Dubcon

Fanfiction, Power, and Sexual Consent

216 pages

English language

Published July 22, 2021 by MIT Press.

ISBN:
978-0-262-04596-4
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How the treatment of sexual consent in erotic fanfiction functions as a form of cultural activism.

Sexual consent is–at best–a contested topic in Western societies and cultures. The #MeToo movement has brought public attention to issues of sexual consent, revealing the endemic nature of sexual violence. Feminist academic approaches to sexual violence and consent are diverse and multidisciplinary–and yet consent itself is significantly undertheorized. In Dubcon, Milena Popova points to a community that has been considering issues of sex, power, and consent for many years: writers and readers of fanfiction. Their nuanced engagement with sexual consent, Popova argues, can shed light on these issues in ways not available to either academia or journalism.

Popova explains that the term “dubcon” (short for “dubious consent”) was coined by the fanfiction community to make visible the gray areas between rape and consent–for example, in situations where the distribution of power may limit an …

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