Terms & Acceptable Use

1 You must be 18 or older

This site contains mature themes, dark tropes, and explicit 18+ sexual situations. By accessing this platform, you confirm that you are at least 18 years old, or the age of majority where you live — whichever is greater — and that you consent to viewing explicit adult text and content. If you are not an adult or choose not to view mature material, please close this page.

2 The spirit of this place

We want a warm, encouraging space for writers and readers. Be generous with authors and with each other. Offer thoughtful feedback, celebrate the work you love, and disagree gracefully when you do. Kindness is the house style. Harassment, cruelty, bigotry, and pile-ons are not welcome and will be removed.

3 What we publish — and what we don't

Dark romance explores intense, morally complex, emotionally charged stories, and we embrace that fully. Mature, explicit, and difficult themes are completely welcome — within clear structural limits. The following guidelines define what belongs on the platform, and what will be removed from stories, cover art, comments, or profiles:

• Dubious Consent (Dub-Con) & Power Exchange: Dark romance frequently explores the gray areas of consent, intense power imbalances, psychological manipulation, and forced-proximity tropes. These fictional dynamics are fully embraced here. However, we draw the line at "pure non-con"—we do not host stories that depict graphic, non-consensual sexual assault or real-world sexual violence stripped of the genre's romantic/erotic narrative framework.
• Taboo Themes & Adult Roleplay: We welcome dark, taboo, and intense psychological roleplay dynamics (such as age-gap or psychological submission/dominance), provided every participant is an adult. To protect the community and keep our servers safe, all characters in these scenarios must be clearly established, legal adults—there must be zero depiction, reference, or implication of actual minors.
• Monster Romance & Shifter Fiction: Fictional depictions of sentient non-human entities—such as shape-shifters, monsters, demons, aliens, or fantasy creatures possessing human-like intellect and agency—are entirely permitted. We draw a strict line against bestiality; explicit content involving ordinary, non-sentient real-world animals is completely prohibited.
• Strict Image & Cover Art Nudity Restrictions: To protect our platform indexing and infrastructure, uploaded images, avatar graphics, and cover artwork must contain no nudity. The sole exception to this rule is standard romance genre imagery featuring male fitness/abdominal portraits (e.g., shirtless torsos). All other forms of explicit physical exposure or suggestive undergarment close-ups are prohibited in visual files.
• No Violence for Its Own Sake: Dark themes require edge, but gratuitous gore, extreme physical torture as a spectacle, or real-world self-harm instructions have no place here. Violence should serve the story and the connection between characters.
• No Extreme Real-World Harassment: While your fictional characters can be as toxic as the story demands, your real-world behavior cannot be. No real-world threats, doxxing, hate speech, or targeting of real individuals.

If you're ever unsure whether something crosses a line, ask us first — we'd much rather have the conversation than have to take a piece down.

4 Your work stays yours

Authors keep full ownership of everything they write. By publishing here, you grant us permission to host, display, and promote your work on the site so readers can find it. Only post what is yours to post — no plagiarism, and no work that infringes someone else's copyright.

5 Comments & conduct

Keep comments respectful, relevant, and free of spam, advertising, or links to pirated or malicious material. We may hide or remove anything that breaks these rules, and repeated violations may cost you access.

6 Enforcement

We may edit, hide, or remove content, and suspend or permanently remove accounts, when these terms are broken. Most situations start with a conversation. The child-safety line in section 3 is the exception: it is enforced immediately and permanently, without warning.

7 Fiction is fiction

The stories here are works of imagination. Depicting a theme is not the same as endorsing it. Mature fiction often explores dark and uncomfortable subjects; that exploration is not an invitation to act, and does not represent the real-world views of the authors or of darkromanced.

8 Changes to these terms

We may update these terms from time to time. When we do, we'll change the "last updated" date above. Continuing to use the site means you accept the current version.

9 Contact & reporting

Questions, concerns, or something to report? Email us at hello@darkromanced.com. If you've seen content that violates the child-safety rule in section 3, please report it right away.