on the cover: Please Save My Earth timestamps (in case they don't show): 00:00 our tainted romantic ideals 03:00 1. what is a fantasy? 04:11 fantasy = dream come true? 05:20 fantasy and anxiety 07:10 2. romance as a battle 08:41 the world is a scary place 09:27 the hero is the villain 11:51 we wanna see them crawl 15:02 the problematic saviour complex 16:14 3. who is the villain? 19:03 our fascination with villains 19:30 WE are saved by the heroine 21:52 4. consent 23:17 dirty dirty books 24:51 do we dream of male domination? 26:03 consent is embarassing 29:32 the mind-reading lover 30:52 equality creates uncertainty 32:50 the pleasures of inequality 34:26 5. harmful media 36:52 the disdain for romance 38:24 romance is not the cause of abuse 40:13 we ARE smart enough 43:39 we'll be okay (probably)
As a guy, it's pretty annoying to consume any kind of media targeted to women, and realice that the male lead is an asshole most of the times, this video help me to understand that "taming" the asshole is pretty much a "female power fantasy". But also I think I understand why this is considered "problematic" since a lot of things can go wrong if someone tries to live this fantasy in real life.
If you think about it, you pretty much experienced what women feel like watching 90% of any form of media, where the female characters are either dumb, annoying or non existent. That’s a pretty cool new perspective!
on the other hand, perhaps you can understand why women, who experience these various assholes throughout their lives with little power in the real world might fantasize that someone like that might be "tamed" or otherwise come to care or love them and the women might come to hold some power over them.
I tend to prefer the trope of "the guy is an asshole to everyone (who deserves it) but is sweet to the female main character." It's still a power fantasy, but it's more about proximity to male power (which has a certain quality that even a badass female character lacks for me). The fantasy often involves redirecting male aggression (through the power of his affection for the female character) into something more positive. I appreciate you wanting to understand the female perspective better. :)
i literally don't want 99% of my fantasies to be real. a fantasy is safe, controlled, predictable, and can be cancelled at any time. reality is nothing like that. but i crave fantasy to escape the crushing stress and depression of reality.
You changed my perspective. I have a distaste for "problematic" love interests but instead of censoring any media that is perceived to be problematic, we should instead advocate for media literacy and engaging in media critically. Going into either extreme ends of mindlessly consuming content or being a problematic police are not helpful.
It's always nice to see someone waking up from their programming. Internet morality is bad for you and will only make you see the world from a narrower, more hateful lens. If everyone deleted their twitter accounts, the world would be a much better place!
Yeah. People caught up in Anti behaviors go "media has an effect on you" only to then use that to basically argue for Nazi book burnings except it's for anything that makes them uncomfortable. Which I was more or less the motive of the original ones too. Like obviously media has an effect on us, that's why it's made. it would not be produced or consumed if it had no effect on people. We can study that, we can talk about that, we can be, as you say OP, critical. I'm all for that.
It's a story as old as time. Men fantasize about saving the princess from the monster, while the princess fantasizes about taming the beast who kidnapped her.
@@hayley179g Incels certainly seem to. They see themselves as the "nice guys" in the story, and any other man the girl of their dreams might choose is obviously a "bad guy" they need saving from.
@henriettebopda5895 If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it's the type of people who consciously or subconsciously believe there are only monsters and victims. And if you view the world that way, then of course getting the monster to favor and protect you is more attractive than siding with the knight (another weak victim).
Thank you for this video! Female romance analysis rarely gets this much understanding and empathy compared to any other media analysis. People are very quick to jump to “wow women are so dumb for liking that”, it’s hard to find an actual, non judgmental and honest look at such a prevalent field of literature
@@junnaredd9912 Honestly, people that can't separate fiction from reality by impling that what you like in fiction is what you like in reality is more dark for me than thoose all stories. Because they don't have the necessary frontier.
To be honest, I’ve read some REALLY problematic romances just to learn how low the bars could get. The conclusion? There is no bar. Seriously, I’ve seen stories about sex slaves falling in love with their owners. I think women read those stories for similar reasons as why many of them are obsessed with true crime stories. Women are physically more vulnerable, and I feel that there is this natural instinct in them to learn about all the horrible things that could ever happen. Unsurprisingly, many of those situations are related to men/their romantic partners. I don’t think women like reading problematic romances are necessarily craving for those toxic relationships. I think they just got exited reading them because it’s so dark and twisted and in a way intriguing. Just like people could be fascinated by the idea of death, zombies, ghosts and monsters, but most of them probably don’t want to see the actual creatures in real life. Human beings are naturally drawn to learn about things that could destroy us. It’s normal and harmless as long as you can tell the difference between those twisted dark fantasies and reality.
Those scenarios, no matter how disastrous in real life, feel like something you can control in fiction...somehow. The owner and sex slaves in real life ended up horribly. Obviously. But in novels, you will see after the angst and dark stuff, somehow the owner becomes obsessed and sex slave becomes a beloved treausre and lives a happy life Idk how that happened, but that's how those novels end...somehow. Better to be a bird in a comfy golden cage than in a suffocating rotten one I suppose. If no choice to fly either way that is
@@fictionlover695 Probably because the author controls their motives and writes to us the desirable train of thoughts that lead to happily ever after. You can't fully control or dictate anyone's lifestyle or values in real life unless you're clinically insane. We sort of rationalise or accept that obsession or that 'romantic' outcome because it was perfectly written to be perceived as romantic, safe, and gradually healthy for the characters themselves.
"The ultimate fate for red flag characters in romance is to grovel" Great setence. I've never thought about the main lead being an antagonist to defeat through the means of love, but it sorta really makes sense.
this almost always happens with korean romantic fantasy novels, so it’s not foreign for me. for every 5 cute fluffy stories you find there’s at least 50 novels out there where the ML is a walking, blazing red flag and yet somehow the FL triumphs over it with the power of love and they grovel and beg for forgiveness in the end. korean authors LOOOVE this trope, to the point where it’s now overused and you can find a dozen books sharing the same plots over and over again.
True!! NGL when I saw comments and review, the problem shouldn't be the "immorality" of the work, It's not whether or not he's redeemable using real-life logic. it's that whether it achieved what we wanted--that red flag character to grovel. Additionally for me, I wanted to see a work that could "equalize" them. So far with the works I've read, it kinda skipped over to happy ending, woman forgiving them. It doesnt quite scratch the itch for me, the emotional satisfaction on how they went from A to B. And ofc I have some threshold too like excessive violence and outright violation of consent (instead of dubious) If anyone have recommendation, please do!
What confuses/troubles me is when there is no actual groveling... and even if there is, the male abusive lead is proven to be the one in the "right" by the narrative, and rather than having to change his dastardly ways, he is validated in everything he did.
*Art and stories are never supposed to be a step by step guide on how to be a good person. Their job isn't to teach and be shining examples of good morality. Art is about problems, about dissecting them and investing and about learning more about the human condition. Fiction allows us to do that. And if you're of age, you should be able to indulge in that fiction.* I honestly can't remember where I found this quote, but I keep it on my phone and I feel it strongly applies here. I'm so glad I found this video, amazing job 👏👏👏
Precisely. Also, art is supposed to be created for whatever the artist intends it to be and owes nothing to anyone else but themselves. However, the greatest art, in my personal opinion, is art about the human condition.
If romance with problematic characters can be seen as the female hero overpowering the villain, then stories that cross the line or end up with the women being trapped in a powerless state can be considered cautionary tales or remainders that sometimes it's a lifelong fight and sometimes you lose in your own game.
This is similar to how I've seen utopias described as stories that show where we should be going, and dystopias as cautionary tales of fates we must avoid.
I think there is some catharsis to be had in reading sad stories (including sad fantasy). I think with all the uncertainties in relationships, it can create some intense anxiety. Unfortunately anxiety is it doesn't just stick with most likely scenarios (awkward conversations, not being compatible, getting ghosted), it usually swings to the most extreme. I think reading fantasies where extreme things happen let's folks experience those outcomes from afar. Like you get to payout those cruel and sadist possibilities. In "living out" these thoughts, they get to end when the story is over. Just like folks walking out of a horror movie, or someone waking up from a bad dream, there's that immediate sense of relief. So paradoxically, it's possible these dark fantasies can relieve anxiety. I think it also can be a type of "play", not in a game way. Like seeing the patterns of abuse, just like watching a crime doc, let's folks get a sense of patterns. Like the turning points where abuse starts. The warning signs, and red flags. I think some folks might use lessons learned in real life (though they can lead to "false positives")
Yesss I agree with so much. It's nice to see someone talk about how women can identify with the male "villains". Men criticize "problematic romance" often by projecting their own issues onto it, like their inability to empathize with women's stories and personhood. They think women objectify the love interests the same way they do. But women were raised forced into the opposite position, forced to understand men's stories and thus also relate to them. Too many men still deny women's equality to them in many ways, the fact that women have the same depth of morality and character and motivations beyond what is seen as the feminine ideal. The persisting casual misogyny is disheartening and sickening. Love seeing women argue against the never-ending harmful social conditioning that people pretend is an unchangeable, perfect truth. I shall follow your channel with great interest. :)
A saying explain this: "A men is educataed into how to treat a women, but not into what expect of women. A women is educated into what expect from a men, but not how to treat a men."
Imo bad boys in romance are either depicted as bad (doing things the reader would find reprehensible; usually this is the antagonist or villain) or as flawed but good. The latter is the type that prolly makes people swoon. But the reason this trope works in fiction and not real life is that in fiction, we get an insight into the character’s psyche and know them to be different from a fully-bad character… in real life, we can’t know that for sure
Also, any harm they do is a lot more abstract than in real life. In media, we can cheer for our heroes or anti-heroes despite whatever war crimes they commited as long as they are depicted as interesting, cool and/or likeable.
And it's the intent of the writer to write such nuanced characters. It's fiction anyways which many people don't seem to get. But like any literature, the reader gets to choose what they get or do which we can't really control.
but i like unredeemable man on fiction too. for me. they're just character. but sometimes. theres a toxic character that actually feels so real that it break those fiction and in real life barrier and make me hate the character.
@ well if you hate the character because they’re irredeemably bad, that’s ok. I was referring to the type of characters that people will like / fall in love with, but which only work for fiction, not in reality
Honestly, the whole "dark romances will lead to an uptick in women getting into abusive relationships" is just a gender flipped version of the "video games make boys into mass shooters" discourse.
@@bremcurt9514 Yes it doesn't from the moment you know what is fiction and what is reality. Video game doesn't make you violent, dark romance doesn't make you wish an abu.sive relation. Nor any of them will make you approve anything.
@@aelitastone5629 There's actually studies showing how darker media is associated with dark personality traits. Men with rape kinks are also less likely to report caring about consent. We are monkeys. It's very hard to gauge the effects media has on us. Lots of misogynists have consumed misogynists media and become more awful because of it.
@@aelitastone5629 It might still affect you. You're completely dismissing how incredibily complex human beings are. We are apes, and there's parts of our brain that are completely unaware of what's fiction and what is reality. Your prefrontal cortex isn't in complete control. That's not how humans work. And people who consume dark media, often have more dark personality traits - but ofcourse we don't know which way that correlation goes exactly.
FINALLY a video essay about the subject of "problematic" romance that actually gave me a new perspective on the why of it all. Can't wait to sink my teeth into the next story about a toxic male lead getting tamed after watching this
@eta_carithebrightlord3396 it's hot and it makes for an interesting story. And I'm pretty sure I've been into it since I was around 8, to fantasize about a loss of autonomy and the objectification of myself. I've had a normal childhood.
@@eta_carithebrightlord3396 but additionally, I suppose that as I grew up and my relationship with my family deteriorated, it would have played into my already existing kinks for things such as yandere, taboo relationships and being used, probably.
I am the same way. If I read a story about my ideal real-life relationship, it would honestly be pretty drama-free and boring. I am a very risk-averse person by nature, that's why I enjoy fantasizing about things I would never actually do and people I would never actually get involved with.
this is such a fascinating video im so glad you made this. as a guy ive been kind of obsessed recently with fiction from a female perspective, and what i have found is that there really isnt enough lmao
I keep rewatching this video because of how good it is. You have an incredibly nuanced and empathetic perspective that is not devoid of reason. Most people abord this topic either from a morally superior point of view or from a "it's not that deep" one. I hope you make more videos. Thank you for this one
I loved listening to this so much. I feel like you put the thoughts I've had into words, finally. When I was a teenager, I hated the romance genre, partly because of my 'not like other girls' phase. But deep down, I was just a young girl who wished to be loved like everyone else, but didn't know how to navigate dating and relationships. I fell in love with lots of fictional characters (outside the romance genre, that is), some of whom were problematic. I've ready lots of fanfics about them falling in love with the readers and other characters they are not canonically in a relationship with, and I've even written some myself. So, I was engaging with romance, but in a roundabout way. Over the years, I've deconstructed the reasons why I hated the romance genre, while still wanting to engage with romance and love in books, movies, TV. And a lot of the reasons where mainly the points you talked about. For me, the thought of liking an "unintelligent and corny" genre was shameful because of how the genre is stigmatized. Thankfully, I don't think that way anymore. I would also like to add that, not only do female protagonists 'defeat' the male lead with the power of love, but he also becomes an asset to her. All his powers (money, fame, status, or actual superpowers) are at her disposal once he has fallen in love. I think that might be a reflection of how, in a patriarchal society, women can only access a certain level power by getting with a man. And yes, some female characters are powerful on their own, but the male lead also needs to join her in order for her to achieve her goals. Anyways, this was a really great video, and I think these are important points that a lot of people need to hear. Off topic, but I love your accent. English is not my first language either, so I really appreciate how articulate and fluent you are with it.
"Problematic romance" is liberating because it provides an escapist playground for women to explore desires without having to put themselves in danger doing the same things they read about. People who do put themselves in these situations are too busy with that to always be greatly inspired by works of fiction, although that can happen too. But the bottom line is women are constantly condescended to as if they can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality. When I went through my Twilight phase in my teens I was constantly annoyed by this. Yeah, I don't *actually* want someone to break into my house and watch me sleep, but I love it because it's a fantasy, you clods. But even I fell for this and had my own "Twilight is cancer" successive phase because I wanted to distance myself from the kinds of criticism that hurt me so badly. These days I prefer my fantasy a lot better written than Twilight, but I make no apologies for wanting it in the first place.
@@Nipah.Auauau I saw a meme post about men finally "getting" Twilight when it was gender swapped and there you go really. Men and women aren't very different at all.
yes yes yes yes yessss. and honestly reading/watching those fiction requiere our consent in a way. its like how violence are wrong but BDSM are not. we give our consent to read those. the power in on us
@@mob-pn8hj Exactly. If we don't like it, we put it down. Men who would hurt us if we weren't busy reading these hate that fact and try to disguise their jealousy as a moral crusade, and sadly it has worked. Women who read these aren't thought well of.
The common theme of reclaimed fantasies is that abuse becomes subverted. His motive is not to force power over his love ; the driving force of his actions are in service of his all-consuming love for the (audience proxy) romantic interest. Stress bonds us like glue. Conflict heavy narratives keep our attention.
I also think that because so much of media is male-dominated, having stories centered around a woman and her desires is alluring for so many women. Thank you so much for covering this topic, I always thought the ridicule surrounding “problematic romance” was not really nuanced, considering many of the arguments against it are putting the women who like it down, but you did a great job explaining all of your points!!
before i finish this video, i wanna say i've always enjoyed x readers where downright horrendous abuse happens to me. I cannot stomach anything being done like that to others however, but I've never been able to express that I fantasize about myself being abused openly with anyone. Thank you for covering this!! I like to think a large part of people making and consuming content like that are victims themselves. At least I feel like thats why i enjoy such content as someone whos gone through familial physical and mental abuse. It's refreshing to see someone try to analyze and discuss this even when it's so easy to dismiss as "people shouldn't be writing this"
You and me, me and you. Whenever I find a new male character to fall in love with, I jump straight into the yandere xreaders. I love it when he's horrendous, and I love it when the female lead either makes, breaks, leaves or accepts him for all that he is. I adore a fantasy where I can simply turn off my brain and accept a person because I love them, regardless of how they hurt me or others. If in that fantasy, the only person that they will ever hurt is me, and it comes from a place of love, I'd eat that shit right up. In the real world, I refuse to disregard my morals, in this story, I can put aside all of my real world problems, principles and my morals to 'prioritize' MY desires. My 'desires' to not have to care for others, to be selfish and to ultimately be happy with another, to know that even if I'm unloved by everyone else, I will always be comforted by the FACT that in this world, this character truly adores me and that he would never judge me for all of my flaws. Because firstly, does he have room to judge? No. And will I judge him? No. Yes. Maybe. But if he does, it's fine. It makes him all the more human and the story all the more enjoyable and lovable. If my entire existence is wrong and he accepts me for it, then oh god? Oh my god? What I like the most, I think, is the idea of being accepted to the fullest by another individual, despite what I've said. So yes, he can judge me, and he can critique me, but he loves me. And regardless of whether or not he hurts me, he loves me sooo much! That is a FACT because that's what the author intended. I don't have to overthink, I don't have to constantly fight with that is and what isn't true. No one is going to tell me that it's not true, because it's my fantasy, a story that I'm reading. I get to decide it and it'll be true. Because at the day, it's hurting no one, not even myself. I've also gone through some abuse from family, so this kind of media is my jam.
