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Book Club: DubCon · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stuff
0:07
Speaker 1: I've never told to your production of iHeart Radio. So
0:19
Speaker 1: it is time for another book club. And before we
0:21
Speaker 1: get into this one, UM, quick sugar warning, we're gonna
0:23
Speaker 1: be talking about issues around consent, sexual assault, rape culture. UM,
0:28
Speaker 1: We're not going to go too deeply into any of that.
0:31
Speaker 1: But UM, if you're not in a good place, or
0:34
Speaker 1: you're not you don't want to hear that right now.
0:36
Speaker 1: Here is your warning. Come back later or don't. I'm
0:42
Speaker 1: very excited about this one. We actually I wrote most
0:46
Speaker 1: of this months ago because we're discussing a book that
0:51
Speaker 1: I'm very excited about. And it's called dub Con by
0:54
Speaker 1: activists and independent scholar at Melana Popova, and it was
0:57
Speaker 1: just released in October. UM, and we got that they
1:02
Speaker 1: were like, we know who needs this book. Yes, they
1:05
Speaker 1: targeted you specifically, understanding that they knew who you were. Yes,
1:11
Speaker 1: point blank. Yes. So this is not a sponsored episode,
1:15
Speaker 1: but we did get a free coffee to review and
1:19
Speaker 1: in In this book, it examines the role of power insects,
1:23
Speaker 1: of uneven power dynamics in our society and consent to
1:27
Speaker 1: the lens of fan fiction. How fan fiction can operate
1:30
Speaker 1: as a form of cultural activism. Um. And yes, I
1:33
Speaker 1: bet like a lot of the listeners listening are nodding like, yeah,
1:36
Speaker 1: that's that's any Yes. I mean if you have been
1:39
Speaker 1: listening for the past six months, you know this is
1:43
Speaker 1: any material. Yes. It's amazing to me how many people
1:47
Speaker 1: that I'll meet, which mostly is happening digitally, um these days,
1:52
Speaker 1: but they'll be like within within days they know the
1:55
Speaker 1: fan fiction is my thing, Like it doesn't think long
1:58
Speaker 1: at all. Yeah. And not because you don't automatically speak
2:03
Speaker 1: about how you need to get back to the house,
2:05
Speaker 1: because be the updated fand fiction you are following. No, No,
2:10
Speaker 1: definitely not one of my favorites. Just finished today and
2:12
Speaker 1: I'm in that weird state of like it was a
2:14
Speaker 1: good ending, but I'm really sad about it. It's one
2:18
Speaker 1: of those yes. Yes, and actually, uh, I was thinking
2:22
Speaker 1: about this. I've been reading fan fiction for almost two
2:25
Speaker 1: decades now, so I have seen a lot of things change,
2:30
Speaker 1: and I'm going to be talking about that throughout because
2:32
Speaker 1: this is kind of like something I feel pretty well
2:35
Speaker 1: versed in and that I can discuss um and that
2:37
Speaker 1: I have thought about a lot and actually for this episode,
2:40
Speaker 1: I talked to two friends about um fan fiction and
2:43
Speaker 1: how we've seen fan fiction change and and what how
2:46
Speaker 1: dub con has changed. But Yes, this book really delves
2:50
Speaker 1: into how fan fiction can address issues of representation and
2:53
Speaker 1: popular media, as well as dominant cultural ideas around things
2:55
Speaker 1: like sex and consent. And yes, hand fiction is a
2:59
Speaker 1: flawed space that can reinforce unhealthy and harmful ideas. It
3:03
Speaker 1: is also a space where we can and it is
3:06
Speaker 1: a tool for social change. It can be used as
3:08
Speaker 1: a tool for social change. Popova specifically uses three popular
3:12
Speaker 1: fan fiction tropes, the Arranged Marriage troope with Marvel, the
3:15
Speaker 1: Omega Verse the Supernatural, and real person fiction with hockey
3:19
Speaker 1: Players to analyze what these tropes say about UM, rape, culture,
3:24
Speaker 1: and consent, particularly when it comes to girls and women
3:26
Speaker 1: and yes, as a reminder, fan fiction is a space
3:29
Speaker 1: that was for the most part created by marginalized folks
3:32
Speaker 1: and is written and read by marginalized folks, a majority
3:35
Speaker 1: of them women, girls, and non binary. Anyway, you can
3:42
Speaker 1: see our past episodes on fan fiction, which we reran
3:45
Speaker 1: kind of recently. We also talked at while I also
3:48
Speaker 1: talked about it in Women Writing Romance episodes. We did
3:52
Speaker 1: on that um, so let's start with some really quick definitions. First,
3:57
Speaker 1: fan fiction is what it sounds like. It is fiction
3:59
Speaker 1: written for pre existing fictional properties. In this context, typically
4:04
Speaker 1: for free UM posted online, where the community aspect is
4:07
Speaker 1: really key. People can review or comment um interact with
4:11
Speaker 1: each other. Most people who read fan fiction are familiar
4:14
Speaker 1: with the fandom, though it's not always necessary to actually
4:17
Speaker 1: find this really really fascinating about people who read like
4:20
Speaker 1: Star Wars fan fiction who don't really watch ab how
4:22
Speaker 1: star Wars at all? And I'm like interesting. Some of
4:25
Speaker 1: the largest fan fiction posting apps and sites are Yes
4:28
Speaker 1: a oh three, Archive of our own fan fiction dot
4:31
Speaker 1: net and what pad. So for this research, Popova relied
4:35
Speaker 1: primarily on AO three, where authors used tags to make
4:39
Speaker 1: their work searchable. And I love the tags. I love them.
4:42
Speaker 1: They're often hilarious, Yes, and she tells us about them often.
4:45
Speaker 1: I know, I love them. I cared up on fan
4:49
Speaker 1: fiction dot net, so AO three, which is now my
4:51
Speaker 1: preferred one. It's sort of a new like, this tagging
4:54
Speaker 1: system is new for me, so I'm just still in
4:55
Speaker 1: that phase where I'm getting a kick out of it,
4:57
Speaker 1: even though it's been years at this point. But I'm
4:59
Speaker 1: still and then new phase about the Okay. So, dub
5:04
Speaker 1: con stands for dubious consent, and this encompasses a wide
5:09
Speaker 1: variety of situations, some of which we're going to get into. UM.
