Is Dark Romance a Criminal Offence? A Reader Replies
Somebody watched a stack of masked-man BookTok clips, braced like they were about to defuse a bomb, and declared the whole genre should be investigated. Nearly 50,000 people clicked to watch. I was one of them, and I laughed more than I expected to.
The video is zenssecretbunker’s Booktok’s ‘Dark Romance’ is a Criminal Offence: about eighteen minutes of a “try not to get traumatised” challenge, reacting to dark romance clips from BookTok. It’s a reaction video, it’s meant to be funny, and I’m not here to tell anyone off for making it.
I’m here because the title asks a real question, and I’m a masked dark romance narrator with strong opinions about it. So, calmly, with a candle lit: is dark romance a criminal offence?
No. But let’s be fair about it first.
What the video gets right
Some of those clips are cringe. Properly, wonderfully cringe. A man gripping the back of a chair with the intensity of a funeral director. A villain with a skull on his hand and a fit check to follow. Captions written like a thriller trailer, followed by a link to the merch.
The creator points out, correctly, that a lot of it is completely serious. It isn’t satire. These are people performing a fantasy for the algorithm, and performance is where cringe lives.
I’ll go further. Plenty of dark romance readers find those clips funny too. We have the same group chats. We share the worst ones. Loving a genre and laughing at its most theatrical corners are not opposites.
The video also makes a fair point near the end: it’s one thing to enjoy a cosplay-style fantasy, and another to blur the line with real behaviour. Agreed. Hold that thought, I’ll come back to it.
Villains didn’t start on TikTok
The joke that carries the whole video is that a man who stalks, kidnaps or threatens is something to be alarmed about. In the real world, yes, absolutely. In a story, that’s called a villain, and readers have been sitting down with villains for centuries.
Dracula is a story about a predator who gets into a woman’s home, and it has been in print since 1897. Gothic novels were full of locked rooms, brooding men and women in danger long before anyone owned a phone. Crime thrillers hand us murderers as narrators. Nobody calls the people who read them accomplices, and nobody calls true crime fans criminals, however many hours they spend with the worst things humans do.
The point of dark fiction is to be afraid safely. The fear is real, the room is not. You get the pulse and the held breath, and then you close the book and make a cup of tea.
The mask is older than the algorithm
“Why do they all wear a mask?” is asked a fair few times in the video, usually in the tone of someone who has uncovered a clue. It’s a reasonable question, and it has a boring, lovely answer: masks are one of the oldest romantic and dangerous images we have.
The Phantom of the Opera is a novel about a masked man in the dark, and people have been sighing over him for over a century. The masquerade ball, a room full of strangers who could be anyone, has been a setting for flirtation and secrets for as long as there have been balls. A mask means anonymity. Anonymity means danger and curiosity in one object. It’s visual shorthand, and it works, which is why you see it on book covers.
Is it sometimes overused? Yes. Tropes get worn out. That’s an argument for better books, not a charge sheet.
Consent, warnings, and knowing the difference
Here’s the part the jokes skip over: the people who read this genre usually take consent and content warnings more seriously than most.
Dark romance readers and authors put trigger warnings first. Books are flagged in detail. Readers swap warning lists before they swap recommendations. The whole point of a warning is to let a reader choose how dark they’re going, and to let them skip what they don’t want. That choice is the opposite of the clips’ nightmare scenario.
And the scary fantasy is a chosen one. A reader who loves a book about a possessive villain isn’t asking for one at her door. She knows exactly what she’d want in a real relationship, and it looks a lot like respect, kindness and a man who is kind to everyone else too, not just to her. Even the video says it likes the trope where a guy is warm and you can tell he’s respectful to everyone. That’s a dark romance reader’s checklist, too.
If you want to see how this works on this site, every book page comes with a content warnings page, and the trigger warnings hub explains what we flag and why. Check them before you start a book. That’s what they’re there for.
The worry that deserves a straight answer
Underneath the jokes, there’s one real concern. It’s young readers and consent literacy: what happens if a teenager meets this stuff before they’ve learnt the difference between a story and a relationship?
That one I’m not laughing about, and I don’t think the genre should either.
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Dark romance is written for adults. If you’re young, or buying for someone who is, choose age-appropriate reading, and look at the warnings before anything else. If you’re an adult reader, you’re part of how this is handled: warn people, don’t push the heavy stuff at someone who didn’t ask, and talk about the difference between fantasy and what’s okay in real life. If you’re not sure where a book sits, our spice and darkness ratings and the guide dark is not a spice level will help.
If something in your own life feels like those clips, that isn’t romance, and it’s worth talking to someone you trust.
Who actually reads this?
Mostly women, reading for catharsis. I can’t give you a statistic, and I’m not going to invent one. But ask the readers and you hear the same thing over and over: it’s about having power over fear. You take the thing that frightens you, put it in a story, and this time you decide how it ends. You turn the page, or you shut the book.
That’s not a symptom. It’s an old, healthy use of stories. People have always told scary tales to feel braver afterwards. If you want the longer version, I’ve written about why women read dark romance, whether dark romance is harmful, and where the genre came from.
You can laugh at it and love it
The video closes the way plenty of these do, with the creator saying they love romance. “I love love,” they say. I believe them. I think most people watching do, too.
So here’s my reply. Laugh at the chair. Laugh at the fit check. Laugh at the merch plug. Dark romance readers are laughing right alongside you.
And then, if you’re an adult and you want a story where the lights go low and you stay in control of the page, find the books that match what you actually want, read the warnings first, and enjoy them.
It’s fiction. It isn’t a crime. It’s a book, and you can close it whenever you like.
If you’d like recommendations that come with warnings attached, start at zademasked.com or browse the library.
FAQ
Is dark romance a criminal offence?
No. Reading or writing fiction about dark themes isn’t a crime, any more than reading a murder mystery or a vampire novel is. Dark romance is fiction for adults, and the behaviour in the books is dramatised on purpose.
Why do dark romance characters wear masks?
Masks are an old romantic and dangerous image: they show up in The Phantom of the Opera and in masquerade balls. In dark romance, a mask stands for anonymity, mystery and threat, all in one picture.
Is dark romance toxic?
It depends on the book and the reader. Plenty of dark romance deals openly with unhealthy behaviour because that’s what the genre explores, and good books and communities flag it clearly with content warnings. The real question is whether readers can tell fantasy from reality, and most can.
Should teenagers read dark romance?
Dark romance is written for adults. Younger readers are better served by age-appropriate books, and anyone choosing a book should read its content warnings first.
Where can I find content warnings for a book?
Each book on this site has a content warnings page, and the trigger warnings hub explains the system. Start from the warnings index.
The author
Zade Masked
I write the serial and I keep this shelf. These essays are mine, in the first person. The chat elsewhere on the site is an AI wearing a voice. This page is not. If I am answering a video, the card at the top names it.
The serial, on Patreon Story hub
Essays are opinion. They are not a substitute for an author’s own warning note. Patreon · Ko-fi · Library
Originally published at https://zademasked.com on October 23, 2026.
