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When people– and especially young women– are attracted to “abusive” and “controlling” and “violent” male characters in fiction–
The fantasy is not about being abused, or controlled.
The fantasy is about a partner who is devoted to you, who takes care of you, who will defend you, to a larger than life degree.
And because it’s fantasy, the person doing the fantasizing is in control.
The person having the fantasy knows for sure that when her fictional man says “I’m doing this because I love you” it’s true, and not an excuse for abuse.
Because it’s a fantasy. It’s a story.
“Abusive” romantic leads in stories don’t lead to women dating abusers any more than stories about unicorns lead to people buying horses.
#the person doing the fantasizing is in control!!!#she can ask the “controlling” mmc to stop and he WILL stop#that’s the opposite of abuse#that IS the fantasy
THIS! ☝️
FUCKING FINALLY.
I’ve had so much unspoken beef with ppl who talk about how books like Twilight “normalized abuse” for young girls and the whole thing has just REEKED of misogyny to me, imo. The idea that women & esp teen girls are so fucking stupid that they need to be explicitly told when the fictional man is dangerous is giving “women shan’t be allowed to read lest they get corrupted” from the fucking Victorian era.
The dark male love interest fantasy is, has been, and always will be a FANTASY. No young girl is reading a m!yandere fic and thinking “if only I found someone *exactly* like this in real life” – because if someone acted exactly like a yandere that shit would be fucking creepy and they’d likely call the cops!!!
I dipped into booktube a few months ago and found out a LOT of people were rallying against some author for writing “abusive” male love interests and they all approached it from this “think of the children!” angle which is just. I can’t fuckin imagine how patronizing it is to be told that you shouldn’t read a book bc it’ll magically make you incapable of seeing red flags. 😒😒😒😒 genuinely surprised more ppl aren’t having this convo. I know my boy ass shouldn’t be the one who has to bring this up lmao
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