@@renaria3160 May I ask you a question? If people indulged in this in some perverse lust, whether I agreed with it or not, I would at least understand it. In reading your explanation, however, I am put at a slight loss. In particular, the parts where you speak to "despite what they do, it comes from a place of love" and stuff to that effect. I guess, I can understand you saying "I won't disregard morals IRL, but can in a book and fantasy", but I'd worry about the nature of definitions and how those definitions themselves become twisted. That is to say, if I call red, yellow, eventually they'll blend together in my mind. What I mean by that is, for example, you spoke of a place of love, and yet the person hurting the other. To me, that raises the question of, "what is the definition of love?" to you? As, to me, the definition of love is itself at odds with such behavior. Thus, even in fantasy, I could never state that someone could love yet do such things. I guess, tl;dr if you are willing, can you think of what the definition for love is in your heart? When you think back to all situations where you may have used the word, does it truly apply? I can only speak to my definition, but it has a behavioral definition. I.e., it is not prideful, it is compassionate, it is long-suffering, it is not judgmental, sincerity dwells in it, it is merciful, it uplifts, it has hope. The more these attributes abide in a person, the closer to love their heart becomes. also, you'll find this rather silly, but your last paragraph (not the last sentence), sounds like God's disposition towards man tbh.
@@Ander0072originalv2 love is just love. it can be aggressive and nasty and prideful and spiteful. it's just love. it's just 'i can't do without you, i need you here'
Fiction is a controlled environment. It's the safest option for people to explore fantasies, dangerous or otherwise. I'm a lesbian who consumes mostly m/m romances, as it seperates me from the character at a certain level. I'm a voyeur, and it's safer thst way for me.
A really well made video, as a heavy romance reader I totally agree. The issue with "non problematic" stories is that they feel unrealastic, they feel like unattainable, they don't reflect how it feels like to engage romanticaly with men. Sadly anxiety and fear is quite common in women's life when socializing with men, especially sexually, and being able to experience it and/or see it unfold in a controlled and safe way allows us to kinda cope with those feelings in real life. Love the video, well argumented !
I find this is also partly why women write and consume a lot of MM romances or BL, where you can also explore these themes and remove women from the equation entirely. One of my favorite BL novels involves a red flag love interest, but he's not the typical alpha male, he's younger, more "feminine" (half of it is an act), and he often uses manipulation to get what he wants rather than brute force. The main character falls for him of course and suffers a lot for it. But he's able to retaliate because their social status are basically equal so there isn't as huge of a power imbalance as you'd often get in het or even other MM romance. There's a real push and pull, and it's fresh and exciting.
yes, exactly! tbh I feel like MM romances sometimes get even more dark and cruel, because, as you said, since women are removed, we can keep a safe distance from the characters while still being able to relate to them. a lot of MM romance, at least to me, suspiciously resembles haterosexual power play, I suppose, all for the purpose of somehow subversing it.
@@bazazilio certainly, and even if there isn't as much subversion since the reader can identify with either partner, part of the fantasy is being able to see a man be submissive and get dominated.
As someone who loves toxic and messy love stories because they reflect my life (especially romance with other women), but is extremely repulsed by the typical abusive, misogynist, dominant bad boy guy, this was a good explanation. Realized this in parts before that this is working through the stuff patriarchy puts at us, but didn't realize that the abusive bad boy falling in love is essentially winning against him and this was the missing piece to understand it. The part about outsourcing own repressed anger on the bad boy also fits very well, and this is actually something I can relate to. Interestingly, I can't relate to women not wanting to have a sexuality so the solution is to have their desires forced on them - with men. With women however, I suddenly fit very well into this fantasy of being dominated by someone more experienced so that I don't have to act on my dirtybadwrong desires. Also I think there absolutely are women and girls who are not able to distinguish these fantasies from reality and bring themselves and others in danger by this, I sadly saw that happen a few times in fandoms - but this is something for education and activism to solve, not random smut books. If someone failed this badly, there was something going wrong much deeper than just reading the wrong book.
thank you for your thoughts! although I'm not sure if I completely agree with the "bringing themselves and others in danger" bit, I think it's the abusers' fault for being dangerous to begin with. but yes, people's choices in relationships seem to be influenced more by their own trauma and family history and whatnot, we can't blame it all on "bad media".
Maybe it depends on who was your introduction to the bad boy archetype, and who your model for him is. Mine was never misogynist, or realistically, abusive, so I don't think of it in that way. It's interesting you do.
@@henriettebopda5895 thats like saying "its problematic dany has dragons" Why does she like/love her dragons/monsters in the first place And all of you cheered her on like she is a new feminist messiah lol
@@Bleilock1 are you comparing dragons with real life toxic relationships that happen everyday? Do daenerys dream about sleeping with Her dragons while being sexually dominated by them? I don't see the connection with dragons..
Honestly this video helped put into perspective things I've been struggling with. There are romance tropes I enjoy that are very problematic, but I would never condone them irl. I felt awful about it for a while bc I knew people might get the wrong idea. But I think media literacy would help best other than trying to basically censor these romances women enjoy. Especially for younger women like teens- it lets them enjoy these unashamed while also giving them the tools they need to be able to understand enjoying this in fiction isn't the same irl (bc it likely wouldn't go nearly as well irl). This was a very good video essay I'll be sharing with my other friends, thank you.
this video is such a good explanation of this. video essays about "problematic" romance always end up mkaing me upset becausee the conclusion seems to be "who's reading these! these are bad and people sjould stop because they are going to make you get absused, boooooo", which is so oversimplified. your explanation perfectly encapsulates what i've sort of thought abiu and then more. this is the best video i've seen on this topic by far!
This video gave me quite a bit to think about. I hadn't really considered the "power fantasy" aspect of romance, but now that you've pointed it out, it makes sense. As for the final point about people assuming women are too "impressionable," I'm reminded of a scene from Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, where the performers of the in-universe play of Pyramis and Thisbe repeatedly interrupt their performance to tell the "easily frightened women" of the audience that they are actors performing a play and to not be frightened. Methinks Shakespeare and his theatrical troupe were satirizing that very concept.
Thank you so much for this video. As a woman who enjoys “problematic” romance, I really appreciate you actually trying to understand why women enjoy those types of stories instead of just painting us as crazy, hysterical women who need to be cured of our insanity lol. So many other video essays I’ve watched that cover similar topics have always felt so didactic and just completely misunderstanding what it is that makes “problematic” romance so intriguing.
I've looked at this thumbnail at least five times in my recommended before watching. I swear, every time except the last, I read it as "Do women dream of Psychiatry?" AND THAT MADE SENSE IN MY HEAD
in the end you say something like: "if you're smart enough to notice the toxic behavior" that's the thing, it's not enough to be smart. you also have to have learned to differentiate between toxic and healthy, most often you learn it in your family of origin. I was 30+ when I finally started to see the difference, because my father is a POS and my parent's relationship is horrible. that's what I saw, so I didn't learn to instinctively spot toxicity, I had to learn that shit from the internet lol. seeing/reading about mostly toxic relationships in media normalizes toxicity imo. I see your point, but a lot of women and others just aren't that lucky to see healthy love in their childhood and then they can't find it for decades of their lives. and I wish we saw more healthy relationships represented, for people like me to help to learn how it looks like.
You went very deep into the topic. This is like a PhD student kinda research. I love the chapters and would definitely need to re-watch and take notes because I like the thought process. It is like dissecting a lovely infatuation with psychological insights and a big picture kinda perspective.
So, disclaimer, I'm a guy, but this topic has always been so bloody fascinating to me because of how paradoxical it feels in a modern context of opposing patriarchy. You've done an absolutely fantastic job of explaining how these 'problematic tropes' for women are much less desires rather than they are fears to be tamed and controlled. What at first seems like subordination is actually empowerment through a less overt, brash means (in comparison to stories of male empowerment being overt and brash) In that sense, whereas tales of men finding power are often about physically dominating or destroying their threats, tales of women finding power are generally more intellectual and about getting the threat to join them, rather than to beat them. And yes, just because its popular in fantasy doesn't mean it's an actual desire in real life. For a lot of men, the fascistic aesthetics of the Empire in Star Wars or the vigilantism of Batman aren't things they would (hopefully) do in real life, but the safety of fantasy allows for it to be explored (as 'fatal an attraction' as that may seem on paper) It even applies to history, to some extent. Historian Tom Holland said that part of the reason the Roman Empire is so popular with men even though in it's heyday it was an imperialist power is because it's so long gone it's equivalent to a fantasy, like with our fascination with dangerous extinct species like dinosaurs. I apologise if I slightly went off tangent there with the male fantasies and experience, but I wanted to hammer home and expand upon that point of fantasy being like a safe sandbox for more taboo topics to be explored, while not necessarily wanting to experience it irl (as with many women liking problematic relationships they can control in fantasy)
Appreciate your thoughts, but I do want to add some context. You say "tales of women finding power are more intellectual and about getting the threat to join them, rather than to beat them," and that's a reasonable conclusion if all you know about this genre is from discussions like these, but it's not true of the genre as a whole. For the reasons she discussed, romance is more likely to get mainstream attention when it's "problematic" in these ways, but there are plenty of romance stories where it's never really accurate to interpret the male lead as a "threat", at least not in that way. Darcy might be a threat to Lizzie in that he's got more social standing than she does and is extremely unimpressed with her family, but romantically, there's never anything threatening about him. Likewise, sometimes romance does involve "beating" the love interest, but in a battle of wits that becomes the basis for mutual respect. Hell, the "I'll make you fall for me first" competition as a basis for romance is so common that there's an entire anime making fun of that trope (it's "Love is War" and I HIGHLY recommend it). Tldr: you have some good insights on the darker side of the genre, but that's an incomplete picture. Personally, my favorite example of healthier romance is The Brothers Sinister series by Courtney Milan (they're not evil, just left-handed), but that's just one of many.
@@CatHasOpinions734 Certainly, I understand where your coming from and appreciate your insight. I am aware that romance as a genre is a broad thing and the 'problematic' elements are just one section of it. I only wished to comment on that particular section as that was the main focus of the video. It's also imo the more interesting section because of how controversial and contradictory it appears at first glance.
But how can we be sure that fantasy does work like a sandbox, instead of being something that blurs the lines between reality and fiction? I feel that a story that touches you so deeply in your experiences (and traumas) is bound to shape your beliefs and feelings, especially at a young age. Of course, the kid who read Batman may not want to be a vigilante, but perhaps he'll realize the limits of the law and see that it isn't logical to always obey it, acting according to that idea in the future. In the same vein, perhaps the girl who read a problematic romance novel may come away from it thinking that no one's perfect, and that if someone hurts her it's her job to take care of him and nurture him into a good person, and that possibility frightens me. These kind of stories feel fundamentally patriarchal as long as they don't involve some kind of standing up to the other person and playing on an equal field (like pride and prejudice). When a story tells that someone changes you through just loving you alone, I feel that it's a harmful message that no amount of "get better media literacy" can fix.
@@katharsis101- you have a good point. I think that's why it's so important for us to share our stories, even the unrealistic ones. It gives us a space to think "what would happen if..." I agree that there is a blurry line. We use stories to showcase our thoughts and desires, but often times, we don't want that fantasty to surface due to the real life consequences. Especially impressionable children who learn lessons from them and do not have the depth to question the way adults do. I think the solution to the topic of your last paragraph is to talk about the depth of these stories and allow for people to question one another. Providing younger minds variety and giving them agency to make their own choices
As someone who enjoys stories where the female character is the more dominant and aggressive one, this is a very interesting analysis nonetheless. Sometimes I wonder what could've influenced me to have these preferences or if my brain is just wired like that for some reason lol
It could easily be the same reason: defeating patriarchy. But in your case, it manifests differently, possibly due to your life circumstances, your environment now or your environment growing up, the extent in which patriarchy has been present in your life, your role models, etc. All of these factors are different for every woman.
I grew up in a really conservative religious family, but even from a young age, I just found it cute if a male character showed weakness and if I could ship him with a scary or powerful woman lol. The weird thing is that I wasn't consciously trying to go against the religion or anything. At some point, I eventually did hear a relative outright say it's wrong for a woman to not be submissive in a relationship and I thought "uh oh... guess none of them can ever know about the kinda things I like, then"
As a guy with those preferences, to me it's about the safe unknown. I like the lack of control, but in a world where it's not necessarily dangerous. There's also a bit of a desire to be overtly desired, I think.
SO glad the algorithm brought me here! This video is both concise and comprehensive, and you really have a way of bringing out simple truths behind a very tangled topic. It's always frustrated me how so many people can intuitively understand that when men indulge in stories of war heroes power-fantasy-ing their way through bloody battles, it doesn't mean those men actually long to die in combat. Yet, so many people cannot grasp that when women read about heroines power-fantasy-ing their way through relationships with dangerous men, it doesn't mean those women actually long to be in abusive relationships. Of course, there's a lot of nuance there that you did a wonderful job explaining. Will definitely be sharing this video! Thanks so much for taking the time to make it!
I read Nana and was so devastated by how patriarchal it was. It’s a beloved classic in the shoujo manga community and interestingly, the fanbase focuses a lot more on the idea of Nana being queer and empowering rather than the domesticated victim of abuse the manga actually bares. I feel like people need to hear why women like these kinds of stories before condemning them under the presumption they’re just romanticizing abuse (which just feels like victim-blaming when those women are connecting to the abused protagonist). It’s not like we can’t critically engage with problematic media but I see far more judgement towards women for what they read/write rather than actual empathy for why. It makes it hard to believe these critics are actually motivated by feminism, a lot of the time they’re just cringe culture enthusiasts that attack feminine and queer oriented media. My male peers were speaking highly of Blade Runner where the male protagonist literally forces himself on the female love interest but that movie will never get the same amount of backlash It Ends With Us or Twilight does.
@@sapphic.flower Seriously, you're right. A lot of it is borne from insecurity, I think, and feminists trying to police themselves too strictly and apologize for going after men's media, such as video games and the like. I don't think they do it consciously, though, so it just creates this thing where men don't have this guilt complex, and don't criticize themselves, so it's women's stuff again that's criticized. Like with the Nana example, there's so much empowering stuff in stories, but you can cherry-pick anything in anything to make it look bad. You're right that we need to have empathy and first we need to find out why they like it. And then seriously think, is it problematic? or do we just want to find something problematic to make content about and this is silly women's stuff so it's fair game?
only a small minority of women who read those things are victims so dont bring victim blaming into this, being a woman doesnt automatically make you a victim
@@stocqzzp where did you get the analytics that told you only a “small minority of women” who read abusive romances are victims?? Literally every 1 in 3 women experience SA in North America. I’m also not assuming all the women who do read that stuff are abuse victims but condemning women for romanticizing abusive tropes can be victim blaming when they normally put themselves in the shoes of the heroine.
@@sapphic.flower most of the victims I saw said they find disgusting other people who didnt experience that making their trauma into a fantasy, and most of people that read dark romance I saw werent sa victims, this is just my experience but when someone says they hate dark romance readers they probably not mean the victims who use a bad coping mechanism but the people ramanticizing other people's trauma
@@stocqzzp I do think it's important to critically engage with dark romances even if you like it and to expect writers to have more care about what they portray. I get where the frustration lies but I'm also cautious about where my blame goes because the fact abuse-fantasy is much more common in female centric stories entails some deeply rooted patriarchal paranoia and grooming. I can't remember the name of the tv series but there's a show about an SA victim who writes different scenarios of what transpired to cope and one of the stories is about getting to consent to it, based on the show creator's real experience. I just don't want to come after people who read/write dark romance, even if I make an exception for victims, because they still get overlooked and judged for consuming questionable media.
