Everything Is Content - Everything In Conversation: Dark Romance

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

Hello QTS, we're back with a not very cute subject, let's go to the dark side...Last week we read a piece on Substack called “We Have To Talk about Dark Romance” by Stella Tate, in which she grapples with a problematic literary genre. Dark romance, for anyone not aware, is a subgenre of romance literature, that features characters, relationships and dynamics that are typically taboo in other genres, often involving violence, obsession, stalking, emotional abuse and sexual assault. Basically the romantic heroes of these stories would often be the clear villain in any other story. And as Stella writes: “from the perspective of a highly non-judgmental book lover (or at least that’s who i aim to be), dark romance is mainly a romance that takes the shape of a horror story, or possibly a horrific tale dressed up as a romance. dark romance is a genre bender, with elements of romance and horror, not always in equal parts… dark romance doesn’t seem to be one thing or another; instead, it seems to me like a wide spectrum, where you can find all 50 shades of grey and more, from the lighter vampire love stories to the harder to swallow stalker romances with sexual abuse and all sorts of triggering content.” We delve in!We Have To Talk About Dark RomanceThanks so much for all of your takes and comments on this topic, we love being in conversation with you all! O,R,B xx Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thank you for your patience. Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore. FIS is 100% online, so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at Fiz.ca. I'm Beth.

I'm Rachera and I'm Anoni. And this is Everything in Conversation. This is an extra helping of content and the episode where we discuss a trend or topic with your help. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Everything Is Content Pod to have your say or suggest a topic. So last week, we read a piece on substand called We Have to Talk About Dark Romance by Stella Tate, in which she grapples with a problematic literary genre. Dark romance, for anyone not aware, is a subgenre of romance literature that features characters,

relationships and dynamics that are typically taboo in other genres, often involving violence, obsession, stalking, emotional abuse and sexual assault. Basically, the romantic heroes of these stories would often be the clear villain in any other story. And as Stella writes, quote, from the perspective of a highly non-judgmental book lover, or at least that's who I aim to be, dark romance is mainly a romance that takes the shape of a horror story, or possibly a horrific tale dressed up as a romance. Dark romance is a genre bender. with elements of romance and horror, not always in equal parts. Dark romance doesn't seem to be one thing or another.

Instead, it seems to me like a wide spectrum, where you can find all 50 shades of grey and more, from the lighter vampire love stories to the harder to swallow stalker romances with sexual abuse and all sorts of triggering content, end quote. She explains that in keeping up with conversations about these books, she has noticed a lack of nuance and how many people have strong negative opinions despite having never read any dark romance themselves. She argues that critique of the books can often sound very similar

to critiques of other, more straightforward romances and erotica read by women, and that it's a genre as old as any other, and that women's interest in descriptions of forbidden and taboo dynamics of love and sex have been around as long as books have been in print. The popularity of these books is enormous. One of the more controversial titles, Haunting Adeline, by H.D. Carlton, which is part of the series, has been reviewed on Goodreads over 8.

120,000 times, and follows a woman who forms a relationship with her stalker and includes a disclaimer at the start that says, quote, the contents are very triggering situations such as non-slash-dubious consent between the main characters, graphic violence, human trafficking, stalking, child trafficking, child sacrifice, mentions of child death and explicit situations. There are also particular kinks such as gunplay, somnophilia, bondage and degradation, end quote, which are themes in plenty of books like crime books and dramas, but do feel very different when there is a romance in the title or it's being marketed as a love story. So I have never read a dark romance. I sort of did want to ahead of this episode

but didn't get time. And now I'm sort of thinking maybe that was a good thing because everything that I've come across has been quite shocking. I think we should actually just dive into this and I have to ask, and no judgment here, have either of you read any dark romance? No. And I have to say I hadn't, I wasn't necessarily conscious of it. being such a big subset of the sort of like romance genre, maybe that is just because that's not often where I dip my toe in waterstones. I wasn't overly aware of it, but I found it really fascinating reading about it for this. What about you, Richard? Yeah, I haven't either. I thought it was interesting that the writer brought up Twilight in this arena because it feels like Twilight

isn't the same and I just looked it up online and I do think they feel like different things. especially the example you gave of haunting Adeline. That definitely feels like a more extreme version of perhaps the controversial romance with elements that people find provocative or maybe harmful to women versus the falling in love with your stalker. That does feel different. Well, I guess Twilight birthed 50 shades of grey, right? And they're all kind of, it's literally like you said,

like the lighter shades of what becomes this very dark fantasy twilight is maybe dark romanticity light. It is obviously quite problematic, isn't it? He's like hundreds of years old. She's a teenager. It's quite coerce of controlling. Can I make it? Yeah, definitely.