5:12
Speaker 1: Those tropes that we talked about and which there is
5:14
Speaker 1: some are many inherent power dynamics at work. We're consent
5:19
Speaker 1: is questionable at best. UM. One extreme example is the
5:23
Speaker 1: diet trope, which we have discussed before, in which the
5:26
Speaker 1: characters have to have sex or die. The circumstances do
5:30
Speaker 1: not really allow for true consent, as we discussed in
5:34
Speaker 1: our book Club of As, this whole idea has been
5:37
Speaker 1: weaponized when it comes to our legal system and even
5:41
Speaker 1: just not believing women when they say whatever they say.
5:44
Speaker 1: But it's something that we have to talk about. And
5:47
Speaker 1: also some listeners have written about their dislike of the
5:49
Speaker 1: related term non con which stands for non consensual, because
5:54
Speaker 1: people they feel like people should just call it what
5:56
Speaker 1: it is. UM. Others have written in that they said
5:59
Speaker 1: that they appreciate this term because it helps them know
6:01
Speaker 1: what to avoid without getting triggered necessarily. And you can
6:06
Speaker 1: you can use tax to prevent what does show up.
6:08
Speaker 1: So if you're like I don't want anything with this
6:10
Speaker 1: in there. You can use the tagging system to do
6:12
Speaker 1: it that way, but that also does depend on people
6:15
Speaker 1: tagging things correctly, which I I think is one of
6:18
Speaker 1: the most interesting parts of this conversation and something we're
6:20
Speaker 1: going to get into. Also something that I have seen lately.
6:25
Speaker 1: I feel like non con for a long time meant rape,
6:30
Speaker 1: but now non con can be used. People are using
6:33
Speaker 1: it for non consensual touching or like a wide, much
6:37
Speaker 1: bigger range of things than it used to mean, which
6:40
Speaker 1: I find really interesting. MH. So do people avoid putting
6:45
Speaker 1: that in there because they do want people more and
6:47
Speaker 1: more people to read it, or is the fan fiction
6:49
Speaker 1: world pretty consider it. The fan fiction world, in my experience,
6:54
Speaker 1: is very considerate. I know there are outliers. I never
6:58
Speaker 1: want to say that there's not some toxic stuff in there,
7:01
Speaker 1: because there is. But I think, especially lately, the evolution
7:04
Speaker 1: I have seen, especially with non con and dub con, well,
7:09
Speaker 1: especially with dub con, dub con has gone from being
7:11
Speaker 1: kind of romanticized and now it is a very much negative,
7:14
Speaker 1: squeaky thing, and people will hopefully politely are nicely or
7:19
Speaker 1: you know, not rudely or meanly, but they'll tell you, like,
7:22
Speaker 1: you need to tag if you don't have dub con
7:25
Speaker 1: or non con in there and they think you should,
7:27
Speaker 1: people will tell you that you need to put it
7:28
Speaker 1: in there, and um, for the most part, I feel
7:32
Speaker 1: like in again in my experience, which I am in
7:34
Speaker 1: a very like narrow bubble I have I've like gone
7:39
Speaker 1: far and wide, but right now I'm in a pretty
7:42
Speaker 1: narrow bubble. People will listen and they'll like I've seen
7:46
Speaker 1: like eating disorders is one. People will say, like, this
7:49
Speaker 1: is kind of disordered eating, Can you tag it? And
7:51
Speaker 1: people will update the tags. But it's constantly like this
7:54
Speaker 1: conversation people are having and having to be really aware
7:57
Speaker 1: of what they're writing and how that impacts other people.
8:00
Speaker 1: WHI that's definitely changed from when I was younger, but
8:07
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. I feel like it's very considerate space
8:10
Speaker 1: in that in that regard, I didn't mean to take
8:13
Speaker 1: you down that path. Sorry, Like this is a whole
8:16
Speaker 1: different conversation. Again. We've talked about fan fiction before, and
8:20
Speaker 1: you and I had to sit down interview, and we've
8:21
Speaker 1: even talked about like chips. I'm starting to learn. I'm
8:25
Speaker 1: starting to learn. Have I jumped into this world. No,
8:28
Speaker 1: but I live vicariously through you. So yes, I do
8:32
Speaker 1: have questions, sometimes not talk about well, help you figure
8:37
Speaker 1: it out. I'm like, okay, I have outside interests, and
8:39
Speaker 1: then I move on ive it. So the book Coming
8:43
Speaker 1: Back To opens with several upsetting modern quotes about consent
8:47
Speaker 1: and rape culture and the role that pop culture plays
8:51
Speaker 1: in it. So here's a quote. Feminist scholars and activists
8:54
Speaker 1: see popular culture, including pornography and romance novels, as a
8:58
Speaker 1: key source of our dominant idea is about sex and consent.
9:02
Speaker 1: Popular culture is where we learned that pulling pigtails is
9:05
Speaker 1: a sign of affection and that rejection is an invitation
9:08
Speaker 1: to keep making bigger and bigger romantic gestures. However, even
9:13
Speaker 1: though culture can reinforce many of the harmful ideas that
9:15
Speaker 1: feminists have identified as contributing towards sexual violence and rape culture,
9:20
Speaker 1: it also has the potential to drive change. Audiences, after all,
9:24
Speaker 1: aren't passive and don't always read popular culture in exactly
9:28
Speaker 1: the same way. We bring our own ideas and experiences
9:32
Speaker 1: to it, and we interpreted and shape it as much
9:34
Speaker 1: as it shapes us. So what do audiences do with
9:38
Speaker 1: media and culture that tell us that potentially courses sexual
9:41
Speaker 1: situations are normal, romantic, or in Nicola Gavy's words, just sex. Yeah.
9:47
Speaker 1: And I want to say here, like we're talking about
9:48
Speaker 1: fan fiction obviously, but depcom does exist in other media.