Such a great video essay! To be frank, I started watching it with a drop of skepticism, since I, personally, find modern media sometimes glorifying dark themes. I still believe that the authors should not forget that their works not only reflect reality but can also in the smallest way shape it. But shaming the readers for their taste and, most importantly, for finding any type of media helpful or supportive or enjoyable in any capacity definitely won't fill the shelves of bookshops with well-written books about consensual and healthy relationships. All the points you made are spot on and, in my opinion, should be spread around like the hottest gossip, because a lot of people (and some time ago, me included) don't understand why anyone would enjoy reading about dub-con, for example, and due to that lack of understanding make wrong conclusions about whose readers (who mostly are female).
What a great and nuanced video essay. Interesting and uncommon take on “problematic” romance and the cognitive dissonance in the conversation around them. I personally don’t really enjoy red flag romances as a rule, but I have always found it hard to believe that so many people who do are thirsty for the boot irl.
This is an incredibly brave and honest approach to the darker indulgences of the romance genre that I honestly just want to hear more about now, because this video made me confront some internalized misogyny I had around shaming women for indulging in “toxic romances” (despite secretly enjoying them myself). Comparing it to sl*t shaming is absolutely correct and should be said. It’s like part of me knew all along that there was something deeper going on with why we enjoy dark romance so much and I think you made so many incredible points that were not only true, but validating when recognizing the nuanced and complex relationship women have with romantic media (to which, in turn, reflects our nuanced and complex inner worlds). Absolutely amazing essay, thank you for your empathy on this topic!!
I just finished this video, but it’s already become one of my favorite essays on this platform. I’d long taken for granted that toxic romance was bad because of exactly the reasons you cite, because it would be ugly and unpleasant to undergo in reality. Now that I think of it, though, the comparison to action stories is very pertinent. The classic _Die Hard_ sort of “bad guys attack and only you can stop them” story is basically toxic romance for men. There are a whole lot of stories where an unassuming man, generally overlooked and beaten down, gets the chance to prove himself by turning out to be very good at righteous violence. Nobody actually wants terrorists to storm our place of work in real life, but it is the fantasy of finally getting to show our worth, especially to a woman we’d like to desire us, through a conclusive display of power that essentially forces everyone who once looked down on us to be grateful. These stories are unapologetically self-indulgent, depicting horrible bloodshed with glee. And the ideas they propagate could similarly be construed as causing real-world harm, encouraging police and frankly anyone with a gun to see themselves as an action hero just like whatever movie star. But that doesn’t get discussed a lot. People adore _Die Hard_ no matter what ideology it promotes. And ain’t that ironic, that the stories which advocate gunning down your problems are more accepted than the ones that ask you to be nice to people who maybe don’t deserve it? Anyway, again, this video is truly superb analysis. It’s changed my entire perspective.
So good. Best video in a long time that tackles this theme at all. Kind of symptomatic that this needs a deep dive in the first place because it so mis- or not understood simple the main readers are female. We do not question horror, war, adventure, thriller or other genres that could also contain so called unrealistic or problematic content for their entertainment or/and coping benefits. As you pointed out in the romans „the dragon“ manifest itself as the „problematic love interest“. If he is written believably that adds to the fun but wouldn’t if there were no „dragon“ in the first place so to speak. I loved your part about consent. This is a complex topic. Personally i find it contains an inherent paradox that you need somewhat a strong personality and idea of your own sexuality to give proper consent but if you don’t you are more prone to get abused in the grey areas of consent. It takes more courage to say no than conforming to the expectations of someone else, especially if you are conditioned to do so. I bet every woman as made their own unfortunate experience around this. It should be not surprising that if there are opportunities to explore this in a a safe space like books and fantasies that it gets the kind of resonance that it gets. Maybe even unconsciously. There also could be a pattern in the ‚problematic romance‘ how consent is handled in find. if you look closely often there are different „stages“ of consent explored and some have literally a gradient from no at all to „tame“ state full heroine control. Thank you for the video essay.
Not to be dramatic or anything but I think this video just changed the trajectory of my life lol you're so beautifully articulate in the way you speak, I'm very much looking forward to listen to whatever it is that you'll feel like talking about in the future 💕
I don't think people are inherently wrong for pointing out the more problematic parts of many romance books. But I have found women who read incredibly smutty and often times dark romances are more comfortable with the idea of their own sexuality than women who do not read romance at all. Being able to look at and fantasize about these toxic romances often gives women the tools to recognize why something is toxic. In the majority of these dark romances, the hero's flaws and red flags are not the reason the heroine loves them, but rather that they love them despite it. I do still think some books are inherently harmful to young readers, but there's a difference between "November 9" and a mafia romance story.
In my ideal world, obviously women are free to read "problematic romance books", but also there's someone pointing out to teenage girls that dating a hot unreliable bad boy in real life isn't actually a good idea. And I know some mothers do that, but some teenage girls are never told that lesson, and significant damage can ensue. As a comparison, imagine letting teenage boys play violent video games, but then never telling them "hurting others is bad" and not reprimanding boys who hurt others. I suspect that would lead to bad outcomes.
Really love your deduction! It really brought a new productive way to see this discourse. Speaking as lesbian, its really interesting how the sexual guilt is still carried through even though you're not in a relationship with men, and despite dodging problematic romance in hetero fiction, I still actively seek it on wlw genre. Apparently, its quite common between sapphic women as well, though someone have made an interesting observation of how most of media in that particular genre 'stay toxic' or better 'romanticizing' that said toxicity. If you're interested and okay with reading yuri manga, i can recommend 'How You Do Relationship?' because it has a rather realistic depiction of people and relationship in general, it also explore the theme of sexual guilt in women really well :)
36:18 maybe because the fantasy has to be intact. The extremely empathetic, brave and strong woman is hard NOT to love. So the obsession and devotion from the love interest seems valid and inevitable, the most natural outcome. The insecurities and uncertainties which plague real life relationships don't really exist unless the medium lowkey addresses it by making the woman even MORE perfect by making her be insecure(cause hey, she's not a narcissist- doesn't even know how appealing she is) internally while the lover saves her out of it. of course, it doesn't have to be gender specific- as you mentioned in shounen romances we often see the opposite. Biggest example is ToraDora edit: banger video btw🗣
Well I was lured in with the PSME cover and then I stayed for the nuanced analysis. I love how you haven't patronized the readers or vilified the creators of "problematic romance". Really enjoyed your writing and presentation in this video, thank you!
For me, I enjoy “problematic” romance tropes because it’s a fantasy. A lot of them are related to my kinks, and it’s fun to enjoy dangerous situations in my imagination where I’m safe. I wouldn’t want any of those things to happen to me in real life, though. I like another RUclipsr who made a video recently about how she doesn’t like it when people say they enjoy problematic romance tropes because they can tell the difference between fantasy and reality. She said that was victim blaming (???) and that these tropes are dangerous to women. I feel like this is just the same “video games cause violence” rhetoric all over again. She didn’t provide any evidence to back that claim, btw. Nobody who complains about this stuff ever does
I agree, with one caveat--for video games, those demons you shoot in doom don't really exist. While for romance, those red flag people looking for manipulable partner/victim certainly exist. So it's a bit "easier" for the fantasy to put into practice.
I definitely think that enjoying dangerous, "problematic" relationships in fiction is adjacent to kink! It's just that it's even further removed from reality, and instead of a safeword, you can just close the book. A lot of people seem to understand that just because someone might want to roleplay getting tied up, it doesn't mean they want to get abducted in real life. But then they can't fathom why someone might want to read a story about it but not actually want it to happen to them. I get so sick of people infantilizing female readers who are into those kind of fantasy romances and thinking we are too stupid to know what's good for us.
@@letsreadtextbook1687I disagree. Those "red flag" villains don't actually exist. You're not going to find a beautiful guy who's totally obsessed with you and wants to kidnap you and do everything you want.
@@jd5368You know what, I'm starting to think they're not infantilizing female readers, they're just treating them the same as men. It is possible that for many men, what they read/watch or fantasize about _is_ actually what they want in real life. They may think the same about women.
A spectacular video essay - you've made so many spot-on points about how FICTIONAL media does not have to exclude 'problematic elements' in its depiction, and that in fact the depiction of these 'problematic' stuff can be in a way useful as a symptomatic reflection of what humans are concerned about in the real society/world and which they have been endeavouring to explore deeper. In fact the freedom to do this is exactly what makes FICTION so pertinent to our media diet! It can in fact encourage us to register the importance of socio-cultural/historical context whenever we engage in thematic discourses as such, from which we are hence able to correlate the WHAT with the HOW and possibly with the WHY (i.e. authorial intention in creating such a work and/or readers' willingness to engage with it), in order to critically understand what made our reactions (endorsement/aversion) towards various types of content the way they are. With all of the above said, it is so important, in the first place, to have decent media literacy and a concrete awareness of the fact that fictional characters should fundamentally be "objectified" (not to be taken literally or like the way we do towards any real-life representable counterparts for us to project our thoughts and concerns into). Sadly, we don't see people possessing much of this in most of the fandoms/ media circles today, which leads to quite terrible circumstances of unnecessary self-censorships and doxxing for the sake of upholding "moral purity" within the media we consume. I wonder if such a "literal" treatment of fictional media subtly hints at the slow detachment of media consumers from their own realities, wherein fictional media are treated with the tantamount severity and impunity as it is done in real life? Anyways, enough with the long rant! Thanks again for this informative video and having subscribed, I can't wait to watch more of your future uploads!
thank you for this video! i hate how people see romance media as some sort of tutorial for how to have healthy relationships. it’s just the video games all over again-replace boys with girls, video games with smut, violence with abuse, boom. i’m impressed how we’re able to recycle the same moral panics again and again.
This is such a great video and touches on everything I have always instinctually known to be true but always had a difficult time putting into words. I'm asexual but still love reading romance and smut, often with very problematic elements--not because I secretly want any of those things to happen to me (god, no!), but because I have so so SO much anxiety around it all, and some smutty non/dub-con fantasy where it all works out happily-ever-after for the characters despite all those terrifying things is, in itself, the ultimate fantasy. It's a comfort, it's escapism, it's taking something I'm afraid of an reshaping it into something that doesn't have to be scary or devastating via the power of fantasy. So it drives me absolutely nuts when people (especially other women!) decry problematic fiction as dangerous or condoning abuse, because it is actually such a vital, healthy part of navigating and coping with the world around us, and trying to take those outlets away will only ever cause us more harm than good.
I'm so glad to have this on my recommended! Such an insightful and empathetic review towards 'problematic' romance stories targeted towards women. You're very well-spoken, I'd love to see more content! You've earned yourself a sub
great video ! it definitely gave me some perspective on a lot of things. while it didn't make me change my mind entirely on the dark romance genre which is, in my opinion, very problematic and I say this as someone who enjoys dark romances as a guilty-ish pleasure - but it did make me see that the genre as a whole does not have problematic roots. I think the real issues with the genre are the same as most modern litterature post-social media and ESPECIALLY post the bane of my existence that is booktok and the fast-food-ification of reading with ready made tropes and little originality and very sensitive topics with very little care or sensitivity (or straight up weird shit like the guy in that one book who f*cked a girl's eye socket) It does give me some comfort too that dark romance's roots are not linked to whatever the hell is going on lately. And I agree that stuff like that, female oriented power fantasies in all their shapes and forms are valid. It's honestly saddening to see them being dismissed or called dangerous and corrupting when men writing awful things about women get absolution for all their messed up and genuinely damaging idea the moment they label their work as fiction and power fantasies. Amazing video, very clear and cohesive and greatly underrated. I'll be tuning in for other video essays to come!
@@ringinn7880 no, it's usually dark topics like the usual stalking and violence and stuff but handled with very little care it's almost like they want you to want it. It's not all dark romance books, obviously, but a lot of those recent ones do it.
A lot of dark romances should be labeled in the Horror genre. Horror is the genre where we explore our fears and weirdness, but how the patriarchy normalized most of these things it's not so obvious for people to realize and everything involving relationships, especially from a women's point of view, is seen as romance. This happens with other genres such as Fantasy and Science Fiction. Twilight, for example is low fantasy/urban fantasy, but people always refer to it as supernatural romance.
This was an absolutely fantastic video! As a reader and writer of romance, this was such an interesting watch and I often found myself nodding along. Honestly I feel like if most romance writers haven't had this introspective discussion with themselves, they should absolutely watch this video! Can't wait to see what you talk about next ❤
Wow this was one of the best video essays I’ve seen in a while! Tbh a lot of essays now have sort of just become a regurgitation of common knowledge/beliefs with hard to understand quotes from professionals that feel tacked on and make my head hurt haha. But your video really brought in a completely new and interesting perspective to me which you thoroughly and accessibly deconstructed, I’m definitely subscribing! You’re too good!! And oh man I NEED to hear another dozen essays about all the topics you brought up towards the end! Also great job on the editing, they enhanced your arguments so well!!
Very nice video! It's nice to hear this from the perspective of someone who's not only a woman but also a writer. In the end, I'm left with the impression that perhaps the truly "problematic" element in all this actually stems from a harmful conception of "romantic" love. Even if romance heroines are clearly acting out of compassion and care and love, the message that the stories themselves still operate under is the assumption that love can be justifiably used in order to coerce others into changing. Thus why it is so key to paint the male lead as a terrible person who is in NEED of changing out of their terrible sociopathic ways. That's where the core of the fantasy lies. It's a justification of emotional manipulation in which every single element in the story is carefully arranged in order to mask the premise under a systematic veil of association to things which our current zeigeist considers evidently and unquestionably positive. The weapon of choice is love, love cannot be bad, right? If someone becomes emotionally subjected to you by way of love and your innate charm, then it is always completely socially acceptable. But the moment you apply the exact same dynamic but with a different emotion, a different method for tugging at the male lead/antagonist's heart strings, the manipulative element becomes much more evident. So I think it's pretty clear that there's an implication at play here that love is supposed to be somehow like an external, coercive force and not an act of heartfelt kindness. The implication is that love just "happens" to people due to circumstances outside of their control and it can make people act against their own will, their values, change their entire personality etc. Instead of it being a conscious choice, something to be fostered, nurtured and perfected. Personally I find that disgusting and I could spend all day talking about why exactly that is, and how damaging this mixup between obsession and true love has been for our culture, but I'll just leave it like that.
I find your analysis very thoughtful and intriguing. Plus it gives me much food for thought. And I think it helps me better understand why I feel frustrated with the popularity of certain media that I find distasteful. Indeed, it is just a fantasy and should not lead to all the hand wringing and pearl clutching 😂 Also your video essay is very well constructed with amazing visuals ❤
since everyone else in this comment section is preoccupied with ur intelligent and well-considered arguments, i'll have to be the one to point out how gorgeous ur little collagey animations are. stunning stunning stunning
39:00 super well said which I think stabs right to the heart of the problem a lot of modern, terminally online folks have with distinguishing fantasy from reality. Fiction can be taken seriously, not literally.
A good example of a story that depicts a woman with typically masculine flaws, while the male counterpart takes traditional feminine qualities is EEAAO, although it isn't romance, it still felt pretty romantic to me to see a female character with so much anger and resentment be seen, loved and saved by her partner.
See, I get what you mean about seperating fantasy from reality or whatever, but I can't help but find these stories anywhere from cringey and distasteful to deeply concerning because I've met so many people that have an "I can fix him" mindset in real life that leads them to come back to abusive or otherwise toxic relationships over and over. It's a bad fantasy that will only lead to you getting hurt (aside from mayyyyyybe the very mild variations where the "bad boy" in question turns out to be just a regular guy with a minor criminal record and some manageable mental health issues or something). A lot of women genuinely don't know how to recognize *actual* red flags because they were raised in circles where all kinds of bad behavior is normalized to the nth degree. I get how someone facing constant sexual harassment from the people they're expected to marry and have kids with will have to find a way to square that cognitive dissonance, but putting up with it in hopes of "taming" him with your love is maladaptive as heck.
