Dark‑romance fanfic reshapes dating norms

Massive fanfiction communities (AO3 and comparable archives) normalize particular sexual scripts — including dubious‑consent tropes, abduction fantasies and power‑imbalance romance — and circulate them widely among hyper‑online young women. Those circulated scripts can alter expectations in real dating markets, influence consent discourse, and create cultural feedback loops (platform moderation, publishing deals, male backlash). — If platformized erotica is a vector for emergent sexual norms, it matters for policy debates about moderation, age‑gating, public health education and the cultural politics of gender and grievance.