Do you know what I was thinking? And I guess if the criticism here is that the problem here is that they are setting women up to, or setting young women up to sort of buy into dynamics which are really problematic, I wonder almost if it's more harmful to have a teenage book. where the main character sort of falls in love with this really controlling guy who's a million years old, then it is for someone to be like, and then I had filthy questionable sex with my serial killer. I don't know how often, you know, I just don't know if there's a lot as much real world harm in that because I think it's very clear that that is perhaps kink adjacent or so outlandish that I don't think

anyone's going to be like, I have got to find me a serial killer now. Whereas I do remember reading Twilight and thinking, he controls because he cares. That could be quite a dubious argument, but I just think if you're going to make the argument, I think you have to apply it to everything and look at how these softer books, which don't have the really dark elements, are kind of also up to that. I think we had a message from Lucy who said, as an English teacher, I often see students reading these books in year seven and up, which is, does seem quite shocking. My mum, I don't know if you all guys' parents were on top of what you were reading,

but my mum was quite strict about the books that I was reading. She was often quite worried about the things that I wanted to read. So I definitely wouldn't have been allowed these books. But I think you make a really strong point there, Beth, with actually like the more insidious relationships and actually the softer it is and the more it's hidden within the depths of what is perceived to be romance is maybe actually slightly more instructive on a developing squishy brain

than something that's extremely shocking and feels perverse and taboo and I think it's really hard to police literature in terms of like the same with policing kink and fantasy like fantasy is fantasy for a reason it's fun in your head and it probably should never really come out into reality but I think that people should be allowed to escape

and there's all sorts of reasons why people are drawn to the taboo and I mean we talk too much about porn on this podcast but obviously the more taboo the more people find it erotic. And so there's always going to be a market for things, the place for them is in books, is in fantasy, is in fiction, because I guess the idea is that it's never really going to play out in reality. But I think the difficulty is when this lands in the hands of impressionable minds, where does that go from there? That's, yeah, I completely agree. And I think that's why I really liked the piece that you shared with us, Beth, because it felt like she had a

really solid argument for why really it's not about the books it's about the kind of context and the landscape the books exist in which is a real issue with people having good effective sex education and education around consent and kink and broaching those subjects with young people so it's very obvious whereas fantasy whereas i guess even just something you would explore in a book but never really want to consider taking into your actual sexual appetite and what is actually a realistic approach to a healthy sex life, if that does include things like kink, BDSM, anything on those kind of scales. It just, it feels like it's easier to control the culture

than it is to kind of address the culture. And I think I really resonated with her point in saying, if you have those conversations with young people, it becomes then super obvious when you get a book like this, how to enjoy it in a way that doesn't, you know, pose a detriment to their forming ideas of sex and relationships. And I think we always have to come back to that. It's not, you know, you can question culture.

You can interrogate culture. That's very important. But erasing culture is not going to fix any problems. In my opinion, that kind of feels like a plaster on a situation rather than an answer. Yeah, like gross. stuff that I find gross and objectionable and icky has to exist in the world and I don't want to exist in a world where it can't exist. I think the issue has been pointed out by a few of our

listeners is what about when this stuff is available for really young impressionable readers, which I think it just is. My reading was not pleased as a child, but I didn't have, you know, I couldn't read books on the internet, I couldn't torrent books. I think young people know how to do that. I couldn't kind of rent a book via Amazon or whatever without my parents seeing, you know, I had to go to the library and check it out to the librarian who would give me a very funny look. And I think with book talk, etc., there is a question of like, are you shaping someone's reality here? I think with adults, I would worry if this is the only thing they are consuming because I think an adult is also prone to having their worldview warped

by mass consumption of things, whether that's porn in cell culture. It can render otherwise quite well-adjusted person completely maladapted. But as Matild said, I think that an important aspect of literature is discussing the nuances slash complicated parts of relationships. Doc Romance is risky because teaching impressionable young people that, quote, he treats you badly because he loves you, is just the horny elder sister of. He's mean to you because he has a crush on you. But I also wonder if it is a response to how many romance books are so puritanical and

sanitised from the actual nuances of human behaviour. Relationships are complicated and human experiences are messy. and I think it's a great point I think I want to as I say I want to exist in a world with these books but also with a really robust conversation around these books so people understand this is pure escapism