We are the stories we tell about ourselves. This trope of "taming the bad guy" is dangerous for women because we form our character (partially) from the fantasies we create/consume. And that one is an extremely dangerous fantasy. It justifies the behaviour of rogue males, and create a false expectation about putting an end to this behaviour through empathy. Heroes defeat villains, they don't negotiate with them. And yes, you can try to understand the motivations of a villain in the process of destroying him, but that's a different story
What an amazing video, truly. An exemplar explanation and exploration of media through critical thinking. Honestly, this could be an article in a Cultural Studies journal. Loved it!!! Thank you so much for taking the time and sharing it
This feels like one of those video you can tell are going to be good from the first second, in my opinion men watch all sorts of problematic romances too that are just as if not much worse to be honest, but people talk about that all the time, it's rare and intresting to see a nuanced perspective on fenale wish fulfilment every once in a while
14:51 But why must the fantasy involve the woman falling in love with the boss she needs to defeat? Why must she "save" the villain. You say it's because, well, it's a "nice fantasy". But I think that too depends on the cultural expectations impressed upon women because I can't imagine men in general fantasizing about healing a mentally traumatised woman. It feels like it's a "nice fantasy" for some women because they EXPECT themselves to be weaker and like to feel useful? Idk. I'm not convinced that it's purely a fantastical "women enjoying the feeling of coping and solving issues irl"
@@ankushds7018 for the women who enjoy this, it's just cause they like evil men sometimes. That's it. The people reading don't care about the abusive male being saved. They like the fantasy of being with a "hot evil man"
i definitely think there's some social conditioning at work here, even though i totally agree with most of these comments. it's complicated, but the choices we make aren't made in a sociopolitical vacuum. brains are weird. i guess it's the "i can fix him" thing?
I really like your analysis on romance literature. it's so logical and understanding that my mind is blown away. I am romance reader and I never knew why I liked those red flags characters, those stories but the way you analysed it, I can understand my own mind and desire and where it's stem from. Such a great video, I am your loyal fan from now on. I have subscribed to you and will watch your all videos.
This channel is criminally underrated. I’m in love with this video: such deep research, so many points taken into consideration, beautiful narration and visual aesthetics… I hope you continue your amazing work!!
I would absolutely agree that a lot of women don't read dark romance out of ignorance, but BECAUSE they understand so much of what is at stake and it's comforting to imagine a world where they have more control. Patriarchy is exhausting, frightening, and numbing and it's totally human and understandable to seek out that kind of relief. I also don't think literature propagates violence against women. I think it exists in the context of violence against women already being a problem. That being said, I would still maintain that the kneejerk reaction to that kind of writing (that being to discourage it and shame the mainly female authors who put it into print) is correct, even if it should be accompanied by further discussion. I think it's worth noting that not just women fantasize about being able to transform violent men; men irl will try to convince the woman they are abusing that she is actually "saving him" through her love and forgiveness, and helping him change. These dark romances reflect REAL situations that do happen. *Essentially, dark romance is patriarchy with a positive spin, where you can thrive and find love and empowerment by showing empathy to the system rather than fighting it.* Anyway, I think losing oneself in fantasy, (for women) even if you're totally aware it's a fantasy, can encourage a kind of closed off-ness to the world; so often in online female spaces I see women posting things like "fictional men >> real men" and "the version of him in my head >> him in real life." and it's like -- I'm not saying that they're wrong or that they aren't implying meaningful subtext but I think constantly using a language of extrapolation, deflection, and vulnerability-through-sarcasm (which is part of an interesting larger gen z phenomenon) can cause a kind of lackluster and maybe even to lose the plot a little bit. Sort of like women saying "I'm just a girl" (which was meant to be meta-irony on actual female infantilization in society that occurs through patriarchy) and now there's so much brain rot and a lack of media literacy and tik tok is like the eighth level of hell that it's blossomed into girl dinner, (eating disorders) girl math (women are too dumb for STEM) and its like okay i hope everyone's having fun but at a certain point is this helping us have honest, brave, vulnerable, introspective conversations with each other and ourselves?
The whole "fictional men >>> real men" thing makes me sad. It reminds me somewhat of young men becoming inundated with "explicit videos" and thinking that the women in those videos are better than women irl, or expect women to be like them, that these women are what is "normal". It's definitely not a 1:1 comparison, but ultimately it's people becoming so lost in the fantasy that their standards or understanding of REAL people has become disconnected from reality... And it's no surprise that reality can NOT satisfy this type of person once they are so deep. And many of the people in the groups above are typically very undesirable partners, in my experience. I wonder how much of it is self-sabotage, or some other maligned psych-issue.
@@H41030v3rki110ny0u i definitely agree there are parallels to guys who get obsessed with online women and lose touch with reality, also strongly agree that both these groups are not easy to date -- i think it will always fall apart when their real life partner act incongruently with their mental fantasies, and they lash out and try to force them to comply with it or distance themselves entirely, and as long as their fantasy comforts them emotionally, they'll hold onto it at the expense of other people. thank you for validating my comment bc i was worried it was too harsh lol.
Honestly, sometimes it seems to me that it is the male lead that "tames" the female lead in the end or I guess break is a better use of the word. The male lead is already obsessed with her but doesn't care about how she feels or how he hurts her till the very end. At the end the female lead ends up obedient and just lets things happens to her and gives up everything or it seems lije her mind is broken and she suddenly likes the male lead after everything. Kind of like Stockholm syndrome.
For a fantasy to work it needs to have enough believability for whoever is having the fantasy (and part of that has to come from the reader being open to suspending their disbelief in what they ultimately understand could not be true in real life. I digress). It sounds to me that some fictions sell fantasies to you that you can't buy. And that's fine. Other people may not need that much to get into it and others like yourself need more.
thank you! to be honest, I was having the exact same thoughts. for example, in th This Man trilogy that I mentioned (and that I still hate with passion) it seems like the heroine just has to put up with his selfish behaviour to the very end. tbh, it's hard for me to interpret because I feel so much resistance towards this trope, buuut if I tried to, I'd say that a) unlike real life, in fiction his horrible behavior is safe to experience, so it's like a weird form of entertainment, I suppose? just like other people like stories with gore and blood etc. b) this sick master-slave dynamic is like the most straightforward relationship you could imagine, so it's also, a fantasy of desire being very simple, straight-forward and "primal" so it's a like a counter-fantasy to all the complexities that real life romantic relationships have to offer.
@@bazazilio I guess that is understandable. There is something else I am curious about. Why would you say that the opposite isn't as common. That being the female lead ending up with control over the male lead? I wouldn't say ones I have read are unpopular but it seems like they are fewer overall.
@@smurfette_blues7922 If I am to be honest, I honestly doubt that is the soul reason. To me it really does feel like that was the main interpretation in some works and it would be hard to see things any other way as it us probably what the author intended to happen.
@@sugarzblossom8168 oh well then that's a different story. That's just a taboo fantasy. Like @bazazilio says it can just be a weird form of entertainment like horror is. But also there is excitement in reading about getting into a dangerous relationship. These kinds of fictions kind of overlap with sub/Dom fantasies. Relinquishing control and giving it to someone that overpowers you. Being able to bed a coarse and possessive man without having to experience the emotional or physical repercussions that comes with doing so in real life. It's just the exciting parts without the awful and sad ending.
I remember when I was a kid, seeing my mom watching "Twilight", i always thought how weird it was for my mother to be so in love with Edward back then, when he was kinda a creep, but then disliking my dad to the point of hate, when my father is probably worse then a character, i think that, women have a thing for thiw type of movies, because it is something that they were teached, that they have to "save" or "tame" the abuser, so they can have a happy ever after. i am capable of enjoying a boo or a movie that is about abuse, non consensual or anything like, as long as it isnt seen as romantic, or something you as a reader are suppose to desire, but as something disgustuing that will make me feel sick.
In fiction, people can identify with tragic backstory and interesting motives for villains. In real life, the jerk you know is just a narcissist and/or sociopath that doesn’t go deeper than that.
Yep, seen them in real life many times. The ones that did change from jerks to good guys was not because their love interest changed them but because they recognized their behavior was causing themselves problems. One does not change unless one wants to change for oneself.
@@testcase6997 society as a whole rewards narcissistic behavior in men. Very little people care but a few people in a woman’s support system when she’s being abused, and if anyone calls a man out on anything, the abuser will smear campaign. Until society changes, this is how things will go.
The explanation was phenomenally done and gave words to many insights I have realized over the years too! 30:16 this part, however, does lead me to thing this does absolutely bleed into our reality. While the distinction between fantasy & reality are clear, when it comes to Love, it’s actually not. Love, in some sense will genuinely be tied to fantasy all the time. And in my experience, these expectations and ideas definitely do bleed into reality, regardless of the intention not to. I feel this type of fantasy stuff is more akin to what Pornography, does to men but for women. The expectations of intimacy itself get warped around the fantasies and become expectations of real people. Now the expectation obviously isn’t literally the romance novel things that break realities of safety. But the core things, like this hope of not needing to communicate or confront self or the rest is very real and still present. But that’s subtle because Love and Fantasy are obviously intertwined in many ways. But you have helped a ton in humanizing and contextualizing that overlap. Thanks a TON.
At first I thought this was gonna be the usual take of focusing on the women and that we dont have the emotional literacy to recognize toxic behaviors and instead are blindly led by the powers that be. I appreciate your nuanced take. Yes, women can indeed recognize the red flags and dont actually want these relationships in real life. Yes, women are more than emotional batteries for a man to drain. Yes, women inherently have power that simply looks different from a man but doesnt make it any less. And how interesting that you actually touch on the male experience. Great video😁
you made me watch youtube on 1x speed and that is the greatest compliment I can give. I've struggled with my sexuality for most of my life, the only place I let myself have sexual gratification is through female-led non-consent content. As a guy a lot of the anxieties traditionally pushed on women are being more and more felt by guys, in this world of uncertainty, many men's greatest fear is to come off like a creep or a predator or problematic, so we push those feelings and desires down till they become scary and shameful and virtually unapproachable. for most of my life I believed I was asexual or at least a demiromantic asexual, and honestly, that may be, but if I think about it deeper from this lens, maybe not. I don't know anything for certain but you've given me a lot to think about, so Thank You.
There's something fundamentally condescending about the fact that romantic tropes one would never want to happen IRL are "problematic", but similar tropes in other genres are easily treated as the fiction they are. One of my comfort genres is cozy mystery (think Murder She Wrote, if you're not already familiar), but no one would use that to assume I want casual acquaintances to die under mysterious circumstances. I love fantasy RPGs and Lord of the Rings, but no one's worried that I'm hoping for an evil overlord to rebel against or that I'm going to try to solve all my problems with a sword.
@@testcase6997 the vast majority of fantasy adventures involve LOTS of death and violence. LotR is a little bit of an outlier because the main hero is Frodo, and his heroism mostly takes the form of being resilient and determined without being violent, but all of the non-hobbit members of the fellowship mostly save the world by being good at fighting and/or convincing others to fight for/with them. In most fantasy RPGs, the main game mechanics are all about how good you are at killing things. In some of these games you're fighting skeletons/animals/mindless creatures, but in a lot of them you're just fighting (and usually killing) people. In the same way that some romance plots are specifically crafted so that the main problems are best solved with empathy, fantasy adventure plots are usually crafted so that the main problems are solved with swords and fireballs. Don't get me wrong, I'm not making a "video games cause violence" argument, but if you're suggesting that wanting to literally be in a fantasy RPG is less bad than wanting to literally be in a toxic romance... well, I've read and played too many fantasy adventures to believe that.
@@CatHasOpinions734 First, this is just prn we're talking about. That's what this is. Which it's fine. I'm submissive too so I get how a fantasy can be fun. Where it gets closer to immoral imo is when people treat these as legitimate genres with good themes. By crossing from harmless prn to actual literary merit it takes something that should be private and frivolous and turns it into a public display of a fetish. Said fetish being "women like evil men". "It's fun when your man is evil" Now, we all laugh at the idea that video games cause violence. We don't laugh at the idea that always portraying black people as thugs in movies causes people to see and treat black people that way. Clearly we think art can influence your thinking and by consciously justifying this type of prn as real art it justifies disgusting ideas and tricks it's readers into seeing the baseline man as abusive. Not only does this hurt women by accepting a high level of abuse as normal, but it hurts men by casting them over and over again as violent threats. I shouldn't have to explain why it's so dangerous to be seen as a threat.
@@testcase6997 if you think we're just talking about prn, then you misunderstood me. The kind of misogynistic condescension I'm referring to in my original comment happens in response to YA, completely-non-explicit romance, all the time. Hell, the most famous example in my lifetime was the reaction to Twilight, which don't get me wrong, there are valid criticisms of that, but in hindsight it's fairly clear that much of the criticism of it was fueled by a lack of respect for the target audience. Also, on the note of art influencing people, you seem to be implying that taking something more seriously means it's more able to affect us, but most of the time it's actually the other way around. Look at successful marketing, they DO NOT need you to take them seriously in order to influence you, if anything it's better if you can get people to read/watch your messaging without seriously thinking about it, because if they think about it more consciously they're more likely to make better decisions. Likewise, everyone I've ever met who's actually read Lolita came away thinking the pdf file character was the absolute worst, but plenty of people watch the trailers for the movie versions and get a very different (much worse) impression. Tl:dr, it's not just prn, but even if it were, if you're suggesting that it's only harmful when we take it seriously and harmless if we treat it as lacking any literary merit and consume it uncritically, that's incorrect.
@@CatHasOpinions734 Whether something is taken seriously or not does not mean it can or can't influence you. It seems you're not reading what I actually say.
I love this analysis, but my main concern with these fantasies is how very frequently they merge with porn/grooming culture. That is actively dangerous to young girls and I'm glad people are criticizing that.
as a lesbian this is why i stopped reading straight romance, they're al just copypastes and becoming generic. like what's up with the typical dark haired male who has emotional problems? i could literally replace him with a rock and the story would progress the same. i see both sides (fem and male) criticize each other's taste when they basically just mirror each other lmao.
this is such an interesting video! I have also been working through my prejudices against popular romance or 'tiktok' books. I used to turn my nose up at them but then I actually tried reading some and realised that my feelings were more...complicated. This definitely gave me food for thought!
on the cover: Please Save My Earth
timestamps (in case they don't show):
00:00 our tainted romantic ideals
03:00 1. what is a fantasy?
04:11 fantasy = dream come true?
05:20 fantasy and anxiety
07:10 2. romance as a battle
08:41 the world is a scary place
09:27 the hero is the villain
11:51 we wanna see them crawl
15:02 the problematic saviour complex
16:14 3. who is the villain?
19:03 our fascination with villains
19:30 WE are saved by the heroine
21:52 4. consent
23:17 dirty dirty books
24:51 do we dream of male domination?
26:03 consent is embarassing
29:32 the mind-reading lover
30:52 equality creates uncertainty
32:50 the pleasures of inequality
34:26 5. harmful media
36:52 the disdain for romance
38:24 romance is not the cause of abuse
40:13 we ARE smart enough
43:39 we'll be okay (probably)
Godsent
As a guy, it's pretty annoying to consume any kind of media targeted to women, and realice that the male lead is an asshole most of the times, this video help me to understand that "taming" the asshole is pretty much a "female power fantasy". But also I think I understand why this is considered "problematic" since a lot of things can go wrong if someone tries to live this fantasy in real life.
If you think about it, you pretty much experienced what women feel like watching 90% of any form of media, where the female characters are either dumb, annoying or non existent. That’s a pretty cool new perspective!
on the other hand, perhaps you can understand why women, who experience these various assholes throughout their lives with little power in the real world might fantasize that someone like that might be "tamed" or otherwise come to care or love them and the women might come to hold some power over them.
@@claie171 Yeah, I understand, that's why I made the simil to a "power fantasy", lol
Why would someone try to "tame" an asshole in real life? Do you have some examples?
I tend to prefer the trope of "the guy is an asshole to everyone (who deserves it) but is sweet to the female main character." It's still a power fantasy, but it's more about proximity to male power (which has a certain quality that even a badass female character lacks for me). The fantasy often involves redirecting male aggression (through the power of his affection for the female character) into something more positive.
I appreciate you wanting to understand the female perspective better. :)
i literally don't want 99% of my fantasies to be real.
a fantasy is safe, controlled, predictable, and can be cancelled at any time.
reality is nothing like that. but i crave fantasy to escape the crushing stress and depression of reality.
You changed my perspective. I have a distaste for "problematic" love interests but instead of censoring any media that is perceived to be problematic, we should instead advocate for media literacy and engaging in media critically. Going into either extreme ends of mindlessly consuming content or being a problematic police are not helpful.
Not to mention creating art ourselves that reflect that desire.
It's always nice to see someone waking up from their programming. Internet morality is bad for you and will only make you see the world from a narrower, more hateful lens.
If everyone deleted their twitter accounts, the world would be a much better place!
Yeah. People caught up in Anti behaviors go "media has an effect on you" only to then use that to basically argue for Nazi book burnings except it's for anything that makes them uncomfortable. Which I was more or less the motive of the original ones too.
Like obviously media has an effect on us, that's why it's made. it would not be produced or consumed if it had no effect on people. We can study that, we can talk about that, we can be, as you say OP, critical. I'm all for that.
Too late.
