Representing Kink

Fringe Sexuality and Textuality in Literature, Digital Narrative, and Popular Culture

Edited by Sara K. Howe and Susan E. Cook - Contributions by Bobby Derie; Antonnet Johnson; Jane M. Kubiesa; Whitney S. May; Fe Lorraine Reyes; Jonathan A. Rose; Sean Shannon; Brian Watson and Josh Zimmerman

Representing Kink raises awareness about non-normative texts and non-normative erotic practices and desires. It defines “kink” broadly, encompassing a range of “inappropriate” texts and understanding it in frequent reference to non-normative erotic fantasies and experiences. Kink is treated as both a set of practices as well as a category of texts at the nexus of subject and form. In addition to canonical texts that take up erotic and marginalized themes, the collection also studies forms that are themselves fringe and feature kink: taboo literature, self-published erotica, SM narratives, fan fiction, role-playing games, and other disavowed texts. The purpose of this study is to focus attention on the margins of an already marginalized subject, in order to highlight the extent to which non-normative textuality and eroticism both shape and are shaped by culture and context. It sheds light on a category of subjects that is at once mainstream in the form of texts such as Fifty Shades of Grey and yet nevertheless repeatedly disparaged and undertheorized. This book advocates for conversations about kinky texts that transcend dichotomous frameworks of good and bad, and normal and deviant--thinking instead in new, theoretically rigorous and flexible directions.

Lexington Books

Pages: 194 • Trim: 6½ x 9¼

978-1-4985-9085-3 • Hardback • September 2019 • $111.00 • (£85.00)

978-1-4985-9087-7 • Paperback • July 2021 • $44.99 • (£35.00)

978-1-4985-9086-0 • eBook • September 2019 • $42.50 • (£35.00)

Subjects: Literary Criticism / Comparative Literature, Social Science / Media Studies, Social Science / Popular Culture, Literary Criticism / Popular Literature, Social Science / Human Sexuality

Representing Kink

Fringe Sexuality and Textuality in Literature, Digital Narrative, and Popular Culture

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

Representing Kink raises awareness about non-normative texts and non-normative erotic practices and desires. It defines “kink” broadly, encompassing a range of “inappropriate” texts and understanding it in frequent reference to non-normative erotic fantasies and experiences. Kink is treated as both a set of practices as well as a category of texts at the nexus of subject and form. In addition to canonical texts that take up erotic and marginalized themes, the collection also studies forms that are themselves fringe and feature kink: taboo literature, self-published erotica, SM narratives, fan fiction, role-playing games, and other disavowed texts. The purpose of this study is to focus attention on the margins of an already marginalized subject, in order to highlight the extent to which non-normative textuality and eroticism both shape and are shaped by culture and context. It sheds light on a category of subjects that is at once mainstream in the form of texts such as Fifty Shades of Grey and yet nevertheless repeatedly disparaged and undertheorized. This book advocates for conversations about kinky texts that transcend dichotomous frameworks of good and bad, and normal and deviant--thinking instead in new, theoretically rigorous and flexible directions.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 194 • Trim: 6½ x 9¼

978-1-4985-9085-3 • Hardback • September 2019 • $111.00 • (£85.00)

978-1-4985-9087-7 • Paperback • July 2021 • $44.99 • (£35.00)

978-1-4985-9086-0 • eBook • September 2019 • $42.50 • (£35.00)

Subjects: Literary Criticism / Comparative Literature, Social Science / Media Studies, Social Science / Popular Culture, Literary Criticism / Popular Literature, Social Science / Human Sexuality

Author

Susan E. Cook is associate professor of English at Southern New Hampshire University.

Sara K. Howe is associate professor of English and creative writing coordinator at Southern New Hampshire University.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Entering the Fringe

Sara K. Howe and Susan E. Cook

1. Playing Rough: Consent, Captivity, and Rape Role Play in Taboo Erotic Romances

Sara K. Howe

2. Violating the Vampire: Twihard Fan Fiction as Rape Fantasy

Jane M. Kubiesa

3. A Kink of One’s Own: Subversion, Disorientation, and the Feminine Voice in Kathy Acker’s Blood and Guts in High School

Fe Lorraine Reyes

4. Queer Beginnings: From Fanzines to Rule 34

Brian Watson and Bobby Derie

5. It’s a (Bound and Gagged) Living: Sweet Gwendoline and the “Danger Girl” Archetype

Sean Shannon

6. Kinking the Canon: Pornography and Prose in Fingersmith and The Handmaiden

Susan E. Cook

7. “To Test the Limits and Break Through”: How Femslash Rejects Straight-Coding of Queer Experiences in Disney’s Frozen

Whitney S. May

8. Breaking the Scales: Refusal, Excess, and the Fat Male Body in Supernatural and Harry Potter Fan Fiction

Jonathan A. Rose

9. “Roll for Seduction”: Sex as Forbidden Play in Critical Role and The Adventure Zone Fan Fiction

Josh Zimmerman and Antonnet Johnson

About the Editors

About the Contributors

Index

Reviews

The chapters in this collection articulate some exceptionally important and profound ideas. The way the authors embrace their subjects as ‘kinked’ often leads to profound moments of recognition and realization, particularly when they focus on the most troubling sexually explicit material ... The wide scope of the volume overall is to be applauded, and demonstrates that kink studies must be open and inclusive, not merely restricted to tiresome analysis of heteronormative-tinged BDSM.

— Jason D. Scott, Arizona State University