And if you want to dog on the author about RACK or something, try to remember the author isn’t a westerner. BDSM and Kink is very different in South Korea. The BDSM and Kink culture can really vary even in the same state by city. Giant city means the culture tends to be transient. You hardly see the same faces consistently and enforcing “BDSM standards” is pretty much impossible because people just go to another area that it’s acceptable. Smaller cities, you’ll see the same people consistently and the community sometimes just lets things go because they want to keep the peace or stay in good favors with that person’s friend who owns a dungeon. At the end of the day kink is endlessly romanticized and just a story. People will get influenced one way or another, just like 50 Shades of Grey. The man genuinely stalks the woman but it’s passable because he’s attractive. If someone male presenting in my community who is aged a bit, the chick would have called the cops asap. There won’t be an accurate snapshot of Western (American really) BDSM portrayal in Korean manhwa. The dungeons are practically almost impossible to be allowed in Korean or Foreigner, and have different common rules.
Kink doesn’t really involve love, let alone sex all of the time. BDSM dynamics can involve love but don’t exclusively involve love. It’s certainly a very special relationship but not a monogamous forever and ever relationship. Honestly, most people who try out kink end up on a dopamine frenzy and are pretty willing to try anything that might give them a high. Jiho’s pretty much at his lowest with his family (people who should have been his support group) and the twins offered to be his dopamine fix. Is it toxic? Yeah. Does it happen in real life? Yeah. Trust, the negotiations and stuff go out the door when you genuinely are really attracted to someone. Negotiations pretty much occur during pick up play or when you’re getting to know someone. If you’re not into this, cool. Just don’t yuck someone else’s yum if they’re into it