Saying "media literacy" will result in a trip to the Congo when we win
It's a story as old as time. Men fantasize about saving the princess from the monster, while the princess fantasizes about taming the beast who kidnapped her.
Is that what men fantasize about really? I'm not sure.
@@hayley179g Incels certainly seem to. They see themselves as the "nice guys" in the story, and any other man the girl of their dreams might choose is obviously a "bad guy" they need saving from.
guess you can call it a tale as old as time
What type of people want To tame a Monster when there are other options?
@henriettebopda5895 If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it's the type of people who consciously or subconsciously believe there are only monsters and victims. And if you view the world that way, then of course getting the monster to favor and protect you is more attractive than siding with the knight (another weak victim).
Thank you for this video! Female romance analysis rarely gets this much understanding and empathy compared to any other media analysis. People are very quick to jump to “wow women are so dumb for liking that”, it’s hard to find an actual, non judgmental and honest look at such a prevalent field of literature
I really hate when other women shaming other women's dark sexual or romance fantasy.
@@junnaredd9912 Honestly, people that can't separate fiction from reality by impling that what you like in fiction is what you like in reality is more dark for me than thoose all stories. Because they don't have the necessary frontier.
Because women read these things then go act holier than thou or they read it and act like jiggle physics in a video game endangers them. *shrugs*
@@junnaredd9912 stay hatin y'all deserve to be shamed.
@@aelitastone5629 keep that energy when you're crying about male oriented media and equating it to real life.
To be honest, I’ve read some REALLY problematic romances just to learn how low the bars could get. The conclusion? There is no bar. Seriously, I’ve seen stories about sex slaves falling in love with their owners.
I think women read those stories for similar reasons as why many of them are obsessed with true crime stories. Women are physically more vulnerable, and I feel that there is this natural instinct in them to learn about all the horrible things that could ever happen. Unsurprisingly, many of those situations are related to men/their romantic partners.
I don’t think women like reading problematic romances are necessarily craving for those toxic relationships. I think they just got exited reading them because it’s so dark and twisted and in a way intriguing. Just like people could be fascinated by the idea of death, zombies, ghosts and monsters, but most of them probably don’t want to see the actual creatures in real life.
Human beings are naturally drawn to learn about things that could destroy us. It’s normal and harmless as long as you can tell the difference between those twisted dark fantasies and reality.
Those scenarios, no matter how disastrous in real life, feel like something you can control in fiction...somehow.
The owner and sex slaves in real life ended up horribly. Obviously.
But in novels, you will see after the angst and dark stuff, somehow the owner becomes obsessed and sex slave becomes a beloved treausre and lives a happy life
Idk how that happened, but that's how those novels end...somehow. Better to be a bird in a comfy golden cage than in a suffocating rotten one I suppose. If no choice to fly either way that is
@@fictionlover695 Probably because the author controls their motives and writes to us the desirable train of thoughts that lead to happily ever after. You can't fully control or dictate anyone's lifestyle or values in real life unless you're clinically insane. We sort of rationalise or accept that obsession or that 'romantic' outcome because it was perfectly written to be perceived as romantic, safe, and gradually healthy for the characters themselves.
The only bar is how handsome/beautiful the other lead depicted as
(This is not blackpill, I'm strictly talking about fictions)
@@letsreadtextbook1687 As an enjoyer of the monster-boyfriend trope, I disagree.
Exactly, and there's so many other reasons. It's such an interesting topic you could go on forever about it
"The ultimate fate for red flag characters in romance is to grovel" Great setence. I've never thought about the main lead being an antagonist to defeat through the means of love, but it sorta really makes sense.
And yet, I've never seen one grovel hard enough to satisfy me. The female leads always take them back WAY too easily for my taste.
this almost always happens with korean romantic fantasy novels, so it’s not foreign for me. for every 5 cute fluffy stories you find there’s at least 50 novels out there where the ML is a walking, blazing red flag and yet somehow the FL triumphs over it with the power of love and they grovel and beg for forgiveness in the end. korean authors LOOOVE this trope, to the point where it’s now overused and you can find a dozen books sharing the same plots over and over again.
True!! NGL when I saw comments and review, the problem shouldn't be the "immorality" of the work, It's not whether or not he's redeemable using real-life logic. it's that whether it achieved what we wanted--that red flag character to grovel. Additionally for me, I wanted to see a work that could "equalize" them.
So far with the works I've read, it kinda skipped over to happy ending, woman forgiving them. It doesnt quite scratch the itch for me, the emotional satisfaction on how they went from A to B. And ofc I have some threshold too like excessive violence and outright violation of consent (instead of dubious)
If anyone have recommendation, please do!
What confuses/troubles me is when there is no actual groveling... and even if there is, the male abusive lead is proven to be the one in the "right" by the narrative, and rather than having to change his dastardly ways, he is validated in everything he did.
*Art and stories are never supposed to be a step by step guide on how to be a good person. Their job isn't to teach and be shining examples of good morality. Art is about problems, about dissecting them and investing and about learning more about the human condition. Fiction allows us to do that. And if you're of age, you should be able to indulge in that fiction.*
I honestly can't remember where I found this quote, but I keep it on my phone and I feel it strongly applies here. I'm so glad I found this video, amazing job 👏👏👏
Precisely. Also, art is supposed to be created for whatever the artist intends it to be and owes nothing to anyone else but themselves. However, the greatest art, in my personal opinion, is art about the human condition.
If romance with problematic characters can be seen as the female hero overpowering the villain, then stories that cross the line or end up with the women being trapped in a powerless state can be considered cautionary tales or remainders that sometimes it's a lifelong fight and sometimes you lose in your own game.
Agreed - for every "Lord of the Rings", there is a "I have no mouth and I must scream...".
This is similar to how I've seen utopias described as stories that show where we should be going, and dystopias as cautionary tales of fates we must avoid.
It's just a fetish
@@testcase6997 everything is and there's nothing wrong with that
I think there is some catharsis to be had in reading sad stories (including sad fantasy).
I think with all the uncertainties in relationships, it can create some intense anxiety. Unfortunately anxiety is it doesn't just stick with most likely scenarios (awkward conversations, not being compatible, getting ghosted), it usually swings to the most extreme.
I think reading fantasies where extreme things happen let's folks experience those outcomes from afar. Like you get to payout those cruel and sadist possibilities.
In "living out" these thoughts, they get to end when the story is over. Just like folks walking out of a horror movie, or someone waking up from a bad dream, there's that immediate sense of relief.
So paradoxically, it's possible these dark fantasies can relieve anxiety.
I think it also can be a type of "play", not in a game way. Like seeing the patterns of abuse, just like watching a crime doc, let's folks get a sense of patterns. Like the turning points where abuse starts. The warning signs, and red flags.
I think some folks might use lessons learned in real life (though they can lead to "false positives")
As a sociologist, this is a fascinating topic to study academically.
I really recommend Eva Illouz's "Hard-core Romance". She is a sociologist, and this and her other works are truly fascinating and also easy to read.
Yesss I agree with so much. It's nice to see someone talk about how women can identify with the male "villains". Men criticize "problematic romance" often by projecting their own issues onto it, like their inability to empathize with women's stories and personhood. They think women objectify the love interests the same way they do. But women were raised forced into the opposite position, forced to understand men's stories and thus also relate to them. Too many men still deny women's equality to them in many ways, the fact that women have the same depth of morality and character and motivations beyond what is seen as the feminine ideal. The persisting casual misogyny is disheartening and sickening. Love seeing women argue against the never-ending harmful social conditioning that people pretend is an unchangeable, perfect truth. I shall follow your channel with great interest. :)
thank you!
BANGER TAKE, this is going into my notes!
@@noemiandoksI saved it too 😂
Women absolutely objectify men and just because they consume male centric media does not make them empathetic towards men in the slightest.
A saying explain this:
"A men is educataed into how to treat a women, but not into what expect of women. A women is educated into what expect from a men, but not how to treat a men."
Imo bad boys in romance are either depicted as bad (doing things the reader would find reprehensible; usually this is the antagonist or villain) or as flawed but good. The latter is the type that prolly makes people swoon. But the reason this trope works in fiction and not real life is that in fiction, we get an insight into the character’s psyche and know them to be different from a fully-bad character… in real life, we can’t know that for sure
Also, any harm they do is a lot more abstract than in real life. In media, we can cheer for our heroes or anti-heroes despite whatever war crimes they commited as long as they are depicted as interesting, cool and/or likeable.
And it's the intent of the writer to write such nuanced characters. It's fiction anyways which many people don't seem to get. But like any literature, the reader gets to choose what they get or do which we can't really control.
but i like unredeemable man on fiction too. for me. they're just character. but sometimes. theres a toxic character that actually feels so real that it break those fiction and in real life barrier and make me hate the character.
@ well if you hate the character because they’re irredeemably bad, that’s ok. I was referring to the type of characters that people will like / fall in love with, but which only work for fiction, not in reality
This is spot on.
Honestly, the whole "dark romances will lead to an uptick in women getting into abusive relationships" is just a gender flipped version of the "video games make boys into mass shooters" discourse.
And they will tell you " But, but, that not the saaaaaammmmmmmmmmme"... XD.
@@aelitastone5629 Yeah, let's pretend the media that we consume doesn't affect us.
@@bremcurt9514 Yes it doesn't from the moment you know what is fiction and what is reality. Video game doesn't make you violent, dark romance doesn't make you wish an abu.sive relation. Nor any of them will make you approve anything.
@@aelitastone5629 There's actually studies showing how darker media is associated with dark personality traits. Men with rape kinks are also less likely to report caring about consent.
We are monkeys. It's very hard to gauge the effects media has on us.
Lots of misogynists have consumed misogynists media and become more awful because of it.
@@aelitastone5629 It might still affect you. You're completely dismissing how incredibily complex human beings are.
We are apes, and there's parts of our brain that are completely unaware of what's fiction and what is reality.
Your prefrontal cortex isn't in complete control. That's not how humans work. And people who consume dark media, often have more dark personality traits - but ofcourse we don't know which way that correlation goes exactly.
FINALLY a video essay about the subject of "problematic" romance that actually gave me a new perspective on the why of it all. Can't wait to sink my teeth into the next story about a toxic male lead getting tamed after watching this
thank you!!!
Lmao 🤣
😂😂😂
The twilight episode of contrapoints is very good on this subject
@@anonybelle oh yes love contrapoints as well
As a girl into the more darker pieces of fiction, do I fantasize about it? Everyday. Do I want it? I'd rather die. Would I roleplay it? Certainly.
What is it that draws you to it.
@eta_carithebrightlord3396 it's hot and it makes for an interesting story. And I'm pretty sure I've been into it since I was around 8, to fantasize about a loss of autonomy and the objectification of myself. I've had a normal childhood.
@@eta_carithebrightlord3396 but additionally, I suppose that as I grew up and my relationship with my family deteriorated, it would have played into my already existing kinks for things such as yandere, taboo relationships and being used, probably.
I am the same way. If I read a story about my ideal real-life relationship, it would honestly be pretty drama-free and boring. I am a very risk-averse person by nature, that's why I enjoy fantasizing about things I would never actually do and people I would never actually get involved with.
Real
this is such a fascinating video im so glad you made this. as a guy ive been kind of obsessed recently with fiction from a female perspective, and what i have found is that there really isnt enough lmao
thank you so much!
There’s a lot of fiction told from the female perspective! What are you looking for? Media, genre?
Yh me too, I nvr could reconcile women liking these things an being against abuse. I was shortsighted
Let me know when you need specific recs!
what do you mean there isnt any lmao where and what are you searching
I keep rewatching this video because of how good it is. You have an incredibly nuanced and empathetic perspective that is not devoid of reason. Most people abord this topic either from a morally superior point of view or from a "it's not that deep" one. I hope you make more videos. Thank you for this one
Finally! Someone that acknowledges sometimes toxic romances are a power fantasy and a comfort read for some!
I loved listening to this so much. I feel like you put the thoughts I've had into words, finally. When I was a teenager, I hated the romance genre, partly because of my 'not like other girls' phase. But deep down, I was just a young girl who wished to be loved like everyone else, but didn't know how to navigate dating and relationships. I fell in love with lots of fictional characters (outside the romance genre, that is), some of whom were problematic. I've ready lots of fanfics about them falling in love with the readers and other characters they are not canonically in a relationship with, and I've even written some myself. So, I was engaging with romance, but in a roundabout way.
Over the years, I've deconstructed the reasons why I hated the romance genre, while still wanting to engage with romance and love in books, movies, TV. And a lot of the reasons where mainly the points you talked about. For me, the thought of liking an "unintelligent and corny" genre was shameful because of how the genre is stigmatized. Thankfully, I don't think that way anymore.
I would also like to add that, not only do female protagonists 'defeat' the male lead with the power of love, but he also becomes an asset to her. All his powers (money, fame, status, or actual superpowers) are at her disposal once he has fallen in love. I think that might be a reflection of how, in a patriarchal society, women can only access a certain level power by getting with a man. And yes, some female characters are powerful on their own, but the male lead also needs to join her in order for her to achieve her goals.
Anyways, this was a really great video, and I think these are important points that a lot of people need to hear. Off topic, but I love your accent. English is not my first language either, so I really appreciate how articulate and fluent you are with it.
thank you for your thoughts!
"Problematic romance" is liberating because it provides an escapist playground for women to explore desires without having to put themselves in danger doing the same things they read about. People who do put themselves in these situations are too busy with that to always be greatly inspired by works of fiction, although that can happen too. But the bottom line is women are constantly condescended to as if they can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality. When I went through my Twilight phase in my teens I was constantly annoyed by this. Yeah, I don't *actually* want someone to break into my house and watch me sleep, but I love it because it's a fantasy, you clods. But even I fell for this and had my own "Twilight is cancer" successive phase because I wanted to distance myself from the kinds of criticism that hurt me so badly. These days I prefer my fantasy a lot better written than Twilight, but I make no apologies for wanting it in the first place.
Guys went through something similar. Remember when "Yanderes" were really popular? Basically the same thing if not more psychotic.
@@Nipah.Auauau I saw a meme post about men finally "getting" Twilight when it was gender swapped and there you go really. Men and women aren't very different at all.
@@bespectacledheroine7292nah there's something disturbing about you if you enjoy the idea of being with a evil man.
yes yes yes yes yessss. and honestly reading/watching those fiction requiere our consent in a way. its like how violence are wrong but BDSM are not. we give our consent to read those. the power in on us
@@mob-pn8hj Exactly. If we don't like it, we put it down. Men who would hurt us if we weren't busy reading these hate that fact and try to disguise their jealousy as a moral crusade, and sadly it has worked. Women who read these aren't thought well of.
The common theme of reclaimed fantasies is that abuse becomes subverted.
His motive is not to force power over his love ; the driving force of his actions are in service of his all-consuming love for the (audience proxy) romantic interest.
Stress bonds us like glue. Conflict heavy narratives keep our attention.
I also think that because so much of media is male-dominated, having stories centered around a woman and her desires is alluring for so many women.
Thank you so much for covering this topic, I always thought the ridicule surrounding “problematic romance” was not really nuanced, considering many of the arguments against it are putting the women who like it down, but you did a great job explaining all of your points!!
before i finish this video, i wanna say i've always enjoyed x readers where downright horrendous abuse happens to me. I cannot stomach anything being done like that to others however, but I've never been able to express that I fantasize about myself being abused openly with anyone. Thank you for covering this!! I like to think a large part of people making and consuming content like that are victims themselves. At least I feel like thats why i enjoy such content as someone whos gone through familial physical and mental abuse. It's refreshing to see someone try to analyze and discuss this even when it's so easy to dismiss as "people shouldn't be writing this"
You and me, me and you.
Whenever I find a new male character to fall in love with, I jump straight into the yandere xreaders. I love it when he's horrendous, and I love it when the female lead either makes, breaks, leaves or accepts him for all that he is. I adore a fantasy where I can simply turn off my brain and accept a person because I love them, regardless of how they hurt me or others. If in that fantasy, the only person that they will ever hurt is me, and it comes from a place of love, I'd eat that shit right up. In the real world, I refuse to disregard my morals, in this story, I can put aside all of my real world problems, principles and my morals to 'prioritize' MY desires.
My 'desires' to not have to care for others, to be selfish and to ultimately be happy with another, to know that even if I'm unloved by everyone else, I will always be comforted by the FACT that in this world, this character truly adores me and that he would never judge me for all of my flaws. Because firstly, does he have room to judge? No. And will I judge him? No. Yes. Maybe. But if he does, it's fine. It makes him all the more human and the story all the more enjoyable and lovable. If my entire existence is wrong and he accepts me for it, then oh god? Oh my god?
