Loyal Vassal · 14d
I’ve been thinking about the hierarchy of desire that you mentioned, that there’s a difference in what gets treated as real desirous facts vs crazy fantasy—and I think it applies to some things consumed by mostly women as well, but moreso around the popular culture surrounding dark romance? on one hand the contents of those novels don’t bother me at all, but it’s kind of jarring to me to see tiktoks of girls fawning over dark romance protagonists as if they’d really like to be subject to something like that, even outside of a fantasy—I feel like there’s at least a sizeable overlap between the readership of those novels and true crime community/serial killer fans who actually wanna go after guys like that? I’ve met plenty of normal dark romance fans tho. I don’t express this opinion publicly tho bc I don’t wanna get grouped in with ppl who think noncon fanfic is contributing to real world assault. I’ve just been feeling like a hypocrite because I apply it to while not . But thank you for introducing me to that idea, I’ve been able to apply it to a lot of stuff I’d previously been confused about.
Idk maybe I regularly trawl some rancid (positive) tags on sites regarding what some might regard as Crazy Woman Fantasies but I just don't find this concerning at all. Do I think some tiktokkers are cringe in how they express their horniness for SephirothKyloRenKnockoff #18384949 choking them into submission? Yeah, lol, I don't find it always tasteful, but I regard a lot of Public posting as honestly performances of drama and presentation and attention rather than necessarily a truthful representation of someone's desires. (Also, if you see how men, esp Normie men respond to these kinds of posts are usually with disdain and mockery and complaining about why women pick their VampireWerewolfMafiaBoss #399449 over them. So while there is often a lot of cringe heterosexuality (what is normative and assumed often) it definitely is not, I don't think, something people treat as "real" in the same way that say, many men's fantasies are sublimated so deeply into the societal consciousness as to just be taken for granted.
As for True Crime and Serial Killer fandom...those are honestly completely separate phenomena I think, because those feed into a very different desire. True Crime especially often has the complete OPPOSITE tendencies than DarkMance lovers in that it spurs ppl on to become more vigilant/paranoid/individualistic in "protecting" ones self from Crimes while voyeuristically digging into crime details, and the Serial Killer "fandom" thing is, if u look more into it, less Abt girlies wanting a Serial Killer Bf IRL than getting obsessed with specific existing figures and the details of their lives, or doin weird RPF about them. Are these actions APPROPRIATE??? I would argue there's a lot of stuff in Bad Taste, but in that sense the poor taste behaviors have to do with crossing boundaries (in the true crime/serial killer sense, the boundaries of IRL victims/people's privacy and information, and spreading/publicizing it.)
All of that is massively different in scale than fictional fantasizing which is a reflection of someone's self-expression of desires, which yes can be cringe and overwrought but is, honestly such a complete non-issue im surprised it's causing you this worry. Can there be overlap with corny people online and people genuinely doing invasive behaviors? Sure, but unless you have proof of their specific bad actions and bad opinions towards others, there's no way to know.
And it's best in the long run, frankly, for ur own peace of mind and others, to mind your own business.
