Bruh

I think it has more so to do with the entertainment content people were fed (and still are fed at least in China). The whole kabedon trope is a perfect example of the shit my generation and previous generations were taught was "romantic". I still see aggressive kabedons done in modern Chinese dramas.

I guess you're maybe right partially, but Korean BL manhwa and Japanese manga also depicts terrible plot devices. I think authors are catering towards people who get a kick out of the male power fantasy, even though applying such a fantasy would be deemed horrendous in the real world by most people.

I brought up China specifically cause I believe this is a story by a Chinese author. But yes, Japan and Korea also feed into this in their own ways (they both still do that aggressive kabedon shit). Not just them, the western world also feeds into it. A great example is the 365 days "romance" series that trended on Netflix in the recent years. To be clear, I'm not even talking about BL. I'm talking about the romance genre in general. The whole "possessive lover/guy/seme" tag really means "aggressive lover/guy/seme". That sort of aggressive male lead that sexually assaults and physically overpowers the protagonist didn't pop up out of nowhere in BL. Straight romance like shoujo mangas were already doing that shit decades prior (for instance Memphis literally breaking Carol's arm around the beginning of Ouke no Monshou). It's a reflection of people believed romance to be (which has shifted in part with the years). I agree though that there are some sick authors with sick kinks that just want to write fucked up stories like Plaything. But I don't think they're the norm. For the most part, the violence I see just comes from shit that was normalized at some point like using force to detain the other person, sexually assaulting someone in the name of love, raping, raping someone drunk or delirious, assaulting a sleeping person, using coercion and force in general, etc.