What I like the most, I think, is the idea of being accepted to the fullest by another individual, despite what I've said. So yes, he can judge me, and he can critique me, but he loves me. And regardless of whether or not he hurts me, he loves me sooo much! That is a FACT because that's what the author intended. I don't have to overthink, I don't have to constantly fight with that is and what isn't true. No one is going to tell me that it's not true, because it's my fantasy, a story that I'm reading. I get to decide it and it'll be true. Because at the day, it's hurting no one, not even myself.
I've also gone through some abuse from family, so this kind of media is my jam.
@@renaria3160you are ill
@@renaria3160 May I ask you a question? If people indulged in this in some perverse lust, whether I agreed with it or not, I would at least understand it. In reading your explanation, however, I am put at a slight loss. In particular, the parts where you speak to "despite what they do, it comes from a place of love" and stuff to that effect. I guess, I can understand you saying "I won't disregard morals IRL, but can in a book and fantasy", but I'd worry about the nature of definitions and how those definitions themselves become twisted. That is to say, if I call red, yellow, eventually they'll blend together in my mind.
What I mean by that is, for example, you spoke of a place of love, and yet the person hurting the other. To me, that raises the question of, "what is the definition of love?" to you? As, to me, the definition of love is itself at odds with such behavior. Thus, even in fantasy, I could never state that someone could love yet do such things.
I guess, tl;dr if you are willing, can you think of what the definition for love is in your heart? When you think back to all situations where you may have used the word, does it truly apply?
I can only speak to my definition, but it has a behavioral definition. I.e., it is not prideful, it is compassionate, it is long-suffering, it is not judgmental, sincerity dwells in it, it is merciful, it uplifts, it has hope. The more these attributes abide in a person, the closer to love their heart becomes.
also, you'll find this rather silly, but your last paragraph (not the last sentence), sounds like God's disposition towards man tbh.
@@Ander0072originalv2 love is just love. it can be aggressive and nasty and prideful and spiteful. it's just love. it's just 'i can't do without you, i need you here'
Fiction is a controlled environment. It's the safest option for people to explore fantasies, dangerous or otherwise. I'm a lesbian who consumes mostly m/m romances, as it seperates me from the character at a certain level. I'm a voyeur, and it's safer thst way for me.
A really well made video, as a heavy romance reader I totally agree. The issue with "non problematic" stories is that they feel unrealastic, they feel like unattainable, they don't reflect how it feels like to engage romanticaly with men. Sadly anxiety and fear is quite common in women's life when socializing with men, especially sexually, and being able to experience it and/or see it unfold in a controlled and safe way allows us to kinda cope with those feelings in real life.
Love the video, well argumented !
That sucks. I think if I were born a woman I'd go live on a deserted island as soon as I was able
I find this is also partly why women write and consume a lot of MM romances or BL, where you can also explore these themes and remove women from the equation entirely. One of my favorite BL novels involves a red flag love interest, but he's not the typical alpha male, he's younger, more "feminine" (half of it is an act), and he often uses manipulation to get what he wants rather than brute force. The main character falls for him of course and suffers a lot for it. But he's able to retaliate because their social status are basically equal so there isn't as huge of a power imbalance as you'd often get in het or even other MM romance. There's a real push and pull, and it's fresh and exciting.
yes, exactly! tbh I feel like MM romances sometimes get even more dark and cruel, because, as you said, since women are removed, we can keep a safe distance from the characters while still being able to relate to them. a lot of MM romance, at least to me, suspiciously resembles haterosexual power play, I suppose, all for the purpose of somehow subversing it.
@@bazazilio certainly, and even if there isn't as much subversion since the reader can identify with either partner, part of the fantasy is being able to see a man be submissive and get dominated.
So basically they like those types of romance because they have internalized misogyny
@@nabilahalshari7880what is MM and BL?
@@swatisaini6447 MM and BL refer to the genre of romance between men. MM is the label for Western literature while BL is for Asian.
As someone who loves toxic and messy love stories because they reflect my life (especially romance with other women), but is extremely repulsed by the typical abusive, misogynist, dominant bad boy guy, this was a good explanation. Realized this in parts before that this is working through the stuff patriarchy puts at us, but didn't realize that the abusive bad boy falling in love is essentially winning against him and this was the missing piece to understand it.
The part about outsourcing own repressed anger on the bad boy also fits very well, and this is actually something I can relate to.
Interestingly, I can't relate to women not wanting to have a sexuality so the solution is to have their desires forced on them - with men. With women however, I suddenly fit very well into this fantasy of being dominated by someone more experienced so that I don't have to act on my dirtybadwrong desires.
Also I think there absolutely are women and girls who are not able to distinguish these fantasies from reality and bring themselves and others in danger by this, I sadly saw that happen a few times in fandoms - but this is something for education and activism to solve, not random smut books. If someone failed this badly, there was something going wrong much deeper than just reading the wrong book.
thank you for your thoughts! although I'm not sure if I completely agree with the "bringing themselves and others in danger" bit, I think it's the abusers' fault for being dangerous to begin with. but yes, people's choices in relationships seem to be influenced more by their own trauma and family history and whatnot, we can't blame it all on "bad media".
Maybe it depends on who was your introduction to the bad boy archetype, and who your model for him is. Mine was never misogynist, or realistically, abusive, so I don't think of it in that way. It's interesting you do.
What's the point of taming a Monster? People should just admit they are problematic for being attracted To monsters..
@@henriettebopda5895 thats like saying "its problematic dany has dragons"
Why does she like/love her dragons/monsters in the first place
And all of you cheered her on like she is a new feminist messiah lol
@@Bleilock1 are you comparing dragons with real life toxic relationships that happen everyday? Do daenerys dream about sleeping with Her dragons while being sexually dominated by them? I don't see the connection with dragons..
Honestly this video helped put into perspective things I've been struggling with. There are romance tropes I enjoy that are very problematic, but I would never condone them irl. I felt awful about it for a while bc I knew people might get the wrong idea. But I think media literacy would help best other than trying to basically censor these romances women enjoy. Especially for younger women like teens- it lets them enjoy these unashamed while also giving them the tools they need to be able to understand enjoying this in fiction isn't the same irl (bc it likely wouldn't go nearly as well irl). This was a very good video essay I'll be sharing with my other friends, thank you.
this video is such a good explanation of this. video essays about "problematic" romance always end up mkaing me upset becausee the conclusion seems to be "who's reading these! these are bad and people sjould stop because they are going to make you get absused, boooooo", which is so oversimplified. your explanation perfectly encapsulates what i've sort of thought abiu and then more. this is the best video i've seen on this topic by far!
This video gave me quite a bit to think about. I hadn't really considered the "power fantasy" aspect of romance, but now that you've pointed it out, it makes sense.
As for the final point about people assuming women are too "impressionable," I'm reminded of a scene from Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, where the performers of the in-universe play of Pyramis and Thisbe repeatedly interrupt their performance to tell the "easily frightened women" of the audience that they are actors performing a play and to not be frightened.
Methinks Shakespeare and his theatrical troupe were satirizing that very concept.
Thank you so much for this video. As a woman who enjoys “problematic” romance, I really appreciate you actually trying to understand why women enjoy those types of stories instead of just painting us as crazy, hysterical women who need to be cured of our insanity lol. So many other video essays I’ve watched that cover similar topics have always felt so didactic and just completely misunderstanding what it is that makes “problematic” romance so intriguing.
I've looked at this thumbnail at least five times in my recommended before watching. I swear, every time except the last, I read it as "Do women dream of Psychiatry?" AND THAT MADE SENSE IN MY HEAD
in the end you say something like: "if you're smart enough to notice the toxic behavior" that's the thing, it's not enough to be smart. you also have to have learned to differentiate between toxic and healthy, most often you learn it in your family of origin.
I was 30+ when I finally started to see the difference, because my father is a POS and my parent's relationship is horrible. that's what I saw, so I didn't learn to instinctively spot toxicity, I had to learn that shit from the internet lol.
seeing/reading about mostly toxic relationships in media normalizes toxicity imo. I see your point, but a lot of women and others just aren't that lucky to see healthy love in their childhood and then they can't find it for decades of their lives.
and I wish we saw more healthy relationships represented, for people like me to help to learn how it looks like.
You went very deep into the topic. This is like a PhD student kinda research. I love the chapters and would definitely need to re-watch and take notes because I like the thought process. It is like dissecting a lovely infatuation with psychological insights and a big picture kinda perspective.
So, disclaimer, I'm a guy, but this topic has always been so bloody fascinating to me because of how paradoxical it feels in a modern context of opposing patriarchy.
You've done an absolutely fantastic job of explaining how these 'problematic tropes' for women are much less desires rather than they are fears to be tamed and controlled. What at first seems like subordination is actually empowerment through a less overt, brash means (in comparison to stories of male empowerment being overt and brash)
In that sense, whereas tales of men finding power are often about physically dominating or destroying their threats, tales of women finding power are generally more intellectual and about getting the threat to join them, rather than to beat them.
And yes, just because its popular in fantasy doesn't mean it's an actual desire in real life. For a lot of men, the fascistic aesthetics of the Empire in Star Wars or the vigilantism of Batman aren't things they would (hopefully) do in real life, but the safety of fantasy allows for it to be explored (as 'fatal an attraction' as that may seem on paper)
It even applies to history, to some extent. Historian Tom Holland said that part of the reason the Roman Empire is so popular with men even though in it's heyday it was an imperialist power is because it's so long gone it's equivalent to a fantasy, like with our fascination with dangerous extinct species like dinosaurs.
I apologise if I slightly went off tangent there with the male fantasies and experience, but I wanted to hammer home and expand upon that point of fantasy being like a safe sandbox for more taboo topics to be explored, while not necessarily wanting to experience it irl (as with many women liking problematic relationships they can control in fantasy)
Well said
Appreciate your thoughts, but I do want to add some context. You say "tales of women finding power are more intellectual and about getting the threat to join them, rather than to beat them," and that's a reasonable conclusion if all you know about this genre is from discussions like these, but it's not true of the genre as a whole.
For the reasons she discussed, romance is more likely to get mainstream attention when it's "problematic" in these ways, but there are plenty of romance stories where it's never really accurate to interpret the male lead as a "threat", at least not in that way. Darcy might be a threat to Lizzie in that he's got more social standing than she does and is extremely unimpressed with her family, but romantically, there's never anything threatening about him. Likewise, sometimes romance does involve "beating" the love interest, but in a battle of wits that becomes the basis for mutual respect. Hell, the "I'll make you fall for me first" competition as a basis for romance is so common that there's an entire anime making fun of that trope (it's "Love is War" and I HIGHLY recommend it).
Tldr: you have some good insights on the darker side of the genre, but that's an incomplete picture. Personally, my favorite example of healthier romance is The Brothers Sinister series by Courtney Milan (they're not evil, just left-handed), but that's just one of many.
@@CatHasOpinions734 Certainly, I understand where your coming from and appreciate your insight.
I am aware that romance as a genre is a broad thing and the 'problematic' elements are just one section of it. I only wished to comment on that particular section as that was the main focus of the video. It's also imo the more interesting section because of how controversial and contradictory it appears at first glance.
But how can we be sure that fantasy does work like a sandbox, instead of being something that blurs the lines between reality and fiction? I feel that a story that touches you so deeply in your experiences (and traumas) is bound to shape your beliefs and feelings, especially at a young age. Of course, the kid who read Batman may not want to be a vigilante, but perhaps he'll realize the limits of the law and see that it isn't logical to always obey it, acting according to that idea in the future. In the same vein, perhaps the girl who read a problematic romance novel may come away from it thinking that no one's perfect, and that if someone hurts her it's her job to take care of him and nurture him into a good person, and that possibility frightens me. These kind of stories feel fundamentally patriarchal as long as they don't involve some kind of standing up to the other person and playing on an equal field (like pride and prejudice). When a story tells that someone changes you through just loving you alone, I feel that it's a harmful message that no amount of "get better media literacy" can fix.
@@katharsis101- you have a good point. I think that's why it's so important for us to share our stories, even the unrealistic ones. It gives us a space to think "what would happen if..."
I agree that there is a blurry line. We use stories to showcase our thoughts and desires, but often times, we don't want that fantasty to surface due to the real life consequences. Especially impressionable children who learn lessons from them and do not have the depth to question the way adults do. I think the solution to the topic of your last paragraph is to talk about the depth of these stories and allow for people to question one another. Providing younger minds variety and giving them agency to make their own choices
A criminally underrated video, 10/10
thank you so much!
As someone who enjoys stories where the female character is the more dominant and aggressive one, this is a very interesting analysis nonetheless. Sometimes I wonder what could've influenced me to have these preferences or if my brain is just wired like that for some reason lol
It could easily be the same reason: defeating patriarchy. But in your case, it manifests differently, possibly due to your life circumstances, your environment now or your environment growing up, the extent in which patriarchy has been present in your life, your role models, etc. All of these factors are different for every woman.
I grew up in a really conservative religious family, but even from a young age, I just found it cute if a male character showed weakness and if I could ship him with a scary or powerful woman lol.
The weird thing is that I wasn't consciously trying to go against the religion or anything. At some point, I eventually did hear a relative outright say it's wrong for a woman to not be submissive in a relationship and I thought "uh oh... guess none of them can ever know about the kinda things I like, then"
Ah yes, a fellow man/woman of culture
As a guy with those preferences, to me it's about the safe unknown. I like the lack of control, but in a world where it's not necessarily dangerous. There's also a bit of a desire to be overtly desired, I think.
same here! i have a conservative muslim upbringing, however
27:16 This part about desire and shame is soooo real! It was very comforting to hear you verbalize all those complex feelings 😭
SO glad the algorithm brought me here! This video is both concise and comprehensive, and you really have a way of bringing out simple truths behind a very tangled topic. It's always frustrated me how so many people can intuitively understand that when men indulge in stories of war heroes power-fantasy-ing their way through bloody battles, it doesn't mean those men actually long to die in combat. Yet, so many people cannot grasp that when women read about heroines power-fantasy-ing their way through relationships with dangerous men, it doesn't mean those women actually long to be in abusive relationships. Of course, there's a lot of nuance there that you did a wonderful job explaining.
Will definitely be sharing this video! Thanks so much for taking the time to make it!
I read Nana and was so devastated by how patriarchal it was. It’s a beloved classic in the shoujo manga community and interestingly, the fanbase focuses a lot more on the idea of Nana being queer and empowering rather than the domesticated victim of abuse the manga actually bares. I feel like people need to hear why women like these kinds of stories before condemning them under the presumption they’re just romanticizing abuse (which just feels like victim-blaming when those women are connecting to the abused protagonist).
It’s not like we can’t critically engage with problematic media but I see far more judgement towards women for what they read/write rather than actual empathy for why. It makes it hard to believe these critics are actually motivated by feminism, a lot of the time they’re just cringe culture enthusiasts that attack feminine and queer oriented media. My male peers were speaking highly of Blade Runner where the male protagonist literally forces himself on the female love interest but that movie will never get the same amount of backlash It Ends With Us or Twilight does.
@@sapphic.flower Seriously, you're right. A lot of it is borne from insecurity, I think, and feminists trying to police themselves too strictly and apologize for going after men's media, such as video games and the like. I don't think they do it consciously, though, so it just creates this thing where men don't have this guilt complex, and don't criticize themselves, so it's women's stuff again that's criticized. Like with the Nana example, there's so much empowering stuff in stories, but you can cherry-pick anything in anything to make it look bad. You're right that we need to have empathy and first we need to find out why they like it. And then seriously think, is it problematic? or do we just want to find something problematic to make content about and this is silly women's stuff so it's fair game?
only a small minority of women who read those things are victims so dont bring victim blaming into this, being a woman doesnt automatically make you a victim
@@stocqzzp where did you get the analytics that told you only a “small minority of women” who read abusive romances are victims?? Literally every 1 in 3 women experience SA in North America. I’m also not assuming all the women who do read that stuff are abuse victims but condemning women for romanticizing abusive tropes can be victim blaming when they normally put themselves in the shoes of the heroine.
@@sapphic.flower most of the victims I saw said they find disgusting other people who didnt experience that making their trauma into a fantasy, and most of people that read dark romance I saw werent sa victims, this is just my experience but when someone says they hate dark romance readers they probably not mean the victims who use a bad coping mechanism but the people ramanticizing other people's trauma
@@stocqzzp I do think it's important to critically engage with dark romances even if you like it and to expect writers to have more care about what they portray. I get where the frustration lies but I'm also cautious about where my blame goes because the fact abuse-fantasy is much more common in female centric stories entails some deeply rooted patriarchal paranoia and grooming.