9:52
Speaker 1: This is just sort of a fan a fan fiction
9:55
Speaker 1: term that has been used to identify it, and we're like, hey,
9:57
Speaker 1: this is kind of problematic. Yeah. Yeah. I was just
10:01
Speaker 1: thinking about some of the books that I used to
10:03
Speaker 1: like younger and coming back to, like, oh god that
10:05
Speaker 1: was that was not good, like Gone with the Wind
10:08
Speaker 1: be there's so many problematic things. But essentially he rapes
10:11
Speaker 1: her and we're all like, oh, he's so mainly that's
10:14
Speaker 1: so romantic, and they're like wait what what? Yeah, see,
10:19
Speaker 1: I didn't see that until I was older, and I
10:21
Speaker 1: never read the book, and I remember be like, wait
10:23
Speaker 1: a minute, okay, I'm looking around the theater, like uh so.
10:44
Speaker 1: Papopa also shared one of the catalysts behind this book,
10:47
Speaker 1: like one of the reasons that it got written, um quote.
10:50
Speaker 1: About a week into the UK COVID nineteen pandemic quarantine,
10:54
Speaker 1: I found myself explaining to a stranger on Facebook that
10:56
Speaker 1: they didn't actually have to have sex with their partner
10:59
Speaker 1: with whom they were currently in lockdown. This person, after
11:01
Speaker 1: complaints from their partner that they weren't having enough sex,
11:04
Speaker 1: had constructed an elaborate tracker in their bullet journal when
11:07
Speaker 1: were they having sex, how often, what kind of sex?
11:10
Speaker 1: Who had initiated it? Do I? They asked, show this
11:13
Speaker 1: tracker to my partner so they see that actually I
11:16
Speaker 1: initiate sex just as often. What I tried to get
11:19
Speaker 1: this person and later my Twitter followers to understand is
11:22
Speaker 1: that it didn't matter how often they had sex or
11:24
Speaker 1: who initiated it, that it would in fact be okay
11:26
Speaker 1: if they never had sex with their partner again. I
11:29
Speaker 1: am honestly not sure if they believed me. Do you
11:32
Speaker 1: believe me? What was your first reaction when you read that?
11:35
Speaker 1: But they're my partner, of course I have to have
11:37
Speaker 1: sex with them sometimes, but they want it, but they
11:39
Speaker 1: need it. But if we're not having sex, then we're
11:41
Speaker 1: obviously just friends with no benefits. But they'll leave me,
11:44
Speaker 1: but they won't do the washing up. But I want it,
11:47
Speaker 1: but I need it. But if they never want to
11:48
Speaker 1: have sex with me again, I'll leave them. Here's something
11:52
Speaker 1: else that might be hard to process for sex to
11:54
Speaker 1: be truly consensual, never having sex again has to be
11:57
Speaker 1: a meaningful, available option we talk about. Of all the things,
12:01
Speaker 1: which is atrocious in itself, the statement but they won't
12:05
Speaker 1: do the washing up, I find one of the most
12:08
Speaker 1: disturbing things I've ever heard. Yes, yes, me too, but
12:14
Speaker 1: I feel like I've heard that from people before, like
12:16
Speaker 1: this transactional. They're going to be mad if we don't
12:20
Speaker 1: have sex, and they're gonna take take it out on
12:22
Speaker 1: me one way or the other. And it's I don't know,
12:25
Speaker 1: I've heard that before, and it is very upsetting. It
12:28
Speaker 1: is very very like in my mind, I have made
12:34
Speaker 1: jokes like if you do this, I'll do this type
12:37
Speaker 1: of thing, being a joke, but that was not a promise.
12:41
Speaker 1: And maybe that's the conversation I need to think about.
12:44
Speaker 1: In my head. I'm like, maybe this is not something
12:45
Speaker 1: to joke about, because even though again between my partner
12:49
Speaker 1: and I or whomever I was with at the time,
12:52
Speaker 1: it wasn't a big thing and it wasn't transactional, it
12:54
Speaker 1: wasn't a promise, and it wasn't a bargain. But hearing
12:57
Speaker 1: seeing that and hearing that, it's like, holy what what
13:01
Speaker 1: has happened. Can we talk about this level of uh servitude? Yeah,
13:07
Speaker 1: and essentially in a way that it is literally keeping
13:11
Speaker 1: as if like this person owes you sex in some
13:14
Speaker 1: way of form, which again is not consent. Yes, exactly exactly,
13:20
Speaker 1: and we've talked about that before too. Of like even
13:22
Speaker 1: when that whole idea of if somebody which I think
13:26
Speaker 1: this is kind of fading away, but if like a
13:28
Speaker 1: dude takes a lady in a very hetero sense on
13:30
Speaker 1: a nice date then and he faces for it, then
13:35
Speaker 1: sex is owed or expected, And um, I I don't
13:40
Speaker 1: have necessarily experience like that. I've definitely felt pressured before
13:46
Speaker 1: because somebody did something nice for me and I'm like,
13:48
Speaker 1: that's probably what they want, which is not healthy lit
13:50
Speaker 1: end of thinking. But I did, Um, this one guy wants.
13:55
Speaker 1: He like, we were going on a couple of I
13:58
Speaker 1: didn't know they were dates, but in his mind they
14:00
Speaker 1: were dates, and he was like, well, after you wore
14:03
Speaker 1: that dress at this nice restaurant, I knew we were dating.
14:05
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, no, okay, But just things
14:10
Speaker 1: like that, like yeah, there's these expectations around it. Well, again,
14:16
Speaker 1: this comes back to the fact that even law, even
14:20
Speaker 1: the states and different types of judicial systems slash law enforcement.
