i agree with you, it’s not romantic at all and i think that’s the point. when they first had sex, there was no romantic attraction, it was purely just because they had an obligation to do so as a married couple. especially with her anxiety about the marriage, the scene is there to portray how meaningless her life was to her, she just did what she had to do to survive. personally, i didn’t like it either and i’m not really interested in the sex and more about her relationship with her anxiety and trauma, especially with the misunderstanding between the two. maybe it’ll help if you focus on that? i don’t know tho, this is just what i think about it
frankly i didnt enjoy that either mainly because i imagine he only did that to convenience himself considering he'd be leaving for battle the next day and put up the "duty as a married couple" crap as a pretense. but at the same time he did say he wasnt gonna force her so i had mixed feelings whether he really was a flatout asshole or not.
but i focused more on his attitude towards maxi in the future chapters + read the novel and im not hung up on it anymore cause theres more shit that went down
The first sex scene isn't meant to be romantic. I mean I highly, highly doubt that it was suppose to come off as romantic, hell even sexy for that matter. I didn't feel a damn thing for it it was more meh let's move on from it because you can tell neither of them where into it and just wanted to get it over with. Sure Maxi was scared, I mean who wouldn't be with it being their first time and it having been an arranged marriage by her father, someone who scares her to death. I think she did mainly to please her father in hope that he wouldn't berate her and beat her if she did a poor job. Her main purpose was to go under her father's radar by doing a good enough job. And we must remember that back in the time (Ressissance era(ish) going by the women fashion) believe this manhwa takes place women were seen nothing more then property and baby makers, not saying that it was great but that's just how it was back then. Riftan is by far not a bad MC because he actually treats Maxi very well, a lot better then her own family did
So I really wanna give this a shot but the very first sex scene pisses me off. Big time. It's not romantic or okay to tell your partner to just take it even if they don't want to and that once you start you can't stop. That's such bs. Consent can be taken back at any time and that's perfectly valid to take it back if you're not feeling okay with the way things are heading. And men are not little children or animals. They have perfect capacity to show sexual self control but society let's them get away with bs claims that they don't have any. It's rape culture. And I don't want any of y'all tryna justify shit in the comments about how "it's a different time" like no they were not forced by others to have sex but the ML still coerced her into it. It's not like people were watching to make sure they had sex or were there in the morning to check the sheets for bloodstains or to examine her hymen like some virginity test bs. Literally if Game of Thrones can have Tyrian not force Sansa, then other straight fantasy and historical fiction pieces can make their MLs not force the FLs. It irks me to no end that everyone just ignores this type of shit because they're simping over a drawing. Like y'all... How can you just overlook it ? I've come back to this three times and I cannot get past a couple chapters because of it.