i seriously think about this all the time.
like, i’ve dipped my toes into romance novels to see what all the fuss is about. and i swear on my life the vast majority of relationships have 1) magical wish fulfillment from a late capitalist hellscape and 2) men who are kind.
and not even exceptionally kind, either. like, they go out and do a nice gesture once or twice. remember a birthday or bring the female character something they love/have always wanted. it’s like average healthy relationship levels of kind.
and the “spicy” stuff (sorry, i know this blog is sfw, i’ll try and keep it brief) is barely that. like it’s just left of vanilla. with the exception of some “dark romance” (and i do say some, i read one really “dark” one that was so not), it’s like… fine.
it feels like these poor women are just stuck accepting bad behavior from the men around them and i’m like actually !!!! you don’t have to do that !!!!
we can talk about problems with media literacy and critical thinking (the 30 books/month w/o reading the dialogue thing is a real problem), but women wanting fulfilling, slightly kinky relationships is not a part of that.