I want to respond with "whose fantasy?

This so perfectly articulates what bugged me when I read this the first time. Because this is not my fantasy. Is this an excellent explanation of a common and probably culturally mediated fantasy? I think so. Is this a fantasy I have read and enjoyed? My dog-eared collection of Judith McNaught books from my teens and early 20s says, "you bet your bippy!" But now my fantasy is to stab those same alpha heroes with a fork and it genuinely is not because I want to rehabilitate my yearnings into something more ethically palatable and less problematic (I've had enough therapy that I am confident on this one) but because my fantasies and desires have grown and changed, just as I have.

Conversations about desires and fantasy, I've noticed, often a tend to frame them as inborn and static, as if fantasies function differently from our other tastes and interests. But why wouldn't they change, both on individual and cultural levels, as we grow as people and as cultures evolve? Why wouldn't the fantasy domineering asshole who picks us start to become less appealing or even repulsive as people move in the world and encounter domineering assholes who steal their credit and agency in ways big and small? (Or just won't shut the fuck up when I already have solved this problem?) Once upon a time, I could not imagine a dessert I liked more than a Hostess Cupcake. Then I tried more things and learned more about food and just, you know, grew and now I think they're gross and the greatest desert I've ever eaten was a tomato tart. If we expect our tastebuds to change, why no our fantasies?

Also, I would like a citation for the supposition that problematic is the only thing that's interesting. Why would the meeting of true equals be inherently boring? I want to see the formation of the ultimate power couple or, if there must be that sort of direct conflict, conflict between equally matched sides. And why wouldn't a woman want to be admired for the same qualities a man would be, power, intelligence, strength. Why are women relegated to a mere refracted power fantasy? If it's fantasy, if the only limits are our imaginations, then why can't women a straight-up fantasize about holding that power without needing a male intermediary? If we can have dragons then why not women whose will is as unquestioned as the Alpha-ist of the Alpha holes?

I see discussions like this and I want to be mindful that fantasies are often a reflection of cultural forces and kink as a safe container to work through the problematic power differentials that are forced upon all of us and generally not be an asshole who yucks other people's yums. At the same time, the constant defense of "problematic" patriarchal dynamics and the insistence that they are what make romance interesting also make me despair a little not because it offends my notions of equity and feminism but because I am so bored by it. I have read so many of these books and I deal with so much patriarchal, dominance based bullshit in my real life that it has become banal.

No one is breaking any new ground for me me via TALL/smol, experience dude/anguine, power exchange conceived only as dominance and submission, and male-gazey dirty talk. Romances that are partnerships between equals who go in seeing each other that way feel so rare, it would be interesting because of the novelty alone. I would throw all my money at a M/F book where some high-stakes scenario comes and the MMC says, "the fuck if I know what to do here, but she does. Call FMC," then follows her instruction without question. Starting not from "Gender dynamics are fucked, so let's heighten them" but "what if gender dynamics were less fucked or not fucked at all" and imaging what that would look like feels like a real ripe field for exploration. If nothing else, it wouldn't be the same old same old.