The Haunting Adeline Panic Is Missing the Real Problem

Every few years the internet discovers a piece of media that apparently marks the beginning of society’s collapse.

Video games were going to create murderers. Heavy metal was corrupting teenagers. Twilight was ruining women. Fifty Shades of Grey was supposedly destroying relationships.

Now it’s Haunting Adeline.

Ever since news broke that H.D. Carlton’s bestselling dark romance is being adapted for the screen, social media has exploded with arguments over whether the novel glorifies rape, abuse and stalking. For readers outside the dark romance community, the concern is understandable. Some of the scenes in the first novel are undeniably graphic. The male protagonist crosses boundaries that would be criminal and terrifying in real life. The female protagonist initially does not consent to what happens to her.

It’s uncomfortable reading.

It’s supposed to be.

The question being asked, though, is whether stories like this normalise sexual violence and encourage men to commit it.

It’s an important question.

I’m just not convinced we’re asking it consistently.

I’ll be honest: I wasn’t even a huge fan of the first Haunting Adeline. I found the romance itself a little flat and never quite bought into the chemistry between the main characters. The sequel, Hunting Adeline, however, was a completely different experience. It shifts much of its attention towards sex trafficking, exploitation and survival, and those chapters are genuinely horrific. They’re not sexy. They’re not romantic. They’re upsetting in exactly the way they should be.

That distinction matters.

Because somewhere along the way, the internet flattened an entire genre into one simplistic accusation: “This book romanticises rape.”

Fans of dark romance tend to respond with an interesting counterargument.

They argue that what they’re engaging with is consensual non-consent, or CNC.

Now, before anyone starts typing angry comments, they’re not claiming the fictional heroine consents in those scenes.

They’re saying the reader does.

It’s an unusual way of looking at fiction, but it’s worth thinking about.

When someone picks up a horror novel, they’re consenting to be frightened. That doesn’t mean the victims inside the story consent to being murdered.

When someone watches a slasher film, they haven’t suddenly developed a desire to stab teenagers camping in the woods.

The audience consents to experiencing a fantasy that would be horrifying in reality.

Dark romance readers argue that the same principle applies here.

Whether you agree with that or not, it’s a far more nuanced discussion than simply declaring anyone who enjoys these books morally suspect.

But here’s the part I find genuinely fascinating.

We seem far more willing to panic when women write disturbing fiction than when men do.

Take Game of Thrones.

How many rape scenes did audiences sit through over eight seasons?

How many incest storylines?

How many brutal assaults against women?

Some sparked controversy, absolutely. Yet somehow the wider conversation wasn’t “Women watching this are endorsing rape fantasies.”

The assumption was that viewers could separate fiction from reality.

The same applies to countless crime thrillers written by men.

Women are kidnapped.

Women are tortured.

Women are sexually assaulted.

Women become mutilated corpses whose suffering exists largely to motivate a male detective.

These books line supermarket shelves.

No one seriously argues that reading them makes men more likely to become serial killers.

Or take the novels of Jon Atherton. His work contains rape scenes that are often significantly more graphic and more prolonged than anything found in Haunting Adeline. Violence is pushed to almost grotesque levels.

Yet somehow that rarely sparks headlines questioning whether male authors should be allowed to write violent fiction.

Instead, readers are trusted.

They’re assumed to possess the basic critical thinking skills required to distinguish entertainment from endorsement.

Strangely, that trust seems to disappear the moment women start writing fantasies aimed primarily at other women.

Suddenly we’re told these books are dangerous.

That women are being manipulated.

That female readers don’t understand consent.

Or perhaps even more oddly, that men are somehow so impressionable they’ll read a novel written largely for women and immediately begin committing sexual offences.

Really?

That’s an incredibly low opinion of men.

Ironically, some of the loudest criticism ends up resting on two assumptions that feel deeply anti-feminist.

The first is that women don’t understand their own fantasies.

The second is that men can’t control themselves.

Neither is particularly empowering.

Of course, none of this means dark romance is beyond criticism.

Far from it.

People are perfectly entitled to dislike Haunting Adeline. They can argue it’s badly written. They can find the romance unconvincing. They can think the marketing is irresponsible or that readers should understand what they’re getting into before buying it.

Those are all reasonable conversations.

Likewise, adaptations raise new questions.

A novel asks readers to imagine scenes. A film presents them visually. That changes the emotional experience, and filmmakers have a responsibility to think carefully about how difficult material is portrayed.

Those debates are worth having.

But calls for censorship are something else entirely.

History shows us that censorship rarely stops with one book.

Once society decides women shouldn’t be trusted to write about uncomfortable fantasies, the line keeps moving.

Today it’s dark romance.

Tomorrow it’s queer romance.

Then horror.

Then stories about domestic abuse.

Then stories about abortion.

Eventually, women are left writing only the kinds of stories everyone agrees are acceptable.

That’s not feminism.

That’s sanitisation.

Fiction has always allowed us to explore the darkest corners of human psychology from the safety of our sofas.

We read about monsters without becoming monsters.

We watch horror films without becoming murderers.

We enjoy thrillers without planning kidnappings.

And yes, some people explore fantasies in fiction that they would never, ever want in real life.

Fantasy has never been a reliable guide to morality.

If it were, every horror fan would be in prison.

The irony is that the conversation surrounding Haunting Adeline probably tells us less about the novel itself than it does about society’s discomfort with female desire.

Not healthy desire.

Not romantic desire.

Complicated desire.

Messy desire.

Taboo desire.

The sort of fantasies that women have often been told they’re not allowed to admit exist.

You don’t have to like Haunting Adeline.

You don’t have to read it.

You don’t even have to think it’s good.

But if we’re going to interrogate dark fiction, let’s interrogate all of it equally.

Because if we trust audiences to separate dragons, serial killers, torture and endless violence from reality, perhaps we can also trust women to decide what belongs on their own bookshelves.