14:25
Speaker 1: Really do think that this law that you owe your
14:30
Speaker 1: husband's sex, and what I mean law, I meant the
14:32
Speaker 1: fact that for the longest time, marital rape wasn't acknowledged,
14:36
Speaker 1: and even in some areas still isn't. To like that
14:41
Speaker 1: point of literally saying and then having oh my god,
14:46
Speaker 1: so many men's activists continually trying to say women old
14:51
Speaker 1: them sex. Having sex with your wife is obligatory, or
14:54
Speaker 1: wife having sex with their husbands is obligatory, and yes
14:58
Speaker 1: they should be to give it up whenever it is
15:01
Speaker 1: requested and this is the duty of the wife, and
15:04
Speaker 1: that type of mindset, the fact that it still exists
15:08
Speaker 1: and is perpetuated again as this conversation, Yes, yes, absolutely,
15:13
Speaker 1: and Popova touches on that in this book, and I'm
15:16
Speaker 1: glad you brought up the kind of like men's right activists,
15:18
Speaker 1: because that's yeah, that's also another part of sex being
15:22
Speaker 1: owed and being expected from women. Women being put into
15:25
Speaker 1: this like gatekeeper role where they're the ones like being
15:28
Speaker 1: cold or frigid or or you know, even on the
15:31
Speaker 1: reverse side of being slutty and there and therefore worthless
15:35
Speaker 1: and you don't want to be with her, um, like
15:37
Speaker 1: that responsibility is on women, which we're gonna we're gonna
15:40
Speaker 1: talk about more in a minute. Um. This book does
15:45
Speaker 1: dig into examinations feminist scholars have had over the years
15:48
Speaker 1: about consent and these more subtle power structures around it,
15:52
Speaker 1: including in the context of relationships. Whether it's Catherine McKinnon
15:56
Speaker 1: arguing that quote the way women and girls are socialized
15:59
Speaker 1: in a pa triarchal society means they think of their
16:01
Speaker 1: bodies as for sexual use by men, or Lois Panolt
16:06
Speaker 1: arguing that for Western culture, things like what women are
16:09
Speaker 1: wearing or whether they've accepted a drink or emmio yeah,
16:13
Speaker 1: is sometimes you as a commitment um to generally piano
16:17
Speaker 1: vaginal sex or how and are more modern times probably
16:21
Speaker 1: people in the media make fun of asking for consent
16:24
Speaker 1: before kissing or touching someone, um because it ruins the
16:28
Speaker 1: romance or whatever, and that for young folks and especially women,
16:31
Speaker 1: that in turn sometimes might make it harder for them
16:34
Speaker 1: to say no because they feel like, well, I'm going
16:37
Speaker 1: to ruin the romance or I'm gonna know whatever it
16:40
Speaker 1: is these toxic messages they're getting. There are so many shows,
16:45
Speaker 1: modern shows that still perpetuate this and call themselves feminist
16:49
Speaker 1: shows that you're like, Okay, um, maybe we don't put
16:54
Speaker 1: that narrative that where we teach young girls young boys
16:58
Speaker 1: that uh, they need to just grab them up and
17:00
Speaker 1: kiss them. Rest talk about why that's bad and that's
17:04
Speaker 1: not romantic in the way you think, especially when you
17:07
Speaker 1: do it in a manner that doesn't explain the actual
17:10
Speaker 1: relationship between two people. Yes, yes, absolutely, and that that
17:15
Speaker 1: has been really interesting too, because you know the nature
17:19
Speaker 1: of fan fiction is, yes, like we're writing fiction about
17:23
Speaker 1: all these older properties. Perhaps so like I find it
17:26
Speaker 1: really interesting that if anybody does the scene from Empire
17:30
Speaker 1: strikes back between Lee and han are you kind of
17:33
Speaker 1: like corners are and kisses are that's labeled as dup
17:35
Speaker 1: com like that is something that people have marked and
17:38
Speaker 1: been like, this wasn't good not good friends. It's yeah,
17:46
Speaker 1: and so let's talk about and we're not going to
17:47
Speaker 1: go into this, but for those who have gone through
17:49
Speaker 1: sexual trauma and having that happen, it's not cute, not romantic. No,
17:55
Speaker 1: it's not. So all of this impact how we think
18:00
Speaker 1: romantic relationships should be and what we should be going forward. Yes,
18:05
Speaker 1: I think for the longest time, I had those narratives
18:08
Speaker 1: of gone with the wind and ridiculous romances that you're
18:12
Speaker 1: gonna be swept off your feet against your will, and
18:16
Speaker 1: that's romance, cool, cool, cool. At best, this strongly discourages
18:21
Speaker 1: us from exploring some less uh normal feeling relationship arrangements
18:27
Speaker 1: that might actually be right for us. At worst, it
18:30
Speaker 1: can trap us in dangerous situations. And that was a
18:32
Speaker 1: quote from the book. And yeah, absolutely, especially when you
18:37
Speaker 1: feel like you have no other choice, as in you
18:40
Speaker 1: can't consent your way out of it as well, meaning
18:43
Speaker 1: like I don't want this to be able to say
18:45
Speaker 1: I don't want this. Yeah, yeah, And I think it's
18:49
Speaker 1: worth making the point. These messages are strong, there, powerful,
18:54
Speaker 1: and we're getting bombarded with him at a very young age,
18:58
Speaker 1: so it's hard to unlearn all of like what popular
19:03
Speaker 1: media has told you is romance. It's very very hard,
19:07
Speaker 1: and I feel like for me that kind of results
19:09
Speaker 1: in a There are a lot of reasons for this
19:11
Speaker 1: is not just pop culture, but it is a piece
19:13
Speaker 1: of it of Like I literally I feel like I
19:16
Speaker 1: can't say yes or no, like I and I don't
19:18
Speaker 1: know what I get, like frozen in that moment of
19:22
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what's the safest thing to do is
19:24
Speaker 1: and that's like the thing I think before of what
19:28
Speaker 1: I actually want is safety, and that's yeah, that's not
19:33
Speaker 1: that's not consent, that's not true consent, and yeah. All
19:37
Speaker 1: of this also impacts how we think sex should go,
19:39
Speaker 1: whether it's what counts as sex, how it should start,
19:42
Speaker 1: how it should proceed and end, how much sex you
19:44
Speaker 1: should be having, which is very dependent on your gender
19:47
Speaker 1: and heteronormative scripts, and extremely damaging conversations around yes, yeah,
19:52
Speaker 1: what was she wearing? Has she had something to drink?
