Mark NewmanUnDunn I think was getting at it from the male perspective. She may be cruel, but he’s so turned on by her and by the battle that he doesn’t notice. There is something erotic about "fighting a girl", isn’t there, and of course in these stories it’s not abuse, it’s sexual and a desperate fight to survive her superior strength. Maybe that makes it all right.
I would file that under the "eroticism of the battle."
As for attitude adjustment, I agree with Cowprobe that the situation has to be something recognizable. That’s why I write my fantasies as realistically as I can (if that makes any sense) Isn’t it just like us men to ignore the woman changing before our eyes because we’re focused on something else, usually how turned on she makes us, but sometimes just our daily life. And yes, the dream sequence in "What I Want" is one of my favorite "loss of control" scenes from my stories. It’s a loss of control on 3 levels. One, Rebecca is controlling his dream. Two, suddenly in the dream he’s become helpless against all the women of the world. And three, she’s arranged things so because of the dream he’ll transfer to her his special power; she gains his power to control his growth and hers. I loved writing that one!