I don't want to book kink shame I don't want to shame anyone for who this is exciting and sexy and entertaining because Lord knows we have violence and sexual violence in every other art medium and we allow that to exist and we have more intellectual discussions about it

but I just think we actually don't have, as you both said, a robust enough sexual and relationship dynamic conversation at play at the moment that I think it's fair enough to be like these books, the prevalence and popularity of these books concerns me, but not on their own lack of merit. We had such an interesting message from a bookseller that reads, so I'm a bookseller for a National High Street Bookshop chain and this is something I feel increasingly worried about.

They go on to say that there's this book called Wanting Adeline that's constantly in the top 25 bestselling books for the company and in their shop they regularly get girls as young as 13, 14 buying it. And they go on to say, there's no such thing as legal age limits in books. And I've never thought about that before. And that's actually really fascinating. And maybe that is, you know, like you have films, you have PG, 12A, 15, 18. It's such a good point. Why does that not exist for books? I think that's really interesting. But they also go on to say, when I first worked in bookshops about 15 years ago, I remember being surprised that girls that age were all buying those misery and memoirs like a child called

it. So perhaps there's something in the argument that an urge to explore darker themes is a natural part of teenage girlhood. And I think that's quite true because even though my mum was quite worried about me reading two like sexy books, like I think she was a bit worried about I wanted to read, I think as my sisters were older, I was trying to read the books they were reading but they were like seven and eight years older. So I was trying to read Jack Lee Wilson at like five. She was like, no, no, this one's not for you. But I did have an absolute fascination with Good Night, Mr. Tom, a child called it, all of these really sad books that were often about like children being abused.

That was kind of like the genre of book that I was reading a lot of as a teenager. I don't know why. And also that Anne Frank's diary. I think I read that over and over and over again. So there maybe is an interesting point to say that teenagers do find darkness, quite fascinating and maybe it is because by virtue of the fact that you are not yet an adult you're very shielded from that and so you want to understand like the inner workings of the world but yeah I think the age limit on books thing is just so fascinating that I've never ever thought about that

yeah it's quite a interesting concept that I have never considered in my life the idea that so much culture has age guidance and age prescriptions on them when it comes to film but books are just this completely different entity and also TV shows I guess but then you have the time constraints of having you know some of those like bizarre horny shows that used to get on free view back in the day like post 10pm and you'd watch at sleep over with your friends but with books it is just like it is really on the bookseller but then there's no kind of even cultural conversation of is it abnormal for a child to go to the adult section of a bookstore and just you know grab I don't know

if you're like 10 years old grabbing a Sally Rooney or like anything not even necessarily dark romance but things that have you know grown up themes in them

you know scenes of sex all that kind of stuff it is it is interesting because then I guess my main concern and the piece talks about this is how we are kind of

in a world where as you say Beth everyone has access to anything you know young people are access accessing all kinds of content online some of it shades of like normal some of it shades of like very abnormal some of it shades of just like much more mature content that ideally they shouldn't be seeing but they just are but with books it you could you could kind

of introduce a policy where you advise people to make it more prescriptive about the kind of books you can access but then is that a freedom of speech issue I don't think it is because then if you equated to films that really feels like quite a quite a normal thing to do yeah I'm torn on this one but maybe it's its own separate conversation because it's really interesting because I I had access to all my parents' books, and the policy was, I mean, they wouldn't have had anything in there that was too shocking, but they would have probably had a copy of, like, American Psycho and all of the classics. And I was sort of allowed to pick up books and put them down at will, and I would attempt to read books beyond my skill level. And that would be frustrating, but also quite instructive. Like, I remember reading Rebecca by Daphne de Maurer when I was maybe like nine or ten and being like, hmm, I'm not grasping this, but something bad's happening. And it was really, instructive. Same with books that I picked up at the library. I got to know myself. Like, I remember bringing home a book. I can't remember what it was called. It was very dark. It was in the teen section. And I wonder if it should have been. It was in the young teen section. And I won't