19:55
Speaker 1: Um Popova argues all of these dominant ideas come together
19:58
Speaker 1: to make something quite toxic um quote. One utterly uncontested
20:03
Speaker 1: indicator of consent, though, is if we initiate sex, if
20:06
Speaker 1: we started, we must both want it and consent to it, right,
20:08
Speaker 1: anything else would be unthinkable, unimaginable. Hopefully, by now we've
20:12
Speaker 1: already begun to see the cracks in the story. Because
20:14
Speaker 1: we should be having a certain amount of sex, so
20:16
Speaker 1: society tells us, and we should be having sex in
20:18
Speaker 1: a particular way. So what if we don't want to,
20:21
Speaker 1: but we should, and so we initiate it? Anyway, not
20:25
Speaker 1: true consent, right, So a huge part of this conversation
20:30
Speaker 1: is the media that we consume and messages we are
20:33
Speaker 1: bombarded with from systems like education or the government. To
20:37
Speaker 1: make this point, Popova cites the work of black feminist
20:40
Speaker 1: theorist Patricia Hill Collins, who argues that quote controlling images
20:45
Speaker 1: or images we see and reproduce over and over again,
20:49
Speaker 1: have been and are used as tools of oppression, and
20:52
Speaker 1: particularly here oppression of black women. We know this, and
20:57
Speaker 1: the work of Bell Hooks, who championed the significance of
21:01
Speaker 1: a critical voice for marginalized people and communities, telling our
21:05
Speaker 1: own stories instead of reproducing dominant stories used for oppression,
21:09
Speaker 1: these controlling images. So I think that's really important. It's
21:13
Speaker 1: about finding voice, taking control, and trying to rewrite the
21:17
Speaker 1: narrative which has so often oppressed specifically black women, women
21:22
Speaker 1: of color, people who are marginalized. Yes, critical voice is
21:26
Speaker 1: something that is done within communities and requires paying attention
21:30
Speaker 1: not just to our own experiences but also the experiences
21:34
Speaker 1: of others. So important art is one avenue of developing
21:38
Speaker 1: a critical voice. Yes, and Papopa writes, discursive resistance is
21:42
Speaker 1: about making the unthinkable thinkable and the unnamable, nameable, the
21:46
Speaker 1: unsayable sayable. Only when we can do these things can
21:49
Speaker 1: we actually meaningfully act and fight for the material change
21:52
Speaker 1: in the world. Is not until we can intelligibly articulate
21:55
Speaker 1: that for yet to be meaningful, no has to be
21:58
Speaker 1: an equally available option, and that we can identify those
22:01
Speaker 1: spaces or that might not be the case and start
22:04
Speaker 1: doing something about them. Okay, So how does fan fiction
22:22
Speaker 1: play into all of this? Well quote. Ultimately, this book
22:28
Speaker 1: argues that fan fiction is among the forms and spaces
22:30
Speaker 1: in popular culture that have the potential to make significant
22:33
Speaker 1: contributions to conversations around gender, sex, sexuality, and consent. That
22:37
Speaker 1: the fan fiction communities engagements with issues of sexual consent
22:41
Speaker 1: can be viewed as a distinct form of cultural activism,
22:44
Speaker 1: the use of culture to challenge dominant ways of thinking
22:47
Speaker 1: and to imagine and even enact alternatives. The production, circulation,
22:52
Speaker 1: and discussion of fan fiction, a kind of communal textuality,
22:55
Speaker 1: allows the community to enact a discursive resistance to dominant
22:59
Speaker 1: ways of thinking by forming powerful alternative imaginaries of sexuality
23:03
Speaker 1: and consent. Fan fiction communities also establish a practice of
23:07
Speaker 1: consent through practices that encourage active engagement with consent issues
23:11
Speaker 1: and center the well being of survivors of sexual violence,
23:14
Speaker 1: thus enacting within community spaces what a world free of
23:18
Speaker 1: sexual violence might look like. The Bova continues, This is
23:21
Speaker 1: what we talk about when we talk about fan fiction,
23:23
Speaker 1: a literature created by and for a community together, writing
23:27
Speaker 1: based on other works in ways that expand challenge, rewrite,
23:30
Speaker 1: and fill in the gaps in these works. Stories that
23:33
Speaker 1: are constantly in dialogue, not only with the originary work,
23:36
Speaker 1: but also with each other and with culture more generally,
23:39
Speaker 1: and like all stories, when we read fan fiction, we
23:41
Speaker 1: bring our own experiences and interpretations to it, and sometimes
23:44
Speaker 1: we walk away changed. So yes, let us get into
23:48
Speaker 1: fan fiction and some examples and how it relates to
23:51
Speaker 1: all of this. I'm so excited, all right, So let's
23:54
Speaker 1: start with a quick note about slash, which I know
23:57
Speaker 1: we've talked about a lot um. This is a relationship
23:59
Speaker 1: between two male characters. Generally, that's what it's understood to be,
24:03
Speaker 1: so it would be like Harry Slash Draco Dreary as
24:08
Speaker 1: it's called. The overwhelming amount of Slash written by women
24:12
Speaker 1: and what was once thought to be straight women um
24:15
Speaker 1: has long perplexed academics looking into and they're like, wow,
24:18
Speaker 1: these straight ladies so into two men banging. Um. It
24:22
Speaker 1: turns out the fan fiction community is much queer than
24:25
Speaker 1: originally believed, and that the answer is much more nuanced, complex,
24:29
Speaker 1: and buried. One of the popular health theories is that
24:32
Speaker 1: women writing two men together this is a way for
24:35
Speaker 1: them to imagine what a truly equal partnership free of
24:38
Speaker 1: structural gender inequality could look like, or evening the playing
24:43
Speaker 1: field when it comes to sex, romance, and relationships in
24:45
Speaker 1: the face of a gendered power and balance. Popova argues though,
24:50
Speaker 1: that while this might be a part of it, it's
24:52
Speaker 1: not the whole answer because there's so so so many
24:54
Speaker 1: slash fan fiction where the relationship dynamic is anything but equal.
25:01
Speaker 1: So Popova outline three of these such relationships and fan fiction.
25:05
Speaker 1: So there's the alphabeta omega or the A B O universe,
25:09
Speaker 1: the arranged marriage trope, and the real person fan fiction.
25:12
Speaker 1: There's an example from real person fan fiction to demonstrate
25:16
Speaker 1: uneven power dynamics in terms of sex and systems and slash.
