Damn Dress: A Love Story Ch. 03

Uhh the fact that she's newly 18 and this 28 year old mentally broken man with anger issues and violent tendencies is taking advantage of this very young girl is very disturbing, even if it is "fiction". Because, at the end of the day, shi like this happen irl which makes this book even more disturbing. Like, the guy borderline rapes her bruh... so weird.

This is sick and definitely amounts to sexual abuse. Soular, you sound like you need counseling pretty badly before you do something that fucks up your own life and someone else's.

bruvvvv there’s a reason why it’s fiction bcs shit like this doesn’t fly so well irl like why are ppl so pressed on a website like this like let ppl write what they want to fucking write and if u don’t like it move tf on. There’s so many stories on here that can cater towards ur preference but y’all gotta fuck off with “she’s not emotionally mature” and “he’s a perv” like bitches it’s FICTION. Stop looking at these stories as if it’s encouraging you to pursue relationships like these bcs it’s FICTION FICTION FICTION and that’s why y’all are on this site in the first place you freaks of nature. Either go get laid irl or STFU bcs u guys ruin it for the writers AND the readers who actually want to read this kind of FICTION. rmbr that word u cunts.

I can't believe all the negative comments this story is receiving now. Just as the others, I too read this and the other stories by Soular years ago, when I was in college. I still thoroughly enjoy reading them, 10+ years later. She is an immensely talented writer and created some extremely compelling and engaging stories. There's depth and character development throughout her stories and the dialogue flows well and is believable. This is why I keep coming back. I find it a rarity to come across such a talented writer of IR fiction who is able to weave such incredible tales.

The only challenging part for me about coming back to read these stories is thinking about how stable and sane the world was then compared to what it is now in 2021. I could read these without a sense of urgency or dread for the future.

I too read all of soular's novellas years ago when I had considerably less life experience. From that younger perspective only concerned with what it feels like to be wanted, all of these male leads desperately lusting after these young women to the point of turmoil was desirable. From my perspective now, however, I can clearly see all the dysfunction and abuse that fills these pages and characters. As just older than Brandon is here, I know how ridiculously fucked up he is. The man needs therapy desperately but is instead taking a young woman's longstanding crush as license to indulge himself without thought to her or her pleasure, to the point of what is arguably rape despite Sienna not defining it as such or knowing enough to define it as such– all to soothe this lifelong hurt in himself. He's actively using her to feel better about himself and she doesn't know any better to not make the mistake of characterizing that as love. At no point was he ever concerned with Sienna or her well-being, going so far as to note that he's not wearing condoms and that she's not on any kind of birth control and then still actively deciding not to finish in another way because "let the chips fall where they will". That is terrifying to me now, that utter lack of empathy and consuming obsession with possession. It's also disturbing to see how that fiery attraction is consistently blamed on the female characters in these stories; it's their fault the men can't stop themselves from making increasingly stupid and risky decisions and action because they're just too attractive and tempting for their own good. Fuck all that noise. Grown men are capable of finding a woman attractive without jumping her and grown men that are in trusted roles of power where they are/are viewed as older brother, mentor, stepfather, etc. are capable of not manipulating that power to get their dicks wet. And casting Black women, particularly those who are lighter-skinned, in the role of Jezabelle– wanting and deserving of all the havoc she wreaks on poor men who really are good [insert eyeroll] is a whole other issue. There was a way in which Brandon and Sienna could have had the semblance of a healthy relationship, but this story does not go down that route. Now all that's not to say that the writing isn't good– it still holds up over time. It's just that the relationships portrayed have been revealed as ones that are wholly undesirable and unhealthy as that time passes.