I watched Rachel Oates’ YouTube video We Need More Women To Speak Out Like This, and she points out something about abuse and media that backs up what I’ve been arguing for a while.

She reads a passage from the memoir, Why Did You Stay? by Rebecca Humphries exploring why the author remained in an abusive relationship for a long time. Rachel remarked that the book mirrored her own experience in many ways.

One significant way was this: The depiction of abuse on TV and in other media primed her to miss abuse in real life because it didn’t reflect her experiences.

The abuse depicted in movies, TV shows, and books was far more dramatic, with physical violence and forceful rape. So she didn’t think of her more subtle mistreatment as abuse and missed the red flags.

When people argue that dark romance normalizes abuse, I always say, “I don’t think most readers are in danger of thinking getting kidnapped and raped is okay because they read it in a romance book.” Dark romance is so over the top most of the time, I don’t see how any adult who doesn’t already need a legal guardian would seriously think the acts depicted in them were fine just because the book was labeled as a romance. Also, the term “dark” should cue people in on the fact that dark romances aren’t exploring good or standard relationships.

I’ve always said it’s the subtle stuff that spreads misinformation. Not just by only portraying abuse in the most outwardly brutal ways and, therefore, making less extreme forms of abuse seem fine (e.g., “Well, he’s never hit me.”), but by normalizing subtle red flags and framing them as cute and romantic.

It’s the guy who sells the heroine’s car without her knowledge or consent and replaces it with a much nicer one he bought, himself, that’s more likely to pass undetected through people’s this-would-be-bullshit-in-real-life radar—not the guy who stalks the heroine, murders her ex out of jealousy, and has his way with her in her sleep.

That isn’t to say that being inundated with media portraying blatantly toxic relationships that are framed as sexy and exciting and legitimate romances can’t have any negative effect on people. I certainly champion the push to portray more positive, healthy relationships in media (especially romance) because even adults can benefit from healthy models of relationships. Especially considering how lacking education around consent and abuse is in much of the world.

But at the end of the day, I’m far more concerned about media portraying things a lot of people don’t know is problematic as normal or sexy than dark romance portraying over-the-top obviously bad things as sexy and exciting.