25:21
Speaker 1: So let's start with the Omega verse, which I know
25:24
Speaker 1: we talked about briefly in our Women Writing Romance episode
25:28
Speaker 1: and I was very nervous about it because I had
25:30
Speaker 1: this kind of perception of it. And since then I've
25:32
Speaker 1: read a few um, and I'm not scared anymore. But yes,
25:40
Speaker 1: this is one of the main fan fiction tropes Popova
25:42
Speaker 1: examined in this book and extrapolated out of this trope
25:46
Speaker 1: what it says about consent and yeah, so this is
25:49
Speaker 1: the omega verse, a bio genre Papovo rights. These are
25:53
Speaker 1: the stories that seem to me to be asking such
25:56
Speaker 1: questions as what does it feel like to negotiate power
25:59
Speaker 1: dynamics in a relationship way? Or do power dynamics come from?
26:03
Speaker 1: How can individuals challenge them? And what happens if they
26:06
Speaker 1: don't do that? What does it take in a sexual
26:09
Speaker 1: and romantic relationship to negate or at least minimize those
26:12
Speaker 1: power dynamics to the point where individual agency and individual
26:17
Speaker 1: consent can be considered meaningful? And the slash subgenre that
26:21
Speaker 1: asked these questions most impactfully and most viscerally and provoked
26:26
Speaker 1: the strongest reaction was the omega verse. Yes yes, So
26:31
Speaker 1: let's let's step back a bit for a little refresher here. Um. So,
26:35
Speaker 1: this is believed to have originated within Supernatural real person
26:38
Speaker 1: fan fiction or fiction which we're gonna get to in
26:40
Speaker 1: a second, which I had to look up. Oh yeah,
26:46
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about it. Um, here's a quote. Characters
26:49
Speaker 1: in the Omega verse have a secondary gender. This may
26:52
Speaker 1: be alpha, beta, or omega. Betas are effectively normal everyday
26:56
Speaker 1: humans as you know them. Alpha's are socially and in
26:58
Speaker 1: some interpretations by logically dominant, whereas omega's are submissive. Combining
27:03
Speaker 1: the primary genders male female, and the secondary genders alphabet
27:07
Speaker 1: Omega means that in the a bio universe there are
27:09
Speaker 1: effectively six genders, male alpha's betas and omegas and female
27:13
Speaker 1: alpha's betas and omega's. Other common elements in omegaver's stories
27:17
Speaker 1: include human amatomy, sexuality, and social behavior altered to resemble
27:20
Speaker 1: that of dogs are wolves, including a heightened sense of smell,
27:24
Speaker 1: mating cycles or heat, and male alpha characters having a
27:27
Speaker 1: penis similar to a canines, male pregnancy, and a potentially
27:32
Speaker 1: lifelong psychic bond with a partner. The vast majority of
27:35
Speaker 1: stories in the setting focus on male male relationships, and
27:38
Speaker 1: particularly on the male alpha male omega configuration. Some fans
27:43
Speaker 1: and fans study scholars have argued that this gender configuration
27:46
Speaker 1: focus on one particular type of pairing shows that A
27:49
Speaker 1: Bio fans have an essentialist approach to gender, that is,
27:52
Speaker 1: they think of gender as purely biologically determined. But a
27:56
Speaker 1: closer look at Omegaver's stories shows that writers and readers
27:59
Speaker 1: interpret the stint to which the six genders are anchored
28:02
Speaker 1: in biology as opposed to socially constructed very differently to
28:07
Speaker 1: one another. Unsettling and moving away from a biological view
28:10
Speaker 1: of gender is in fact a key theme in many
28:13
Speaker 1: A bio stories, and one of the aspects of the
28:15
Speaker 1: sub genre that allow it to examine issues of consent
28:17
Speaker 1: in complex and interesting ways. Many readers and writers object
28:22
Speaker 1: to its roots and b sality fiction are to the
28:24
Speaker 1: extremely gendered power and balances at the core of the setting.
28:27
Speaker 1: Some fan communities have even dubbed the a megaverse dog
28:31
Speaker 1: rape World, showing a concern with issues of sexual violence
28:34
Speaker 1: and consent in the setting that's intense yep. However, Popova
28:41
Speaker 1: makes the argument that the megaverse tackles and challenges sexual
28:44
Speaker 1: scripts and how what we culturally understand and think about
28:48
Speaker 1: sex influences how we have sex quote in Western societies,
28:52
Speaker 1: the dominant sexual scripts are highly gendered and heteronormative. This
28:56
Speaker 1: means sex is generally seen as happening between once is
29:00
Speaker 1: gender man and one cis gender woman, and who gets
29:03
Speaker 1: to do what is determined in part by the person's gender.
29:06
Speaker 1: We tend to view men as active insects. They initiated,
29:10
Speaker 1: they actively moved through the steps of the script, while women,
29:13
Speaker 1: on the other hand, are passive gatekeepers. They get to
29:16
Speaker 1: say yes or no to men's advances, but the dominant
29:20
Speaker 1: sexual script allows them little agency beyond that. We are
29:24
Speaker 1: exposed to these cultural scripts through conversations without peers, through
29:28
Speaker 1: some kinds of sex and relationships, education, and crucially through
29:32
Speaker 1: popular culture. We can find supportive communities such as queer
29:36
Speaker 1: feminists and b d s sim spaces where we can
29:38
Speaker 1: collectedly acknowledge that something is wrong not with us for
29:42
Speaker 1: being different, but with the cultural scripts as a whole,
29:46
Speaker 1: and popova goes on. The distance created by the unfamiliar
29:50
Speaker 1: settings allow us to use a bio stories to ask
29:53
Speaker 1: questions about the power, structures and inequalities around gender and
29:58
Speaker 1: how they map onto intimate relationships. Looking at such stories
30:02
Speaker 1: through the lens of sexual script theory, in turn, allows
30:05
Speaker 1: us to understand both the similarities and differences they present
30:09
Speaker 1: to our own world and what those might say about
30:12
Speaker 1: sexual consent. The omega versus supposed biological or social constructions
30:17
Speaker 1: of different genders and sexualities leads to sometimes radically different
30:22
Speaker 1: and sometimes a strikingly similar dominant sexual scripts in the
30:26
Speaker 1: society is depicted in a bo fan fiction. It is
30:30
Speaker 1: how such stories explore and manipulate these scripts, and how
30:34
Speaker 1: their characters negotiate the disjunctures between the dominant scripts and
30:39
Speaker 1: their desires, and that makes them interesting. Yeah. Yeah, Like
30:44
Speaker 1: I said, I've read a few of them now I
30:46
Speaker 1: find them very upsetting, but they're meant to be upsetting,
30:50
Speaker 1: but definitely, Like being in omega generally is something you
30:54
Speaker 1: do not want um and you try to hide. And
30:57
Speaker 1: these sometimes in some stories align take like hormone owns
31:00
Speaker 1: to try that. Why they make Jensen is that this
31:02
Speaker 1: is Jensen, the favorite, and so therefore they make him
31:05
Speaker 1: not the omega, And like I have a lot of
31:10
Speaker 1: thoughts about that because I find that interesting because in
31:13
Speaker 1: the show he is and I can know this is
31:15
Speaker 1: a real person, which is the other parts like wait
31:17
Speaker 1: what wait what wait? What? Um that I was like,
31:21
Speaker 1: he is. Absolutely, I'm confused, Like there's so many things
31:26
Speaker 1: that I'm confused about. I think it's a lot of
31:29
Speaker 1: a lot of different things going on there, and we're
31:31
Speaker 1: going to talk about some of them. I think one
31:32
Speaker 1: of them is actually no joke, size, just the size difference,
31:37
Speaker 1: because that is physical power dynamic difference there. I think women,
31:43
Speaker 1: since women are largely writing fan fiction, the omega is
31:46
Speaker 1: usually the one they're connecting with the most. Whether that's
31:50
Speaker 1: because of it could just simply be like hotter, or
31:56
Speaker 1: it could be like they have empathy, or they're there's
31:59
Speaker 1: just so reason they're connecting with that person more. Then
32:02
Speaker 1: I think that's the person that's probably the omega. And
32:05
Speaker 1: usually the ones I have read, the Omega is seen
32:09
Speaker 1: through their eyes. Um, it's told from their point of view.
