark romance is defined as a subgenre of romance that explores mature topics like abuse, trauma, and violence while still maintaining a romance storyline.
This particular genre became particularly popular on TikTok, and it has continued to grow over the last three to four years. The genre has many loyal fans and readers, with authors popping out novels consistently for their fanbase. Some authors have taken this popularity and used the genre to shed light on these mature topics in depth. For example, an author can take a book about a romance between a corporate worker and their boss and talk about power imbalances in relationships in a thorough and detailed manner. This is a positive action, shedding light on issues that plague women past and present while talking about their nuances. However, many authors take a different turn with this genre and tend to step over the line from healthy discussion into defending abusive actions.
Many of authors in the dark romance genre take toxic topics like the imbalance of power in relationships, rape, or abuse and write about them romantically. This leads to some of the readers of the novel saying that the love interest—usually the toxic man who abuses, stalks, or assaults the main character—is actually a good person for a variety of other reasons.
One of the best examples of this phenomenon would be the novel Haunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton. In the novel, the main character Adeline moves into a mansion near the middle of nowhere after her grandmother passes away. The story shifts between the main character and her grandmother, who has left notes for Adeline from her past living in the house. In the letters, Adeline’s grandmother details the occurrences of a stalker who she knows is watching her. The reader goes through her thoughts about romantically wanting this mysterious man, even though she is married to another.
This directly parallels her granddaughter’s story, where Adeline also falls victim to a stalker, Zade Meadows, who leaves roses at the foot of her door constantly. He also breaks into Adeline’s house, and during multiple occasions, she can feel him watching her. Even with these scary elements, Adeline and Zade eventually start to form a relationship. At one point during the novel, Zade makes ‘love’ to Adeline when she explicitly says “no.” He still goes through with it, however, even using a gun to his advantage during the act. To the credit of the text, it does mention that this is not healthy. Immediately after though, it contradicts itself, moving to defend Zade’s character by stating thathis reasoning for forcing himself upon Adeline is that “she actually wanted it,” and he was doing her a favor. The text further enforces this by having Adeline convince herself she enjoyed the deed after the fact, even though she hated it during it. The novel defends its love interest by informing the reader that he is secretly a good person, since he breaks up human trafficking rings. Fans of the book grow to like Zade, and tend to call him “boyfriend material” or “marriage material” online.
Another example would be the novels by Penelope Douglas. Penelope has a whole host of dark romance novels, including Credence, Bully, and Birthday Girl, to name a few. Her most popular series, however, would be the Devil’s Night series. This series spans over four books and follows a group of friends who play pranks on “Devil’s Night,” the night before Halloween. It is safe to say that these men are not positive influences, including the author’s favourite character, Damon. In the novel, Damon tries to kill Rika, the main character, and makes her worried that he will assault her multiple times throughout the story. He actually does end up assaulting her later on. Though Damon gets shunned by his friend group at the end of the first book, the series supports him by giving him his own love story in the third book.
In the third book of the series, Damon has a love interest named Winter, who he had previously assaulted when she was a minor in the first book. In the novel, he accidentally aids in an accident that made her blind as children. When they meet later on in their lives, they form a romantic relationship. He deliberately hides his identity from her because he cares about their relationship too much, but after a leaked sexually explicit video of them, she testifies against Damon for rape. In one of the novels, Damon jokes about having sex with a toddler. In another case, Rika’s main love interest and his friends look at her in a sexual manner even though she is only 16 years old. Even after all of this, the author Penelope Douglas still speaks about Damon highly on her social media. This series is one of the most popular and well-known dark romances.
Though one might say these books are only two examples out of thousands, they would be wrong. The novel A Tempting Arrangement by J Wilder provides a storyline where the main love interest, Matthias, meets the main character when she is fifteen and then proceeds to wait for her to turn twenty five before starting a romantic relationship. In the novel Binding Rose by Ivy Fox, the main character, Rosa, is sold to a mafia gang and falls into an arranged marriage. In the contract, Rosa must get pregnant, but her husband is against helping her. As a solution, he sends his brothers to do it. The novel God of Malice by Rina Kent includes main love interests with unhealthy dynamics and behaviors, and has the main character continue a relationship with the love interest anyway. The Pucking Wrong Number by C. R. Jane is another book that has the main love interest fall in love with the main character over a wrong number text. He then becomes obsessed with her, stripping her of her home, both of her jobs with his fame, and locking her in his penthouse by chaining her to his bed. She develops Stockholm syndrome and forgives him at the end. In Ready or Not by Alina May, two men kidnap the autistic main character and assault her physically and mentally, forcing her to enjoy the acts. In all of these examples, many readers describe these characters and their toxic and abusive actions as “spicy” and “hot.” Some of them even end up liking the abusive characters and praising them, calling them attractive and recommending their book to other readers.
All of these things become an issue when real-world consequences arise. This was evident in the case of Wade Wilson. Wade Wilson is a murderer who strangled and murdered two women. This brutal murder made its way to TikTok, where people who read dark romance started to romanticize him. Deeming him “attractive,” they started fantasizing about him and making videos praising him. This issue is not solely about the dark romance community, but men like this in novels are getting deemed “hot,” just like Wilson. When dark romance was in its beginning, readers started romanticizing Ted Bundy and calling him attractive. Even being a horrific serial murderer, he started to develop a following, with his fans praising him and fantasizing about him.
Not all dark romance readers do this, and many enjoy these novels because it is something they can’t get out of real life. Exploring themes like abuse, control, rape, and manipulation aren’t destructive topics to write about, but dark romance should be used to explore these topics in more depth and discuss them in a healthy and progressive way, not romanticize them. They can be used to discuss manifestations of toxic behaviors in real-life, issues around consent, victim behaviors, trauma, and coping mechanisms. They can also talk about how one can control their toxic behaviors and establish meaningful relationships, dive into the complexities of power dynamics, discuss the dangers and consequences of obsession and possessiveness, and the nuances that come with these issues.
Some fans of the genre also comment on the novels helping them after they were sexually assaulted, and the books serve as a comfort to them, allowing them to take back their own anatomy and power. Finally, dark romance can be used to fight against the toxic and stifling purity culture that women face. Dark romance can be so much more than a sexual fantasy about attractive men.
Even so, it is rare that a popular author engages in educational dark romance. Speaking about toxic and abusive topics in a sexual nature and romanticizing them can lead to invalidating these issues in real life, and with all of the issues women still face today, this can be extremely problematic and dangerous. Making perpetrators out to be “hot” or “attractive” can lead to situations like Wade Wilson’s, and normalizing these toxic behaviors can spread outside of the book-reading bubble. At the end of the day, these behaviors are disgusting and awful, and calling these book men “hot” is offensive for victims of these behaviors.
This doesn’t mean readers of these books are awful or reflect the behaviors displayed, but even with their enjoyment of the genre, they must be careful to not support the men who exact these abusive behaviors. Defending these men because they apologize or “love their women” isn’t okay, and just because they support their women at the end of their books does not make the abuse valid. It just makes real-life abusers more comfortable with their own abuse and toxicity. Abuse is abuse, rape is rape, and manipulation is manipulation, regardless of if the man is hot or attractive. None of these men are “husband/boyfriend” material, and books should not be defending or supporting these behaviors.