One thing that's wild to me about the ~romanticizing abuse~ argument is how little it resembles my experience of abuse. My father watched movies and shows where a character was being emotionally abusive to their children and was openly angry and upset about it

He /knew/ what abuse looked like and actively disliked abusive characters. He thought it was wrong.
And no matter how identical their actions? He never considered *himself* abusive. It's nice to imagine that if only we educate people on what abuse looks like,

If only we remove any objectionable depictions from media and fic, then abuse rates will plummet.
But then my best friends mother who threatened pouring hot coffee on her child works as a counselor and will shed tears over the abuse her patients faced.

A friend in college had a mother who, when she heard what my dad had done, was incredibly kind and sympathetic to me. And would openly scream at my friend in front of me, just like my father had to me.
I've never met an abuser who started or stopped due to fiction.

It'd be nice, it really would. It'd be simple and easy if abuse and assault were just from romanticization and misinformation. But in real life, the same people who decry abuse and even counsel survivors can be abusers at home.

I think my father ranting about how horrible a character's abusive grandmother was to me and then me hiding terrified ,in my room later while he yelled at my brother for being "stupid" and called him worthless had a very large impact on how much i think fiction impacts real abuse

My father would shame mothers scolding their children for how horrible and cruel to the child it was.
And then scream at me in the car for how I, a 12 year old, was "using him for his money". Because I told him I had depression. Abusers can recognize abuse. It changes nothing.