32:13
Speaker 1: Okay um. But yeah, So, as a Samantha was alluding to,
32:18
Speaker 1: I could not talk about um some of the quotes
32:21
Speaker 1: included in this book about the supernatural real person fiction.
32:26
Speaker 1: UM that originated the Omega verse, because I did find
32:30
Speaker 1: it really interesting and it gave me a lot of thoughts.
32:32
Speaker 1: So here's one. In all three stories, Jared is the alpha,
32:36
Speaker 1: Jared being the actor Jared paducky, and Jensen is the Omega.
32:40
Speaker 1: The actor Jensen Nichols who plays Dean in real life
32:43
Speaker 1: Jared paddle like he is taller than Jensen accles, and
32:45
Speaker 1: this physical difference may have something to do with the
32:47
Speaker 1: writer's artistic choices. An important part of the premise of
32:50
Speaker 1: each story is also that Jensen has either never had
32:53
Speaker 1: sex or relationship with a male alpha or has stopped
32:56
Speaker 1: doing so some time ago. All three stories written in
33:00
Speaker 1: a very close third person from Jensen's point of view,
33:03
Speaker 1: and two are written in the present tense in both
33:05
Speaker 1: slick and heat between you and me. Alpha's are clearly
33:09
Speaker 1: the dominant and privileged social group, and all two stories
33:12
Speaker 1: at least hint at Omega's being oppressed, are marginalized in
33:14
Speaker 1: some way sure to lure someone's bad. By contrast, shows
33:19
Speaker 1: us a society dominated by betas, in which both alpha's
33:21
Speaker 1: and omega's are relatively rare. But even in this society,
33:24
Speaker 1: alpha's are seen as domineering and omega's as submissive, and
33:28
Speaker 1: that submissiveness is viewed negatively. It goes on, so the
33:33
Speaker 1: idea that women are quote naturally more caring takes about
33:37
Speaker 1: three articulations to translate to the economic oppression of women.
33:40
Speaker 1: There are several possible ways to resist this. We could,
33:43
Speaker 1: and this is roughly the strategy gens and adopts in
33:45
Speaker 1: shure to lure someone bad, say quote. Women might be
33:48
Speaker 1: naturally more caring, but this particular individual woman is an
33:51
Speaker 1: exception and should therefore be allowed to be a doctor
33:54
Speaker 1: rather the homemaker or a nurse. We could question why
33:57
Speaker 1: qualities associated with femininity, such as caring are systematically undervalued
34:02
Speaker 1: Feminists have a long history of campaigning for wages for housework,
34:05
Speaker 1: for instance. Or we could question the whole idea of
34:08
Speaker 1: biology to turning gender or personal characteristics. The latter two approaches,
34:12
Speaker 1: especially when used together, are much more likely to lead
34:14
Speaker 1: to long term social change, but they are also much
34:17
Speaker 1: more difficult to implement, especially because we are all deeply
34:20
Speaker 1: immersed in dominant ideas of gender. And here's one more
34:24
Speaker 1: quote about it. The extreme version of the alpha and
34:27
Speaker 1: omega stereotypes would have us understand omega's in heat as
34:30
Speaker 1: seducers and alpha's as helpless and out of control when
34:34
Speaker 1: confronted with that. Think again about the male sexual drive
34:37
Speaker 1: discourse and associated rape miss quote. She was wearing a
34:40
Speaker 1: short skirt and I couldn't help myself. But even though
34:43
Speaker 1: Slick shows as a society that completely accepts this portrayal
34:46
Speaker 1: of Alpha's and Omega's, it also shows us, through the
34:48
Speaker 1: characters experiences, that the reality might be rather different. Jensen
34:53
Speaker 1: here is not depicted as a seducer. He has in
34:55
Speaker 1: fact done everything he can to avoid going into heat
34:58
Speaker 1: in the first place. Is heat does not put him
35:00
Speaker 1: in control. It makes him vulnerable and far from helpless
35:04
Speaker 1: and just following his urges. Alpha Jared is in complete
35:06
Speaker 1: control of both himself and the situation Throughout. By the
35:09
Speaker 1: end of the story, Jensen has no choice but to
35:12
Speaker 1: reluctantly conform to the dominant sexual script. He is legally
35:15
Speaker 1: owned by Jared and probably pregnant, leaving him trapped in
35:18
Speaker 1: an abusive relationship. Illegal and social framework around him completely
35:22
Speaker 1: negates any agency he might try to exercise in negotiating consent. Yeah,
35:29
Speaker 1: that's rough. Yeah, I'm just wondering. Yeah, there's so many
35:34
Speaker 1: things in my head like this is not huh, I
35:38
Speaker 1: have a lot I've actually thought about this a lot. Now,
35:40
Speaker 1: I have a lot of thoughts about it, but yeah,
35:43
Speaker 1: I mean most of them. It is. You want to
35:46
Speaker 1: find a good alpha um, because a lot of times
35:50
Speaker 1: you mate for life, and they that psychic bond thing
35:52
Speaker 1: can really screw you up. So you want to find
35:54
Speaker 1: someone who's actually like nice and going to listen to
35:57
Speaker 1: you and wants to protect you. But if still like
36:00
Speaker 1: that uneven paradynamic, it's still like a dependent on the
36:03
Speaker 1: production of this person. And people really don't care what
36:06
Speaker 1: in general what happens to them megas, they're kind of
36:08
Speaker 1: viewed as like property um. Popova also goes into how
36:14
Speaker 1: some of these stories could be a way of dealing
36:17
Speaker 1: with biological responses of arousal winds, sexually assaulted, and navigating
36:21
Speaker 1: consent in relation to sexual scripts, these scripts that we've
36:26
Speaker 1: all absorbed, right, alright, So let's talk about the arranged
36:32
Speaker 1: marriage trope, which Popova examined through Marvels thor Loki slash
36:37
Speaker 1: which I have not seen that either. So they said,
36:41
Speaker 1: look at the words used to describe the less powerful
36:44
Speaker 1: partner in this ostensibly same gendered arrangement, queen wife. This
36:49
Speaker 1: conversation highlights not only that marriages tend to be unequal arrangements,
36:52
Speaker 1: but also suggests that inequality in marriage is deeply gendered.
