Corrupt

Penelope Douglas is known for writing popular dark romance novels, and Corrupt is no exception. Her texts often delve into taboo subjects, such as incest, sexual violence, and bondage. The romance genre—including Douglas’s books—has experienced a sharp spike in sales and popularity, primarily due to BookTok and Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited program, which is where many romance novelists self-publish their work before finding a large enough audience to attract a traditional publisher. These dark romance novels usually center a white woman who is in a toxic yet protective relationship with a villainous and sometimes criminal man. There is always violence—toward either the woman or someone else—and explicit and taboo sex. The genre is deeply interested in power dynamics between men and women. The main character of Corrupt is a stereotypically beautiful white woman who has a deeply problematic relationship with a criminal. She has lots of explicit sex in often taboo places, such as a cathedral and a public sauna. In keeping with genre conventions, the novel is deeply invested in exploring the power dynamics between Rika and Michael.

The dark romance genre draws some of its atmospherics from the earlier genre of Gothic horror, popularized in the late 19th century in novels like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. These novels dramatized widespread, unspoken anxieties about cultural change. Victor Frankenstein’s monster, a human-like creature stitched together from multiple corpses and reanimated through the brand-new science of galvanism, represented the fear that new technologies were eroding the boundaries between life and death, human and non-human. This fear of tampering with the laws of nature is expressed in the book’s subtitle, The Modern Prometheus. Meanwhile, the female vampires in Dracula, with their predatory sexuality, represent turn-of-the-century fears of increasing independence and social mobility for women. Dark romance, similarly, voices 20th- and 21st-century anxieties about women’s sexual freedom within a culture still rife with misogyny and violence against women. 

Many people find it ironic that women—who often experience harassment and violence in their daily lives—would find comfort and pleasure in reading books that delve into these traumatizing experiences in such explicit ways. However, many women report finding these books cathartic: 

Women who read dark romance…[said] that they found the blood-soaked, sex-crazed genre to be a cathartic escape from their real lives. Dark romance recognizes that life is difficult and dangerous, especially for women, who face discrimination every day and are more likely to be killed by their intimate partner than by anybody else. But it also reassures readers that there is still a way to survive, fall in love, and, of course, have toe-curling sex. And it lets them fantasize about wielding so much twisted power over a man that they will be safe forever—and no longer have to worry about the shackles of propriety (Sherman, Carter. “Inside the World of Dark Romance, Where Serial Killer Is the New Sexy.” VICE, 23 May 2023). 

As a result, the dark romance genre serves as a form of escapism from the horrors of daily life, and the genre—much like women’s lived experiences—does not show any signs of slowing down.