I can't remember the name of the tv series but there's a show about an SA victim who writes different scenarios of what transpired to cope and one of the stories is about getting to consent to it, based on the show creator's real experience. I just don't want to come after people who read/write dark romance, even if I make an exception for victims, because they still get overlooked and judged for consuming questionable media.
I feel like I should be paying to watch something this well produced. Haven’t heard such a fresh and interesting perspective in a long time.
thank you so much!
Such a great video essay! To be frank, I started watching it with a drop of skepticism, since I, personally, find modern media sometimes glorifying dark themes. I still believe that the authors should not forget that their works not only reflect reality but can also in the smallest way shape it. But shaming the readers for their taste and, most importantly, for finding any type of media helpful or supportive or enjoyable in any capacity definitely won't fill the shelves of bookshops with well-written books about consensual and healthy relationships.
All the points you made are spot on and, in my opinion, should be spread around like the hottest gossip, because a lot of people (and some time ago, me included) don't understand why anyone would enjoy reading about dub-con, for example, and due to that lack of understanding make wrong conclusions about whose readers (who mostly are female).
It makes sense. The one person more powerful than the monster is the one who controls the monster.
@@armorbearer9702 misandry
What a great and nuanced video essay. Interesting and uncommon take on “problematic” romance and the cognitive dissonance in the conversation around them.
I personally don’t really enjoy red flag romances as a rule, but I have always found it hard to believe that so many people who do are thirsty for the boot irl.
This is an incredibly brave and honest approach to the darker indulgences of the romance genre that I honestly just want to hear more about now, because this video made me confront some internalized misogyny I had around shaming women for indulging in “toxic romances” (despite secretly enjoying them myself). Comparing it to sl*t shaming is absolutely correct and should be said. It’s like part of me knew all along that there was something deeper going on with why we enjoy dark romance so much and I think you made so many incredible points that were not only true, but validating when recognizing the nuanced and complex relationship women have with romantic media (to which, in turn, reflects our nuanced and complex inner worlds).
Absolutely amazing essay, thank you for your empathy on this topic!!
EXCUSE ME???? THE VIDEO QUALITY, THE SCRIPT THE PUNS AND 105 SUBSCRIBERS??? THIS IS GOLD IM SUBBING
thank you!!! 😭😭😭
Seriously!? Only 105?! I’m subbing too!
And as an American her accent tickles my brain it's great
I just finished this video, but it’s already become one of my favorite essays on this platform.
I’d long taken for granted that toxic romance was bad because of exactly the reasons you cite, because it would be ugly and unpleasant to undergo in reality. Now that I think of it, though, the comparison to action stories is very pertinent. The classic _Die Hard_ sort of “bad guys attack and only you can stop them” story is basically toxic romance for men. There are a whole lot of stories where an unassuming man, generally overlooked and beaten down, gets the chance to prove himself by turning out to be very good at righteous violence. Nobody actually wants terrorists to storm our place of work in real life, but it is the fantasy of finally getting to show our worth, especially to a woman we’d like to desire us, through a conclusive display of power that essentially forces everyone who once looked down on us to be grateful.
These stories are unapologetically self-indulgent, depicting horrible bloodshed with glee. And the ideas they propagate could similarly be construed as causing real-world harm, encouraging police and frankly anyone with a gun to see themselves as an action hero just like whatever movie star. But that doesn’t get discussed a lot. People adore _Die Hard_ no matter what ideology it promotes. And ain’t that ironic, that the stories which advocate gunning down your problems are more accepted than the ones that ask you to be nice to people who maybe don’t deserve it?
Anyway, again, this video is truly superb analysis. It’s changed my entire perspective.
So good. Best video in a long time that tackles this theme at all.
Kind of symptomatic that this needs a deep dive in the first place because it so mis- or not understood simple the main readers are female. We do not question horror, war, adventure, thriller or other genres that could also contain so called unrealistic or problematic content for their entertainment or/and coping benefits. As you pointed out in the romans „the dragon“ manifest itself as the „problematic love interest“. If he is written believably that adds to the fun but wouldn’t if there were no „dragon“ in the first place so to speak.
I loved your part about consent. This is a complex topic. Personally i find it contains an inherent paradox that you need somewhat a strong personality and idea of your own sexuality to give proper consent but if you don’t you are more prone to get abused in the grey areas of consent. It takes more courage to say no than conforming to the expectations of someone else, especially if you are conditioned to do so. I bet every woman as made their own unfortunate experience around this. It should be not surprising that if there are opportunities to explore this in a a safe space like books and fantasies that it gets the kind of resonance that it gets. Maybe even unconsciously. There also could be a pattern in the ‚problematic romance‘ how consent is handled in find. if you look closely often there are different „stages“ of consent explored and some have literally a gradient from no at all to „tame“ state full heroine control.
Thank you for the video essay.
Not to be dramatic or anything but I think this video just changed the trajectory of my life lol you're so beautifully articulate in the way you speak, I'm very much looking forward to listen to whatever it is that you'll feel like talking about in the future 💕
I don't think people are inherently wrong for pointing out the more problematic parts of many romance books. But I have found women who read incredibly smutty and often times dark romances are more comfortable with the idea of their own sexuality than women who do not read romance at all. Being able to look at and fantasize about these toxic romances often gives women the tools to recognize why something is toxic.
In the majority of these dark romances, the hero's flaws and red flags are not the reason the heroine loves them, but rather that they love them despite it.
I do still think some books are inherently harmful to young readers, but there's a difference between "November 9" and a mafia romance story.
In my ideal world, obviously women are free to read "problematic romance books", but also there's someone pointing out to teenage girls that dating a hot unreliable bad boy in real life isn't actually a good idea. And I know some mothers do that, but some teenage girls are never told that lesson, and significant damage can ensue.
As a comparison, imagine letting teenage boys play violent video games, but then never telling them "hurting others is bad" and not reprimanding boys who hurt others. I suspect that would lead to bad outcomes.
Really love your deduction! It really brought a new productive way to see this discourse. Speaking as lesbian, its really interesting how the sexual guilt is still carried through even though you're not in a relationship with men, and despite dodging problematic romance in hetero fiction, I still actively seek it on wlw genre. Apparently, its quite common between sapphic women as well, though someone have made an interesting observation of how most of media in that particular genre 'stay toxic' or better 'romanticizing' that said toxicity. If you're interested and okay with reading yuri manga, i can recommend 'How You Do Relationship?' because it has a rather realistic depiction of people and relationship in general, it also explore the theme of sexual guilt in women really well :)
thank you for the rec, I'll be sure to check it out!
36:18 maybe because the fantasy has to be intact. The extremely empathetic, brave and strong woman is hard NOT to love. So the obsession and devotion from the love interest seems valid and inevitable, the most natural outcome. The insecurities and uncertainties which plague real life relationships don't really exist unless the medium lowkey addresses it by making the woman even MORE perfect by making her be insecure(cause hey, she's not a narcissist- doesn't even know how appealing she is) internally while the lover saves her out of it.
of course, it doesn't have to be gender specific- as you mentioned in shounen romances we often see the opposite. Biggest example is ToraDora
edit: banger video btw🗣
Well I was lured in with the PSME cover and then I stayed for the nuanced analysis. I love how you haven't patronized the readers or vilified the creators of "problematic romance". Really enjoyed your writing and presentation in this video, thank you!
For me, I enjoy “problematic” romance tropes because it’s a fantasy. A lot of them are related to my kinks, and it’s fun to enjoy dangerous situations in my imagination where I’m safe. I wouldn’t want any of those things to happen to me in real life, though.
I like another RUclipsr who made a video recently about how she doesn’t like it when people say they enjoy problematic romance tropes because they can tell the difference between fantasy and reality. She said that was victim blaming (???) and that these tropes are dangerous to women. I feel like this is just the same “video games cause violence” rhetoric all over again. She didn’t provide any evidence to back that claim, btw. Nobody who complains about this stuff ever does
I agree, with one caveat--for video games, those demons you shoot in doom don't really exist. While for romance, those red flag people looking for manipulable partner/victim certainly exist. So it's a bit "easier" for the fantasy to put into practice.
ew
I definitely think that enjoying dangerous, "problematic" relationships in fiction is adjacent to kink! It's just that it's even further removed from reality, and instead of a safeword, you can just close the book. A lot of people seem to understand that just because someone might want to roleplay getting tied up, it doesn't mean they want to get abducted in real life. But then they can't fathom why someone might want to read a story about it but not actually want it to happen to them. I get so sick of people infantilizing female readers who are into those kind of fantasy romances and thinking we are too stupid to know what's good for us.
@@letsreadtextbook1687I disagree. Those "red flag" villains don't actually exist. You're not going to find a beautiful guy who's totally obsessed with you and wants to kidnap you and do everything you want.
@@jd5368You know what, I'm starting to think they're not infantilizing female readers, they're just treating them the same as men. It is possible that for many men, what they read/watch or fantasize about _is_ actually what they want in real life. They may think the same about women.
gotta thank YT for suggesting me this gem
A spectacular video essay - you've made so many spot-on points about how FICTIONAL media does not have to exclude 'problematic elements' in its depiction, and that in fact the depiction of these 'problematic' stuff can be in a way useful as a symptomatic reflection of what humans are concerned about in the real society/world and which they have been endeavouring to explore deeper. In fact the freedom to do this is exactly what makes FICTION so pertinent to our media diet! It can in fact encourage us to register the importance of socio-cultural/historical context whenever we engage in thematic discourses as such, from which we are hence able to correlate the WHAT with the HOW and possibly with the WHY (i.e. authorial intention in creating such a work and/or readers' willingness to engage with it), in order to critically understand what made our reactions (endorsement/aversion) towards various types of content the way they are. With all of the above said, it is so important, in the first place, to have decent media literacy and a concrete awareness of the fact that fictional characters should fundamentally be "objectified" (not to be taken literally or like the way we do towards any real-life representable counterparts for us to project our thoughts and concerns into). Sadly, we don't see people possessing much of this in most of the fandoms/ media circles today, which leads to quite terrible circumstances of unnecessary self-censorships and doxxing for the sake of upholding "moral purity" within the media we consume. I wonder if such a "literal" treatment of fictional media subtly hints at the slow detachment of media consumers from their own realities, wherein fictional media are treated with the tantamount severity and impunity as it is done in real life?
Anyways, enough with the long rant! Thanks again for this informative video and having subscribed, I can't wait to watch more of your future uploads!
thank you for this video! i hate how people see romance media as some sort of tutorial for how to have healthy relationships. it’s just the video games all over again-replace boys with girls, video games with smut, violence with abuse, boom. i’m impressed how we’re able to recycle the same moral panics again and again.
@@therealgowon do you think portraying black people only as violent thugs in media has any sort of effect on how black people are viewed?
This is such a great video and touches on everything I have always instinctually known to be true but always had a difficult time putting into words.
I'm asexual but still love reading romance and smut, often with very problematic elements--not because I secretly want any of those things to happen to me (god, no!), but because I have so so SO much anxiety around it all, and some smutty non/dub-con fantasy where it all works out happily-ever-after for the characters despite all those terrifying things is, in itself, the ultimate fantasy. It's a comfort, it's escapism, it's taking something I'm afraid of an reshaping it into something that doesn't have to be scary or devastating via the power of fantasy.
So it drives me absolutely nuts when people (especially other women!) decry problematic fiction as dangerous or condoning abuse, because it is actually such a vital, healthy part of navigating and coping with the world around us, and trying to take those outlets away will only ever cause us more harm than good.
thank you so much for your thoughts!
this video is such a breath of fresh air! you are so well spoken
I'm so glad to have this on my recommended! Such an insightful and empathetic review towards 'problematic' romance stories targeted towards women. You're very well-spoken, I'd love to see more content! You've earned yourself a sub
great video ! it definitely gave me some perspective on a lot of things. while it didn't make me change my mind entirely on the dark romance genre which is, in my opinion, very problematic and I say this as someone who enjoys dark romances as a guilty-ish pleasure - but it did make me see that the genre as a whole does not have problematic roots. I think the real issues with the genre are the same as most modern litterature post-social media and ESPECIALLY post the bane of my existence that is booktok and the fast-food-ification of reading with ready made tropes and little originality and very sensitive topics with very little care or sensitivity (or straight up weird shit like the guy in that one book who f*cked a girl's eye socket)
It does give me some comfort too that dark romance's roots are not linked to whatever the hell is going on lately. And I agree that stuff like that, female oriented power fantasies in all their shapes and forms are valid. It's honestly saddening to see them being dismissed or called dangerous and corrupting when men writing awful things about women get absolution for all their messed up and genuinely damaging idea the moment they label their work as fiction and power fantasies.
Amazing video, very clear and cohesive and greatly underrated. I'll be tuning in for other video essays to come!
booktook always sounded scary but omg not it sounds even scarier! 😂 eye socket, wow. and i thought nothing can surprise me haha. thank you!
Do you mean fridging or something else messed up happening to women?
@@ringinn7880 no, it's usually dark topics like the usual stalking and violence and stuff but handled with very little care it's almost like they want you to want it. It's not all dark romance books, obviously, but a lot of those recent ones do it.
A lot of dark romances should be labeled in the Horror genre. Horror is the genre where we explore our fears and weirdness, but how the patriarchy normalized most of these things it's not so obvious for people to realize and everything involving relationships, especially from a women's point of view, is seen as romance. This happens with other genres such as Fantasy and Science Fiction. Twilight, for example is low fantasy/urban fantasy, but people always refer to it as supernatural romance.
This was an absolutely fantastic video! As a reader and writer of romance, this was such an interesting watch and I often found myself nodding along. Honestly I feel like if most romance writers haven't had this introspective discussion with themselves, they should absolutely watch this video! Can't wait to see what you talk about next ❤
“women who read problematic romances do not dream of patriarchy, they cope with it by reading stories that help them survive it” !!!!!!!!!
Wow this was one of the best video essays I’ve seen in a while! Tbh a lot of essays now have sort of just become a regurgitation of common knowledge/beliefs with hard to understand quotes from professionals that feel tacked on and make my head hurt haha. But your video really brought in a completely new and interesting perspective to me which you thoroughly and accessibly deconstructed, I’m definitely subscribing! You’re too good!!
And oh man I NEED to hear another dozen essays about all the topics you brought up towards the end! Also great job on the editing, they enhanced your arguments so well!!
thank you so much for your kind words!
Very nice video! It's nice to hear this from the perspective of someone who's not only a woman but also a writer. In the end, I'm left with the impression that perhaps the truly "problematic" element in all this actually stems from a harmful conception of "romantic" love. Even if romance heroines are clearly acting out of compassion and care and love, the message that the stories themselves still operate under is the assumption that love can be justifiably used in order to coerce others into changing. Thus why it is so key to paint the male lead as a terrible person who is in NEED of changing out of their terrible sociopathic ways. That's where the core of the fantasy lies.
It's a justification of emotional manipulation in which every single element in the story is carefully arranged in order to mask the premise under a systematic veil of association to things which our current zeigeist considers evidently and unquestionably positive. The weapon of choice is love, love cannot be bad, right? If someone becomes emotionally subjected to you by way of love and your innate charm, then it is always completely socially acceptable. But the moment you apply the exact same dynamic but with a different emotion, a different method for tugging at the male lead/antagonist's heart strings, the manipulative element becomes much more evident.
So I think it's pretty clear that there's an implication at play here that love is supposed to be somehow like an external, coercive force and not an act of heartfelt kindness. The implication is that love just "happens" to people due to circumstances outside of their control and it can make people act against their own will, their values, change their entire personality etc. Instead of it being a conscious choice, something to be fostered, nurtured and perfected. Personally I find that disgusting and I could spend all day talking about why exactly that is, and how damaging this mixup between obsession and true love has been for our culture, but I'll just leave it like that.
I find your analysis very thoughtful and intriguing. Plus it gives me much food for thought. And I think it helps me better understand why I feel frustrated with the popularity of certain media that I find distasteful. Indeed, it is just a fantasy and should not lead to all the hand wringing and pearl clutching 😂
Also your video essay is very well constructed with amazing visuals ❤
thank you so much!
This video was a therapy session. Thanks.
This is such a refreshing attitude towards media.
I just discovered your channel thanks to this video! this is an instant follow
The script, animation, video editing, the way you speaks with gesture are just wholesome. Good work!
since everyone else in this comment section is preoccupied with ur intelligent and well-considered arguments, i'll have to be the one to point out how gorgeous ur little collagey animations are. stunning stunning stunning
thank you so much, you've just made me very very happy! 😊
39:00 super well said which I think stabs right to the heart of the problem a lot of modern, terminally online folks have with distinguishing fantasy from reality. Fiction can be taken seriously, not literally.
