I have met exactly one woman who had rape fantasies (as opposed to nightmares), and I believe she was a 30-something but it's been a few years. Have also met three guys at wildly different ages who admitted to fantasies of raping women.
And about five women who admit to having been raped and ... well, their stories make me think verifiable, serial rape or rape of a minor should be a capitol offense.
What many current authors/writers may not know is that back in the early 90's the US Romance publishing industry underwent a massive upheaval.
Rape to Love;
Bodice Ripper, stories were No Longer Accepted by Romance publishers. In fact, it became Unacceptable among Romance publishers
nationwide.
This happened because in the 90's Romance readers utterly refused to buy the
rape fantasy novels that had been wildly popular back in the late 60's to late 80's.
All of this was due to a
nearly Silent sexual revolution among Women that happened in the late 70's to mid 80's. During this period in time, it became
Publicly Acceptable to enjoy sex -- and not
just with one's spouse.
At the time, this was very shocking.
The previous generation had been raised to believe
enjoyment of sex as Sinful and Shameful. Sex was strictly for making babies. Females who actually enjoyed sex were sluts or hoes -- without exception.
In 1969 the
Summer of Love happened -- and sex became acceptable for
Everyone to enjoy, male
and female. Only a handful of years later, sex was
expected to be enjoyable, and it became perfectly Legal to
divorce your spouse if it
wasn't.
The main reason Bodice Ripper, rape fantasy novels became popular in the first place was because it
Removed the Guilt over
enjoying sex. The Hero
forced the Heroine to have sex and
like it. It wasn't Her fault she enjoyed having sex -- it was His.
-- By the way, I'm currently seeing a lot of Korean M/M stories using this particular trope for almost the exact same reason: to get the bottom to enjoy gay sex so much, they fall in love with their top.
By the 80's and 90's, guilt over
liking sex had been thoroughly Erased and rape became vehemently anathema; rape was no longer acceptable to females in Any form, especially
not in Romance fiction.
By the early 90's, the Bodice Rippers had died a fiery death in most of the native English speaking countries, and Erotic Romances featuring Seduction but
Consensual sex took over as the next form of highly erotic Romances.
Then in the 2000's, Japanese Hentai anime and Hentai games appeared, where women liking sex was suddenly Shameful again. This was followed by the Chinese Web novels, and the Korean web novels that seem to be suffering from the same problem: Sex was Shameful, and Rape & Stalking was the road to Love.
These stories smacked into the English reading
Female audience, causing
Culture Dysphoria.
What was commonly accepted and normalized in the East, was NOT in the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia, who had all gone through the Romance Revolution where Rape is Unacceptable in Love stories.
Unfortunately, the male reading/watching audience never got the Romance Revolution memo -- and became avid buyers.
This has caused quite a bit of confusion among the new younger writers who completely missed the Romance Revolution back in the 90's -- mainly because they hadn't been born yet.
All those new young writers who are wondering why they're not seeing very many views and/or sales on their
Harem fics and
Rape to Love stories...?
All those new young
Translators of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese webnovels that are oh so popular in their own countries, but again, don't have very many views among the English reading audience...?
THIS is Why:
The largest
by far reading/buying audience is FEMALE, and females despise Rape and
strongly dislike Harem fics, even reverse harems with one female and many males. Threesomes are fine as long as all three stay together. More
active participants than three is too close to Cheating, and women
Hate Cheaters.
If you want to appeal to the largest paying reading audience: WOMEN,
get rid of the Harem and Rape to Love Tropes. Oh, and learn how to write proper sex scenes. I am sick and tired of sex scenes that last only a few paragraphs. That skimpy crap doesn't even come close to being satisfying.
But...! All these translated stories/games with these tropes are
published, so they're fine, right?
-- Only
in their own countries; China, Korea, Japan. In these countries enjoying sex outside of Marriage is
still considered Shameful.
