Not just "rich men", Jerry.
Is a lot of women's popular fiction based on rape fantasies?
Yes, to a notable degree—particularly within the romance genre, which is overwhelmingly written and consumed by women and constitutes a huge share of popular fiction sales.
The data on fantasies
Multiple studies find that erotic fantasies involving being overpowered, forced, or raped are common among women:
- Surveys consistently put the prevalence in the 31–62% range. A 2009 Journal of Sex Research study of college women found 62% had experienced at least one such fantasy; earlier work clustered around 40%. For those who have them, median frequency is roughly a few times a year, with a smaller subset (around 9–17%) reporting them as frequent or preferred.
- When the wording is softened to “overpowered by a man” (the version most common in fiction), rates are higher than when the blunt word “rape” is used. Many of these fantasies are experienced as erotic or mixed erotic/aversive rather than purely aversive.
These are fantasies. Research and clinical observations repeatedly emphasize they do not indicate a desire for real-life non-consensual sex; the controlled, idealized mental scenario (often with a highly desirable partner) is what is arousing.
How this shows up in women’s popular fiction
Romance is the clearest example. It is a commercial powerhouse (hundreds of millions of dollars annually, predominantly female readership) and has long featured variants of the “forced seduction” or “rape-and-forgive” trope:
- 1970s–1980s bodice-rippers: Books such as Kathleen Woodiwiss’s The Flame and the Flower (1972) and many subsequent titles by authors like Rosemary Rogers, Johanna Lindsey, and others routinely included graphic non-consensual or highly coercive sex between the hero and heroine. The heroine is often “ruined” by force, then falls in love; the market rewarded this formula heavily.
- The pattern was so common that critics and readers labeled the books “bodice-rippers.” It declined in mainstream category romance by the 1990s as explicit consent norms strengthened, but it never vanished.
- Contemporary dark romance and related niches: Explicit non-con, dub-con (dubious consent), captivity, and “forced proximity leading to sex” remain popular in self-published and indie dark romance, certain erotic lines, and some romantasy. Captivity or power-imbalance setups (kidnapping, arranged marriage under duress, etc.) appear in high-selling titles and series. Readers seeking these often look for them deliberately as fantasy material.
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