As someone who's been reading yaoi/romance for over 10 years now, all I can tell you is that when I was younger, I thought the same. Now that I'm older, all I can say is that all that weird shit is just kink. Sometimes the author doesn't even realize it--creating art is a very personal thing and pieces of yourself can slip through whether you want it to or not. Art is a safe way of exploring those kinks (rape fantasies are a kink (and may be a coping mechanism for rape victims) since no one actually wants to be raped). Some people don't care if they subject others to their kinks (like a certain famous movie director who has a feet kink, for example, or how rape can be sexualized in media).
...Sorry for the long comment. If it helps, rape kink has been around for a VERY long time and has its roots back to when romance first started as a genre because of puritanical attitudes around sex.
Uh, to be clear, I didn't bother reading this manga. I did skim through the comments to see if I'd be interested in this and I'm not touching this.
I understand rape kinks and won’t hate a story just for including it, I understand kinks are a thing. I mean the very specific plot point of the victim of the rape coddling and comforting the rapist with 0 redemption or character growth from the attacker. I hate when the rapist is forgiven for everything they’ve done because le sad. When “Hit on by a Kinky Guy” is probably the most rape fetish yaoi to ever exist, and even it managed to avoid this trope. And only had the victim forgive/overcome the rape after a LOT of development from the abuser. A sad backstory can explain why the abuser behaves a certain way, but I hate when it’s used as an excuse. Having a rape kink also isn’t an excuse for bad plot beats. If an author chooses to write porn with plot, instead of just porn, readers can criticize the plot they write.
I agree with what you said, but sometimes people just want easy porn??? Trash? Not everything can be... Great. Or even good.
I mean, kink can be weird. Sometimes writers don't know how to go from A to B to Kink?? Or something... I don't know why I'm trying to defend bad writing.
Anywho, reading about rape recovery is pretty tough stuff to both read and/or write. Depending on how it's written, I'd personally have to be in a good headspace to read it.
When stuff like this get published, it does make me wonder. Does the author know the psychology of a rape victim? Do they understand how recovery works? How much of this is cultural? What does the author's culture say about sex? About gay people? Or maybe it's the author's attempt at self-therapy of some kind? A wish fulfillment? Is it just for the porn? Is it Capitalism getting its disgusting hands on a product with potential?
I guess thinking of all that stuff is my own attempt at wish fulfillment to better understand why things like this exists?
I will NEVER understand the yaoi trend of making the victim, the person who was tortured and raped, be the one to chase after and comfort their abuser bc it’s revealed the abuser has a sad backstory. The backstory wasn’t even bad enough or in no way explained why this man suddenly thought “guess I’ll drug and rape my childhood crush”. There was 0 redemption, 0 effort from the seme to actually earn forgiveness. He just gets it gift wrapped to him. If the rape was going to be so easily glossed and gotten over, it didn’t need to be there. Seme could have just confined him while still giving him the omega drug, without rape. And NOTHING would change because the rape doesn’t impact how the uke feels about the seme at all (being in love with him after everything bc the author said so, not because it made sense). What a waste of time this was.