Because I feel like I don’t see rape appear in hetero or yuri as often as it shows up in BL. Also, when it shows up in hetero, it’s almost always one of the following scenarios: 1- some kind of tentacle rape with nonhumans(the woman will be loving it- oh no, I have to escape, but why do I feel sooo- kind of nonsense) 2- consentual rape, as in BDSM role play 3- it’s an actual plot point where someone wants revenge because rape happened 4- really niche genres where it’s brutal and disgusting and obviously the author needs therapy and so do the readers(never anything popular- also rare and fortunately very hard to come by.)
Yet it’s so common with BL…
And the rapist is usually a love interest in BL. Makes me wonder if cognitive dissonance is at play. Example: Common thoughts of long term sexual abuse victims- rape is bad. Someone who raped me was a person I loved. I still love them. They are bad. They were worth loving when they weren’t doing THAT. I felt protected and cared for outside of those events. They were the only one on my side. They cared. No one else cared. They were kind but bad. I felt loved but it was abuse. They cared but we’re doing something bad to me. Rape is bad… they were good and also bad?
So I just wonder if the authors who are writing rape into everything are trying to force a situation where rape can occur with love simultaneously. Like, maybe their subconscious mind is trying to normalize something they haven’t come to terms with yet. Dunno. But I can’t imagine the frequency of the situation is purely coincidental.
PS- I also wonder if because it’s something authors would never be able to talk about openly, and so when they see other authors doing this they think, oh it really is normal. This is fine. Or something similar.
I’m pretty sure it’s just so the authors can bring in the rape fetish readers(tho I dunno why any of those would be reading a story that 100 chapters without even a mention of sex) and it’s sadly taken a lot less seriously when it’s men being assaulted because men attacking women and violence against women because of patriarchy is generally talked about more often it also doesn’t help that it’s become so normalized in the bl space
You see, I’ve considered this angle, but based on 2 things, it feels unlikely for that to be the cause.
1- the comment sections, not just here, but all over the Internet. I’m pretty sure authors lose more readers than gain by doing this.
2- If it was such an excellent marketing tactic, wouldn’t we see it everywhere? It doesn’t make sense that we’re not seeing more human rapists who are also love interests in hetero genres. The frequency of rape, being inserted into romance settings, in BL exceeds what you see in other genres.
Also, the part where the majority of readers and authors for BL are female. Is this to suggest men aren’t as attracted to rape as women?
I should’ve put this all in one post. I’m not trying to ignore what you said, I just think that you’re forgetting that women can also rape men. And I don’t see that happening in hetero series.
Just what is appealing about rape?? It's so disgusting
Exactly! Readers don’t like it. So for real, is it the authors?
I'm so sorry I down voted by accident. I completely agree with you they're definitely losing more readers by doing this shit. Why are they trying to romanticize something so horrible and traumatic. They even ruin the consensual sex scenes when the uke likes it but says stop stop ig that would mean it's not consensual anymore but when the seme asks the uke if he's likes it or not, the uke replies he does SO WHAT THE FUCK IS WITH THE RAPE ROLEPLAY. The authors are clearly sick, love rape and probably have stockholm syndrome as well. Almost every story either has rape or has rape roleplay of some kind it's absolutely disgusting.
It’s a frequent topic that BL authors add rape so often. So I’m just curious if there’s some kind of psychological phenomenon that causes this to keep occurring. Is this similar to how young children who are molested will sometimes turn to animal abuse? Is there some particular negative experience where, whenever “a person who’s been subjected to that negative experience” becomes an BL author, they will act out by projecting sexual violence onto their characters?
(Hoping this isn’t tmi - because it’s relevant) I enjoy BL because I’m someone who grew up with negative sexual situations in my personal life. I feel emotionally unsafe reading stories that involve sex between men and women. And yet I know sex is something beautiful that enables two people to come together and share their feelings and emotions in a physical way. It somehow doesn’t bother me so much when the characters are both male. I can’t handle yuri though. There’s just too much overlap with me who is female. I need to not see women … being subjected to sex- because my mind will automatically see it that way.
Is it potentially something like this for the BL authors? Do a whole lot of women become BL authors because they can’t do normal hetero authorship? And do they potentially act out their frustrations through their characters? Are they otherwise, just all creepy and insane? Cause what the heck with all the rape?