A good example of a story that depicts a woman with typically masculine flaws, while the male counterpart takes traditional feminine qualities is EEAAO, although it isn't romance, it still felt pretty romantic to me to see a female character with so much anger and resentment be seen, loved and saved by her partner.
This is honestly one of the best video essays I've watched in a while
See, I get what you mean about seperating fantasy from reality or whatever, but I can't help but find these stories anywhere from cringey and distasteful to deeply concerning because I've met so many people that have an "I can fix him" mindset in real life that leads them to come back to abusive or otherwise toxic relationships over and over. It's a bad fantasy that will only lead to you getting hurt (aside from mayyyyyybe the very mild variations where the "bad boy" in question turns out to be just a regular guy with a minor criminal record and some manageable mental health issues or something). A lot of women genuinely don't know how to recognize *actual* red flags because they were raised in circles where all kinds of bad behavior is normalized to the nth degree. I get how someone facing constant sexual harassment from the people they're expected to marry and have kids with will have to find a way to square that cognitive dissonance, but putting up with it in hopes of "taming" him with your love is maladaptive as heck.
We are the stories we tell about ourselves. This trope of "taming the bad guy" is dangerous for women because we form our character (partially) from the fantasies we create/consume. And that one is an extremely dangerous fantasy. It justifies the behaviour of rogue males, and create a false expectation about putting an end to this behaviour through empathy.
Heroes defeat villains, they don't negotiate with them. And yes, you can try to understand the motivations of a villain in the process of destroying him, but that's a different story
What an amazing video, truly. An exemplar explanation and exploration of media through critical thinking. Honestly, this could be an article in a Cultural Studies journal. Loved it!!! Thank you so much for taking the time and sharing it
This feels like one of those video you can tell are going to be good from the first second, in my opinion men watch all sorts of problematic romances too that are just as if not much worse to be honest, but people talk about that all the time, it's rare and intresting to see a nuanced perspective on fenale wish fulfilment every once in a while
this video scratched a certain itch in my brain
14:51 But why must the fantasy involve the woman falling in love with the boss she needs to defeat? Why must she "save" the villain. You say it's because, well, it's a "nice fantasy". But I think that too depends on the cultural expectations impressed upon women because I can't imagine men in general fantasizing about healing a mentally traumatised woman. It feels like it's a "nice fantasy" for some women because they EXPECT themselves to be weaker and like to feel useful? Idk. I'm not convinced that it's purely a fantastical "women enjoying the feeling of coping and solving issues irl"
@@ankushds7018 for the women who enjoy this, it's just cause they like evil men sometimes. That's it. The people reading don't care about the abusive male being saved. They like the fantasy of being with a "hot evil man"
Because woman inherently feel weaker in a patriachal society? So tame the monster instead of fighting the monster
i definitely think there's some social conditioning at work here, even though i totally agree with most of these comments. it's complicated, but the choices we make aren't made in a sociopolitical vacuum. brains are weird. i guess it's the "i can fix him" thing?
I really like your analysis on romance literature. it's so logical and understanding that my mind is blown away.
I am romance reader and I never knew why I liked those red flags characters, those stories but the way you analysed it, I can understand my own mind and desire and where it's stem from.
Such a great video, I am your loyal fan from now on.
I have subscribed to you and will watch your all videos.
This channel is criminally underrated. I’m in love with this video: such deep research, so many points taken into consideration, beautiful narration and visual aesthetics… I hope you continue your amazing work!!
I would absolutely agree that a lot of women don't read dark romance out of ignorance, but BECAUSE they understand so much of what is at stake and it's comforting to imagine a world where they have more control. Patriarchy is exhausting, frightening, and numbing and it's totally human and understandable to seek out that kind of relief. I also don't think literature propagates violence against women. I think it exists in the context of violence against women already being a problem. That being said, I would still maintain that the kneejerk reaction to that kind of writing (that being to discourage it and shame the mainly female authors who put it into print) is correct, even if it should be accompanied by further discussion. I think it's worth noting that not just women fantasize about being able to transform violent men; men irl will try to convince the woman they are abusing that she is actually "saving him" through her love and forgiveness, and helping him change. These dark romances reflect REAL situations that do happen. *Essentially, dark romance is patriarchy with a positive spin, where you can thrive and find love and empowerment by showing empathy to the system rather than fighting it.* Anyway, I think losing oneself in fantasy, (for women) even if you're totally aware it's a fantasy, can encourage a kind of closed off-ness to the world; so often in online female spaces I see women posting things like "fictional men >> real men" and "the version of him in my head >> him in real life." and it's like -- I'm not saying that they're wrong or that they aren't implying meaningful subtext but I think constantly using a language of extrapolation, deflection, and vulnerability-through-sarcasm (which is part of an interesting larger gen z phenomenon) can cause a kind of lackluster and maybe even to lose the plot a little bit. Sort of like women saying "I'm just a girl" (which was meant to be meta-irony on actual female infantilization in society that occurs through patriarchy) and now there's so much brain rot and a lack of media literacy and tik tok is like the eighth level of hell that it's blossomed into girl dinner, (eating disorders) girl math (women are too dumb for STEM) and its like okay i hope everyone's having fun but at a certain point is this helping us have honest, brave, vulnerable, introspective conversations with each other and ourselves?
The whole "fictional men >>> real men" thing makes me sad. It reminds me somewhat of young men becoming inundated with "explicit videos" and thinking that the women in those videos are better than women irl, or expect women to be like them, that these women are what is "normal".
It's definitely not a 1:1 comparison, but ultimately it's people becoming so lost in the fantasy that their standards or understanding of REAL people has become disconnected from reality... And it's no surprise that reality can NOT satisfy this type of person once they are so deep.
And many of the people in the groups above are typically very undesirable partners, in my experience. I wonder how much of it is self-sabotage, or some other maligned psych-issue.
@@H41030v3rki110ny0u i definitely agree there are parallels to guys who get obsessed with online women and lose touch with reality, also strongly agree that both these groups are not easy to date -- i think it will always fall apart when their real life partner act incongruently with their mental fantasies, and they lash out and try to force them to comply with it or distance themselves entirely, and as long as their fantasy comforts them emotionally, they'll hold onto it at the expense of other people. thank you for validating my comment bc i was worried it was too harsh lol.
It's such a treat when youtube recommends me a great video from a channel that is just starting out. I look forward to more videos from you 😊
Honestly, sometimes it seems to me that it is the male lead that "tames" the female lead in the end or I guess break is a better use of the word.
The male lead is already obsessed with her but doesn't care about how she feels or how he hurts her till the very end. At the end the female lead ends up obedient and just lets things happens to her and gives up everything or it seems lije her mind is broken and she suddenly likes the male lead after everything. Kind of like Stockholm syndrome.
For a fantasy to work it needs to have enough believability for whoever is having the fantasy (and part of that has to come from the reader being open to suspending their disbelief in what they ultimately understand could not be true in real life. I digress). It sounds to me that some fictions sell fantasies to you that you can't buy. And that's fine. Other people may not need that much to get into it and others like yourself need more.
thank you! to be honest, I was having the exact same thoughts. for example, in th This Man trilogy that I mentioned (and that I still hate with passion) it seems like the heroine just has to put up with his selfish behaviour to the very end. tbh, it's hard for me to interpret because I feel so much resistance towards this trope, buuut if I tried to, I'd say that a) unlike real life, in fiction his horrible behavior is safe to experience, so it's like a weird form of entertainment, I suppose? just like other people like stories with gore and blood etc. b) this sick master-slave dynamic is like the most straightforward relationship you could imagine, so it's also, a fantasy of desire being very simple, straight-forward and "primal" so it's a like a counter-fantasy to all the complexities that real life romantic relationships have to offer.
@@bazazilio I guess that is understandable.
There is something else I am curious about. Why would you say that the opposite isn't as common. That being the female lead ending up with control over the male lead? I wouldn't say ones I have read are unpopular but it seems like they are fewer overall.
@@smurfette_blues7922 If I am to be honest, I honestly doubt that is the soul reason.
To me it really does feel like that was the main interpretation in some works and it would be hard to see things any other way as it us probably what the author intended to happen.
@@sugarzblossom8168 oh well then that's a different story. That's just a taboo fantasy. Like @bazazilio says it can just be a weird form of entertainment like horror is. But also there is excitement in reading about getting into a dangerous relationship. These kinds of fictions kind of overlap with sub/Dom fantasies. Relinquishing control and giving it to someone that overpowers you. Being able to bed a coarse and possessive man without having to experience the emotional or physical repercussions that comes with doing so in real life. It's just the exciting parts without the awful and sad ending.
I remember when I was a kid, seeing my mom watching "Twilight", i always thought how weird it was for my mother to be so in love with Edward back then, when he was kinda a creep, but then disliking my dad to the point of hate, when my father is probably worse then a character, i think that, women have a thing for thiw type of movies, because it is something that they were teached, that they have to "save" or "tame" the abuser, so they can have a happy ever after.
i am capable of enjoying a boo or a movie that is about abuse, non consensual or anything like, as long as it isnt seen as romantic, or something you as a reader are suppose to desire, but as something disgustuing that will make me feel sick.
In fiction, people can identify with tragic backstory and interesting motives for villains. In real life, the jerk you know is just a narcissist and/or sociopath that doesn’t go deeper than that.
Yep, seen them in real life many times. The ones that did change from jerks to good guys was not because their love interest changed them but because they recognized their behavior was causing themselves problems. One does not change unless one wants to change for oneself.
Jerks have no problem getting relationships tho so the same characteristics that are attractive apply to both a book and real life
@@testcase6997 society as a whole rewards narcissistic behavior in men. Very little people care but a few people in a woman’s support system when she’s being abused, and if anyone calls a man out on anything, the abuser will smear campaign. Until society changes, this is how things will go.
@@CC-cw8wu You're agreeing with me.
@@CC-cw8wu you are loking at one diverse aspect of the society...society is not homogenous... Mixture of opinions exist
The explanation was phenomenally done and gave words to many insights I have realized over the years too!
30:16 this part, however, does lead me to thing this does absolutely bleed into our reality.
While the distinction between fantasy & reality are clear, when it comes to Love, it’s actually not. Love, in some sense will genuinely be tied to fantasy all the time. And in my experience, these expectations and ideas definitely do bleed into reality, regardless of the intention not to.
I feel this type of fantasy stuff is more akin to what Pornography, does to men but for women.
The expectations of intimacy itself get warped around the fantasies and become expectations of real people.
Now the expectation obviously isn’t literally the romance novel things that break realities of safety. But the core things, like this hope of not needing to communicate or confront self or the rest is very real and still present.
But that’s subtle because Love and Fantasy are obviously intertwined in many ways.
But you have helped a ton in humanizing and contextualizing that overlap. Thanks a TON.
The editing is impeccable
This is such a thoughtful and fun way to explain my desire to read 'guilty pleasure' romance books and manga sometimes 😅 thank you!!
At first I thought this was gonna be the usual take of focusing on the women and that we dont have the emotional literacy to recognize toxic behaviors and instead are blindly led by the powers that be.
I appreciate your nuanced take. Yes, women can indeed recognize the red flags and dont actually want these relationships in real life. Yes, women are more than emotional batteries for a man to drain. Yes, women inherently have power that simply looks different from a man but doesnt make it any less.
And how interesting that you actually touch on the male experience.
Great video😁
you made me watch youtube on 1x speed and that is the greatest compliment I can give.
I've struggled with my sexuality for most of my life, the only place I let myself have sexual gratification is through female-led non-consent content. As a guy a lot of the anxieties traditionally pushed on women are being more and more felt by guys, in this world of uncertainty, many men's greatest fear is to come off like a creep or a predator or problematic, so we push those feelings and desires down till they become scary and shameful and virtually unapproachable. for most of my life I believed I was asexual or at least a demiromantic asexual, and honestly, that may be, but if I think about it deeper from this lens, maybe not. I don't know anything for certain but you've given me a lot to think about, so Thank You.
There's something fundamentally condescending about the fact that romantic tropes one would never want to happen IRL are "problematic", but similar tropes in other genres are easily treated as the fiction they are. One of my comfort genres is cozy mystery (think Murder She Wrote, if you're not already familiar), but no one would use that to assume I want casual acquaintances to die under mysterious circumstances. I love fantasy RPGs and Lord of the Rings, but no one's worried that I'm hoping for an evil overlord to rebel against or that I'm going to try to solve all my problems with a sword.
Because wanting to go on a fantasy adventure isn't a negative. Wanting to date evil men is.
@@testcase6997 the vast majority of fantasy adventures involve LOTS of death and violence. LotR is a little bit of an outlier because the main hero is Frodo, and his heroism mostly takes the form of being resilient and determined without being violent, but all of the non-hobbit members of the fellowship mostly save the world by being good at fighting and/or convincing others to fight for/with them. In most fantasy RPGs, the main game mechanics are all about how good you are at killing things. In some of these games you're fighting skeletons/animals/mindless creatures, but in a lot of them you're just fighting (and usually killing) people. In the same way that some romance plots are specifically crafted so that the main problems are best solved with empathy, fantasy adventure plots are usually crafted so that the main problems are solved with swords and fireballs.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not making a "video games cause violence" argument, but if you're suggesting that wanting to literally be in a fantasy RPG is less bad than wanting to literally be in a toxic romance... well, I've read and played too many fantasy adventures to believe that.
@@CatHasOpinions734
First, this is just prn we're talking about. That's what this is. Which it's fine. I'm submissive too so I get how a fantasy can be fun.
Where it gets closer to immoral imo is when people treat these as legitimate genres with good themes. By crossing from harmless prn to actual literary merit it takes something that should be private and frivolous and turns it into a public display of a fetish. Said fetish being "women like evil men". "It's fun when your man is evil"
Now, we all laugh at the idea that video games cause violence. We don't laugh at the idea that always portraying black people as thugs in movies causes people to see and treat black people that way. Clearly we think art can influence your thinking and by consciously justifying this type of prn as real art it justifies disgusting ideas and tricks it's readers into seeing the baseline man as abusive. Not only does this hurt women by accepting a high level of abuse as normal, but it hurts men by casting them over and over again as violent threats. I shouldn't have to explain why it's so dangerous to be seen as a threat.
@@testcase6997 if you think we're just talking about prn, then you misunderstood me. The kind of misogynistic condescension I'm referring to in my original comment happens in response to YA, completely-non-explicit romance, all the time. Hell, the most famous example in my lifetime was the reaction to Twilight, which don't get me wrong, there are valid criticisms of that, but in hindsight it's fairly clear that much of the criticism of it was fueled by a lack of respect for the target audience.
Also, on the note of art influencing people, you seem to be implying that taking something more seriously means it's more able to affect us, but most of the time it's actually the other way around. Look at successful marketing, they DO NOT need you to take them seriously in order to influence you, if anything it's better if you can get people to read/watch your messaging without seriously thinking about it, because if they think about it more consciously they're more likely to make better decisions. Likewise, everyone I've ever met who's actually read Lolita came away thinking the pdf file character was the absolute worst, but plenty of people watch the trailers for the movie versions and get a very different (much worse) impression.
Tl:dr, it's not just prn, but even if it were, if you're suggesting that it's only harmful when we take it seriously and harmless if we treat it as lacking any literary merit and consume it uncritically, that's incorrect.
@@CatHasOpinions734 Whether something is taken seriously or not does not mean it can or can't influence you.
It seems you're not reading what I actually say.
I almost not watched this video but im so glad I did. This essay answered so many questions i had for other women
I love this analysis, but my main concern with these fantasies is how very frequently they merge with porn/grooming culture. That is actively dangerous to young girls and I'm glad people are criticizing that.
oh my God this is such a good video, where have you been all this time in my recommended tab!!!
as a lesbian this is why i stopped reading straight romance, they're al just copypastes and becoming generic. like what's up with the typical dark haired male who has emotional problems? i could literally replace him with a rock and the story would progress the same. i see both sides (fem and male) criticize each other's taste when they basically just mirror each other lmao.
Do you know we can see y'all?
this is such an interesting video! I have also been working through my prejudices against popular romance or 'tiktok' books. I used to turn my nose up at them but then I actually tried reading some and realised that my feelings were more...complicated. This definitely gave me food for thought!
i think of sylvia plath's line "Every woman adores a Fascist" all the time, especially when consuming heteronormative romance...it's terrifying
@@mykameakulpa yeah women love patriarchy, as long as it benefits them
Who is Sylvia Plath?
@@juliagoetia A writer who stuck her head in an oven.