give details, but essentially a paedophile does what a paedophile will do. And I was like, oh. And it guided my reading in that I thought, okay, this is too old for me. But also, yeah, exposed me to things, which certainly looking back, I would be horrified if a 10-year-old that I knew was reading those things. It's very difficult. And I do wonder if a part of this kind of reaching for popular books on book talk of young people is that there are less and less books for them. And we see this in a lot of other media. There is like internet spaces are being collapsed into one big space. There is less, there are less role models for for tween ages. I think reading enjoyment has fallen to the lowest level for children of that age in like 20 years. I think we're in a in a cultural. desert for appropriate stuff for that transitional era between childhood and teenager and this could be a part of that. It could be, well, I saw this book. It's got murder. It's got this. It's got all the stuff I see on Netflix anyway. Why would I not read it? Not thinking of the implications down

the line of having read so many dark romances where someone is, there is dubious non-consent, which is, you know, sexual assault and not having someone there to be like, and that is very, very bad. there is nothing sexy in this. It does sort of feel like actually protect the children. Thank you for your patience. Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore. FIS is 100% online so you can make the switch in minutes.

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We had another great message from Laura. It's another way of framing it, where she talked about the difference between dark romance where toxic and harmful behaviour gets played down and portrayed as normal and dark romance where the aim of the whole story is the sensible depiction and critical view on those toxic dynamics and how dangerous they can be. I mostly find it Icky when reading it because the majority of authors don't manage this critical lens and just tell toxic, simplistic, romanticised tropes usually entangled in other normative values and culture. And I think that's also a really good point about the responsibility of, I guess, authors and having an understanding of the way that you're telling these stories and someone else brought up

my dark Vanessa which was a book that I absolutely loved which was kind of felt like it was following along the lines of a Lolita style story but again it did that really clever thing of it was dark and it was unnerving and it was unsettling but you as the reader are aware that this is wrong and it kind of shouldn't be happening it's not glamorizing it and so I think that's a really interesting point about the difference between glamorizing harmful behaviors and all of this is kind of obviously not to the same extreme, but making me think of Colleen Hoover and her prevalence in the kind of stories that she writes and the kind of behaviours that she depicts and the way that especially younger women fall in love with these characters and

see them as, you know, people to idolize and the kind of romance and love that they're looking for. So I wonder how long, I know that you said in the intro that this has been, you know, a kind of trope that's existed in time forever. Maybe that's true. Maybe it's because we're through the looking glass and we understand the patriarchy and misogyny and actually that isn't the normal way of entering into a heterosexual relationship obviously not to some of the extremes I know there's some very extreme kind of kinks and things that are involved in these but just if we're talking about the more broader idea of control and coercion and all that kind of thing maybe maybe we're too woke yeah I don't know I think I think it's hard and I think you're right

It's like so naughty because in the piece, she also brings up Nosferatu. And I watched the original the other day with Winona Ryder, and I can't remember who else is in it. And the vampire Nosferatu essentially is like manipulating her. And there is no sense of like equal consent. He is a monster who is orchestrating this whole way to get back with his, to come back as his previous partner reincarnated as Winona Ryder's current self. and objectively it's just a hot fucking story like by the end i was like nosferatu you know would fuck and objectively it feels ridiculous to then come into that story and be like but what about you know what about the ethics of this story between vampire and woman what do we what is it

saying to relationships in the real world you know is it a danger that i walked away and thought you know nosferatu hot it sometimes i think when we're having these stories it feels a bit when we have these conversations, it feels a bit like, we have to have it, but without getting to a silly point of just being like, oh, so should we just not talk about vampires falling in love with humans? Is that the problem? It's like, there has to be the fantastical element. There has to be the element of kink and erotica in there that is allowed to flourish. But then also, there is definitely a point with these stories that I think Laura's hit the nail on the head. Perhaps they're not being dealt with in interesting ways, but then also is that a crime as well? Because I don't think

