Because people dream of having a relationship like this in real life, and that's concerning.
OK, I understand that you mean well and you are seriously worried about this, and I sympathize. But I have some understanding of abuse, both from a place of personal experience and a place of studying the psychology behind it, and I really disagree with this way of approaching the question of abuse and how to prevent it. Preventing people from reading "bad" fiction will never be sufficient to prevent abuse, and feeds them a steady diet of Twilight and Fifty Shades will never be sufficient to cause it, because that's not how abuse works. More than that, it puts the responsibility for avoiding abuse on the (potential) victim, and not the abuser (who is making a choice), and that is incredibly destructive.
For the most part, people do not get into abusive relationships because fiction romanticizes abuse and teaches them to desire it. People do not want to be abused. They might dream about someone intense and dark and stalkery, but when it happens in reality, it's scary and unwanted. People get into abusive relationships because they fall in love with someone who appears, on the surface, to be nice, and who has other good qualities and treats them well some of the time. Abusive tendencies are revealed gradually and escalate, and by that point, the emotional entanglement is already there and difficult to throw off. Everybody who is capable of forming emotional attachments to other human beings is vulnerable to this, whether they've been taught to romanticize abuse or not.
So perhaps some of that concern could go to raising awareness of abuse in real life, educating people about red flags and abusive dynamics, encouraging them to trust their instincts and perceptions, providing shelter and support for victims, and, oh yeah, encouraging people not to abuse. All of those would be far more effective than browbeating people about the kind of trashy fiction they like.
no subject
Because people dream of having a relationship like this in real life, and that's concerning.
OK, I understand that you mean well and you are seriously worried about this, and I sympathize. But I have some understanding of abuse, both from a place of personal experience and a place of studying the psychology behind it, and I really disagree with this way of approaching the question of abuse and how to prevent it. Preventing people from reading "bad" fiction will never be sufficient to prevent abuse, and feeds them a steady diet of Twilight and Fifty Shades will never be sufficient to cause it, because that's not how abuse works. More than that, it puts the responsibility for avoiding abuse on the (potential) victim, and not the abuser (who is making a choice), and that is incredibly destructive.
For the most part, people do not get into abusive relationships because fiction romanticizes abuse and teaches them to desire it. People do not want to be abused. They might dream about someone intense and dark and stalkery, but when it happens in reality, it's scary and unwanted. People get into abusive relationships because they fall in love with someone who appears, on the surface, to be nice, and who has other good qualities and treats them well some of the time. Abusive tendencies are revealed gradually and escalate, and by that point, the emotional entanglement is already there and difficult to throw off. Everybody who is capable of forming emotional attachments to other human beings is vulnerable to this, whether they've been taught to romanticize abuse or not.
So perhaps some of that concern could go to raising awareness of abuse in real life, educating people about red flags and abusive dynamics, encouraging them to trust their instincts and perceptions, providing shelter and support for victims, and, oh yeah, encouraging people not to abuse. All of those would be far more effective than browbeating people about the kind of trashy fiction they like.