There's a whole section of the fanfiction site Wattpad devoted to romances with serial killers, and they usually follow a weirdly specific template. Notorious hotty Freddy Kruger, fashion icon Jason Vorhees, and even up-and-coming crooner Jeff the Killer are all there. These tales often play out like this one on Jason. It in, the meet cute is that Jason murders all of the main character's shitty friends. There's no romance, just stabbing, because what the author wants from her relationship with Jason isn't love, but someone who can acceptably act out her rage.

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This isn't just a Hollywood invention. The trend of broody, aggressive, boys being glamorized as teen idols started way before the concept of teen idols even existed. The year was 1812, and Lord Byron's dick was wreaking havoc across Europe. Yes, the Byronic hero -- the template for the hunky, brooding, love interest -- was a man who probably impregnated his half-sister and drank from human skulls to show everybody how metal he was.

Oh sure, that character type existed before that, but before 1812, there wasn't a ton of concern for what women liked in a man at all. If you wanted to marry a woman, you just threw some money and goats at her dad, and bam, you're married. It wasn't until the 18th century that marrying for love became common, which is also when the Romantic genre started and the world first asked the question of what women want in a man. "I know, let's ask a man!"

So, thanks at least partly to Lord Byron, we landed on qualities like sad, cynical, and violent -- the dark and brooding type. Honestly, if I had to date a guy from an era when society had just decided women were more people than property, I can see where "hates people" and "leaves me alone" might be desirable qualities in a life partner.

So on top of everything else, there's a sort of a chicken and egg problem here. Do we write teenage boys as creepy because girls like that? Or do girls like creepy guys because we've been telling them to since the 1800s?

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At different points in DC cartoons, comics, and various adaptations, the Joker has choked Harley, thrown her out of a window, shot her, and left her chained in a dungeon to die. This does tend to get watered down sometimes. A scene in Suicide Squad wherein he punched her in the face was cut, which left them just looking like Bonnie and Clyde with pet hyenas and laughing gas. Damn, even I think that sounds fun.

It's hard to make healthy relationships that are fun to watch on screen (there's a reason TV shows almost always flounder after a "will they or won't they" storyline gets resolved). It's easy to make a bad relationship look exciting and cool, because that's the fantasy -- the partner who gives you permission to break society's oppressive norms.

So it's not that weird that Twilight has a whole subplot about a girl whose werewolf boyfriend permanently disfigured her after losing his temper during an argument. Of course, she still loves him, because he couldn't help it and now he's extremely vigilant about keeping himself under control. You know how guys like that are always able to keep that promise.

This has all been discussed elsewhere, of course, but even in an intentionally edgy story like Fifty Shades Of Grey, the morality police focused more on the consensual BDSM stuff, and not the fact that Christian pulls Anna everywhere like she's a rolling suitcase, isolates her from her friends, and tells her what she can and can't eat. And women love it! It sold 125 million copies.

Because romances have to have dramatic conflict, these dark outbursts are written as the obstacle the pretty people have to overcome, the midnight before the dawn. In real life, these arcs repeat themselves over and over -- lashing out, profuse apology, peace, lashing out again -- until it reveals itself to be a cycle that the victim can't escape.

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And if he starts sleep murdering people again, well, society makes it clear: That's her failure.

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