I think the point is not whatever rituals of 'safe words' and earnest agreements the current BDSM self-identified community has agreed on (and which I rather assume don't form part of the average establishment of Miss Whiplash in Soho catering to gentlemen of certain specialised taste -- although I daresay that's because there *are* unspoken definite boundaries in a commercial transaction; if you're paying to have a middle-aged lady dress up as a nanny and punish you for being a naughty boy, she's out to get a satisfied repeat customer and isn't going to do anything that will endanger the prospect of her receiving that money). The point is that people like to read about and vicariously experience things that they wouldn't enjoy having happen in real life at all -- hence the popularity of serial-killer books, 'penny dreadfuls', 'True Crime' and misery-lit, etc. Goes all the way back to the Ancient Greeks and the principle of catharsis, I suppose...
So yes, in the case of romances people --women -- like the image of the dominating bad boy who drags the heroine off to a remote location against her will (so she can't be blamed for taking up with an obviously unsuitable partner), enforces intimacies on her (so she can't be blamed for co-operating) and breaks her to his will (so she can't be blamed for loving him when objectively she shouldn't). You're supposed to want them to be together -- I think the whole idea is that the readers want them to be together and are willing the silly heroine to stop trying to rebel against what's best for her. In fact that was pretty much the assumption I was trying to subvert with Arctic Raoul, where I imagine most of the readers are going to take it for *granted* that Christine finally gives in to poor, sad Erik and takes care of him and realises that he is only bad because he loves her... or at least, subconsciously or not, are going to be tantalised by the possibility of that outcome being dangled before them :-p
You don't have any interest in sex, and I don't have any interest in romance. We can be dysfunctional in the eyes of society together. :P
Oh, I'm *interested* in sex all right. I just don't do anything about it, since the prospect of humpings in the abstract doesn't do anything for me. I classify myself as an unfashionably monogamous non-practising heterosexual ;-p
(Which has an awful lot in common with Erik, as I'm well aware...)
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Date: 2021-05-10 06:40 pm (UTC)The point is that people like to read about and vicariously experience things that they wouldn't enjoy having happen in real life at all -- hence the popularity of serial-killer books, 'penny dreadfuls', 'True Crime' and misery-lit, etc.
Goes all the way back to the Ancient Greeks and the principle of catharsis, I suppose...
So yes, in the case of romances people --women -- like the image of the dominating bad boy who drags the heroine off to a remote location against her will (so she can't be blamed for taking up with an obviously unsuitable partner), enforces intimacies on her (so she can't be blamed for co-operating) and breaks her to his will (so she can't be blamed for loving him when objectively she shouldn't). You're supposed to want them to be together -- I think the whole idea is that the readers want them to be together and are willing the silly heroine to stop trying to rebel against what's best for her. In fact that was pretty much the assumption I was trying to subvert with Arctic Raoul, where I imagine most of the readers are going to take it for *granted* that Christine finally gives in to poor, sad Erik and takes care of him and realises that he is only bad because he loves her... or at least, subconsciously or not, are going to be tantalised by the possibility of that outcome being dangled before them :-p
Oh, I'm *interested* in sex all right. I just don't do anything about it, since the prospect of humpings in the abstract doesn't do anything for me.
I classify myself as an unfashionably monogamous non-practising heterosexual ;-p
(Which has an awful lot in common with Erik, as I'm well aware...)