As of today, my Kindle reports 33 days in a row of reading. If only my Apple Watch reported a similar streak. For a long time, I’d been a reading slump. Growing up, I’d been an avid reader. So much so that when my brothers were being punished by having their toys or video games taken away, my punishment was having all of my books removed from my room. But the older I’ve gotten the less time, energy, and plain interest I had for sitting down and enjoying a book. What have I found time for? Scrolling on TikTok. And as if my inner book worm cried out from the depths of my personality, I found myself wandering into the little corner of BookTok. Oh, but not just any corner of BookTok. The dark romance section of BookTok.
Now I’m not a romance kind of girl. Romance, whatever medium on which it’s displayed, always comes across as cringy to me. Give me horror, sci-fi, and fantasy adventures any day, but romance? Gross. But being in a reading slump will force you to try out anything people are raving about, just to fall in love with reading again. So, I got initiated into the dark romance genres when I went looking for what the BookTok girlies and guys were reading and recommending, and it seems this particular genre has the book clubs in a chokehold. Now, I missed the Fifty Shades of Grey era. It didn’t interest me one bit back then. So, I know dark romance isn’t new. But the genre has a hold on everyone, from grown lady book clubs and the college girls to the boyfriends trying to figure out what has their girls absorbed in a book for hours. It’s fascinating. It’s so pervasive that a running gag on TikTok is for guys to dress like and imitate dark romance main male characters to interest a dark romance girlie.
So, what is a dark romance? It’s a subgenre of romance with dark themes and mature content. Namely, trigger warnings, graphic sex and morally-grey characters put traumatic and usually violent plots. Women falling for their stalker is a popular dark romance trope. (See the Haunting Adeline (the Cat and Mouse Duet)) Villains getting the girl in the end is another popular main plot of the genre. (See Emily McIntire’s Never After series). Forbidden romance is also a major theme in dark romance. (See Still Beating). Extreme sub-dom forced sex is often a main theme in dark romance. (See Shantel Tessier’s L.O.R.D.S. series) The most interesting of these tropes, to me, is the concept of the morally grey character who is not actually morally grey at all.
The morally grey character is one who is not pure good or evil. They have complex motives and act in ways that aren’t clear moralistically. In the dark romance world, the morally grey character is often male, lacks boundaries when it comes to women who capture their interest, and are not opposed to murder whether for good reasons or just because they enjoy it. And the only redemptive arc of their story is that they fall deeply in love with that one perfect woman. In any other genre this character is a villain, but in dark romance they’re gorgeous, usually rich, and have the skills to make any woman’s body purr with sexual pleasure. Thus, morally-grey. Because we are so uncomfortable with our own darkness and any attraction to the like, we have to justify it by giving the villain characteristics that any woman would naturally fall for. And then call that character morally ambiguous. I call bullshit.
I haven’t read a dark romance yet where the so-called morally grey character is ambiguous in their morality at all if we are basing those morals on commonly held beliefs: murder is wrong, sex acts without consent is rape, which is wrong, stalking is wrong, etc. But when these things are done by hot, rich, sexy guys, its morally grey. Now, I know this is all fantasy. It’s a way for us to enjoy those parts of ourselves that are dark and depraved in a fictional world where no one gets hurt. In our fantasies, we want to be the object of the bad guys’ obsession. We want the bad guy to stalk us and sex us into submission even when we say no. And we want the bad guy to be so obsessed with us that he’ll kill for us. So why not just call a spade a spade? These are BAD GUYS. The best you can conjecture is that these characters abide by their own “code.” But morals, where? Nothing about this is morally grey. It’s villainous.
To be clear, none of this is judgment about the fantasy or indulgence in it. It’s more so that I believe we humans are so uncomfortable with complexity of thought, emotion, and desire. It’s why conservative moms are banning books indiscriminately. Why we refuse to have scientific conversations about abortion. Why sex education is not a serious area of study when adolescents are biologically thinking about and desiring sex. It’s also why we don’t acknowledge that billionaires are drains on our society and take action in that regard. And its why instead of admitting we desire and are aroused by that darkness, we label our darkness “ambiguous” in order to enjoy it.