Nosferatu is presenting an issue on consent in a compelling, invigorated, discourseful way. I don't know. I feel like I get myself into a knot because then it's like, should all art be good? Is it an offence to not have interrogative, interesting, critical art? It kind of feels like some of this argument's going in that direction too. What do you think, Beth? I think I really agree with you. I think that's a great, something to think about because an argument that comes up here is why do we sneer at the darker elements in fantasy and romance and in these books, which are designed to titillate and entertain and do just that? Whereas those elements are in something like American Psycho or the books of Cormat McCarthy are so revoltingly violent, widely read by men

and critically acclaimed. Of course, they are better books. I don't think that's a, I'm not saying one should exist, one shouldn't, but they are better books, but does that mean that violence can only, or sexual violence or disturbing dynamics can only exist, should only exist in the right kind of art? I mean, maybe crucially nobody's getting horny about no country for old men and it's not selling a message. But then I just think it becomes like a really, like a really circular shaming conversation. And I was hearing it in our DMs when people were saying, so we had Sophie who said of dark romance books, that they are an expression of the dark takes, expression of the darker taste the patriarchy has given us

and irresponsible to publish, which I find it quite curious, the idea that the sexual interests and that someone might find it exciting to read about someone gradually falling in love with, you know, a stalker that this is, we've been furnished with this because we live under a patriarchy. I don't know the answer to that.

Again, probably an interesting question for another time, but, you know, are they not naturally occurring? Are they given to us by the patriarchy? or I think some people might even argue they are a resistance against the patriarchy and actually maybe even just a side effect of like the weirdness of human sexuality like you're trying to fuck a vampire some people get off imagining you know hiding in a cupboard while a stalker runs around the house I understand not being able to enjoy it and we had another message from Francis who said violence against women and girls is a global issue

that's getting worse by the day and I find it really hard to swallow when it's repackaged as entertainment and I understand that and I think you have to exercise your right to be like I'm not going to watch this this makes my life harder but then when women are enjoying it and whether they're titillated or not or purely just down for the ride in the way that you know I read a Cormac McCarthy novel and I feel sick but I do not put it down until the bitter end whether we do just have to allow for the weirdness of human experience and human taste rather than saying well you know your mind has been poisoned by the patriarchy but mine has not it is tough though it's such a layered cake because you're right

that also is an argument that people say that actually for example like a sort of rape fantasy is something that some women indulge in because they have control in the setting of the fantasy so even though the thing that they're fantasizing about is such a like a horrific degradation

and the worst thing you can do to a person in the setting of a fantasy you're in control of it And so there is something to be said for it feeling empowering, even as like confusing and convoluted an idea that might be. So I do think that there is a world where people actually enjoy articulated, find it erotic, whatever it is in a way that feels completely in opposition to what. I don't think basically everything is on the face of it, what it says it is.

I don't think something always has to be bad or evil because it contains bad and evil. And I agree with you, Ritterer, as well, that it's kind of insane to say, that we should be moralising books. And that is also gets us into a very dangerous 1984-type world, totalitarian state where you can't do anything unless it's processed through whatever. But it's also was just making me think, take the sex away of it all. Just focusing on the prevalence of it and actually the way that people are really leaning into dark romance is making me think of true crime and the kind of the way that people

became so obsessive about true crime. And we obviously spoke about it with the Liza Clark. and then that kind of like rise and fall of suddenly starting to feel a bit icky about it because it feels too close to something very violent, too close to something very scary, something very in the real world. There must be some kind of human nature thing where if you are living a mundane normal 9 to 5, something about the most catastrophic, awful, evil things does something like, why do we like horror?

We're always as humans, we're very complicated, interesting beings and we're drawn to all sorts of things. think that it's not problematic for it to exist, but I think the trend upward and the trend downward in age of who's consuming it, that's what is the interesting thing. And I think across everything we always talk about, like you said, Beth, with the dearth of things available to certain age groups, with the collapse of the internet, with there not being certain spaces, whether that's like community spaces or youth centres or places for younger people to go and explore and have tastes of their own that they create together. it's something we're seeing and even just like the access to porn although not to bring on to porn we do not have time for this but it has been really interesting to see that since they put the age of verifications on the porn website there's been a massive drop in people accessing porn and that's just interesting to me I really want to know if that's going to have an impact on the younger generations maybe their appetite for this kind of extreme kind of romance is because they've been exposed to highly highly sexualized content already I don't know but I think if I read one of these

books at 13, I would start going to church and go into confession. Thank you so much for listening this week and for all of your amazing thoughts on this week's topic. Quick reminder that we're on Instagram and TikTok at Everything is Content Pod with extra behind the scenes content and ways for you to take part and suggest topics for upcoming episodes. If you enjoy Everything is Content, please do you leave us a rating and a lovely five-star review on your podcast player app. It helps others find us

and means we can hopefully keep making the show for a very long time. See you as always on Friday. Bye. Thank you for your patience. Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore.

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