Romance companies that peddle solely coercion

On Facebook, I frequently see ads for different companies that provide... let’s say romance content. Novels, comics, stuff like that. They’re clearly self-published and not high quality— they give you a sample chapter in the post, and they are too amateurishly written and poorly edited to be anything else. Whatever, there’s a lot of self-publishing in the Internet age. But even across different companies or mediums, there’s one element they absolutely all have in common without exception— a really prominent and explicitly codified element of coercion.

All of them. Every single one. They’re all heterosexual, and the woman is always sold, obligated, carried off, or biologically destined for the male romantic and sexual partner. I know this sort of thing has always been at least an undercurrent in the romance genre, at least the “sexy ravishment” kind, where the butch hero absolutely has to have the female protagonist, and his desire is part of the measure of her personal value. My view on the appeal of it is well explained in a line of Meredith’s in Dream Machine episode 2: “Sometimes... when you’ve spent your life afraid of being a slut... the only way you can enjoy yourself is when the decision is taken out of your hands.” It’s a way for women, the usual target audience, to indulge in a romantic fantasy like when they have a hard time conceiving of themselves taking any kind of sexual agency,

But in these on Facebook, the element seems even more literal and spelled out than that traditional “sexy ravishment.” The coercion is front and center, an explicit part of the scenario— “I am assigned to this man and there’s nothing I can do about it.” She’s sold to him. She’s in an arranged marriage. She’s marked by pheromones. Et cetera. Et cetera. I know there’s a market for that... but do these online romance novel companies produce no other kind of romance? Why are they ALL like that? It seems really... retrograde? Like, even less conscious of rape culture than the romances of generations past, as if it assumes that all women just really want to be relieved of the responsibility of choosing their own mate and just want to be handed over to a dominant man.

And I’m really not getting the draw here. I can get the “I’m flattered by how badly he wants me” aspect. I can even grasp the “he is the instigator and I am not responsible” or “we don’t need to discuss or establish consent for this because we are just so compatible” aspects. I DO NOT understand the appeal of the “I have literally no choice or say in this at all” idea. What is speaking to women in that? Is it the notion that you don’t have to look for your soulmate or doubt that you’ve found him, because that’s been pre-decided for you? Is it the assumption that more appealingly masculine men just take what they want? Is it just a thinly-veiled submission kink it’s assuming of the entirety of its readership?

I guess everybody’s got their kinks. I don’t even think there’s anything wrong with enjoying problematic storytelling tropes, as long as you understand what their meaning is outside of the world of fiction. But these are so SPECIFIC to something that seems to make such an unfair assumption of what women are like or what appeals to them. Is the product designed for a market that niche? But it certainly shows up for me just because I’m a woman, and I can’t imagine they would have so little variation in subject matter unless they thought that’s just what all or most women wanted.