36:57
Speaker 1: Wives are worse off than husband's. Fan Fiction readers and
37:01
Speaker 1: writers are clearly aware of the problems within the institution
37:04
Speaker 1: of marriage and how it can be a tool of oppression.
37:08
Speaker 1: So how do arrange marriage? Fan fiction stories depict marriage
37:12
Speaker 1: as an institution and how do they tackle the inequalities
37:16
Speaker 1: it produces, reproduces, and amplifies. But Bova goes on. Fan
37:20
Speaker 1: fiction readers and writers then use both the stories themselves
37:23
Speaker 1: and the para text around them to highlight how marriage consummation,
37:26
Speaker 1: which we tend to see as normal, is at least
37:29
Speaker 1: potentially problematic and coercive in some context. And because the
37:32
Speaker 1: sources of inequality between the partners are both legal and cultural,
37:36
Speaker 1: this re contextualization of marriage consummation as potentially coercive allows
37:40
Speaker 1: readers and writers to question both the legal and cultural
37:43
Speaker 1: foundations of marriage as an institution that they may have
37:46
Speaker 1: been taken for granted. For the less powerful partner in
37:49
Speaker 1: each of these marriages, then, refusing to consummate the marriage
37:52
Speaker 1: is not really an option. This is why we see
37:54
Speaker 1: Loki in seventeen push for consummation even though he does
37:57
Speaker 1: not actually want to have sex with Thor, and that
37:59
Speaker 1: of course is not meaningful consent. So what would it
38:02
Speaker 1: take to enable the partner with less power in a
38:04
Speaker 1: relationship to genuinely meaningfully consent to sex if they wanted to.
38:09
Speaker 1: The answer we get from these stories is emotion work.
38:11
Speaker 1: Amotion work performed by the partner with more power to
38:14
Speaker 1: build a relationship, established trust, and above all, creative space
38:18
Speaker 1: or refusal to consummate would be heard, respected and meaningful.
38:22
Speaker 1: Continuing on what we are beginning to see from both
38:25
Speaker 1: arranged marriage and a megap ours pain fiction is that
38:27
Speaker 1: not all slash fiction is about equality. At least some
38:31
Speaker 1: slash is a literature of negotiated inequality. It asks and
38:35
Speaker 1: tries to answer this question. If we live in an
38:38
Speaker 1: unequal world, in a society that structurally treats some of
38:42
Speaker 1: us as lessers in various ways, what can we do
38:45
Speaker 1: in our individual intimate relationships to negotiate and minimize those inequalities?
38:51
Speaker 1: And if those inequalities affect our ability to consent, then
38:54
Speaker 1: how do we get to a place where our consent
38:56
Speaker 1: can be made meaningful again within the coerce of structure
39:00
Speaker 1: as we lived in. Yes, I have read many an
39:03
Speaker 1: arranged marriage trope fan fiction. It's because it's quite popular.
39:09
Speaker 1: Was it all Star Wars? Most of it is starting.
39:12
Speaker 1: I will say, like before Star Wars, Harry Potter was
39:14
Speaker 1: my big one is huge in Harry Potter. Like it's
39:17
Speaker 1: been a years since I've read Harry Potter fan fiction,
39:19
Speaker 1: but it is huge. But it is big in Star Wars.
39:22
Speaker 1: It's very big. Like the Mandalord didn't jar and the
39:26
Speaker 1: Mandalorian Luke Skywalker's for some reason have to get married
39:29
Speaker 1: and then all the heartfelt conversations that have to take
39:33
Speaker 1: place and painful conversations they have to take place, and
39:37
Speaker 1: then they've fall in love. Anyway, I can do like
39:41
Speaker 1: such a like bingo car of what you'll see? I
39:46
Speaker 1: thought you started one. I do have. I have all
39:49
Speaker 1: a lot of terms ready to go, but I haven't
39:51
Speaker 1: actually made it. But I've been thinking about it for
39:54
Speaker 1: a while. Um. I did briefly want to touch on
40:11
Speaker 1: real person fiction, which I've kind of been switching back
40:14
Speaker 1: and forth between what I call it because I often
40:15
Speaker 1: call it real person fan fiction, but it's real person
40:17
Speaker 1: fiction or RPF. So that's you know, stories written about
40:21
Speaker 1: actors are real people. Um, and they use fan fiction settings. Uh.
40:26
Speaker 1: And I don't have much experience with this world. I do.
40:28
Speaker 1: Some listeners have written in about fiction that they write
40:31
Speaker 1: for it, uh, and I wanted to include this because
40:34
Speaker 1: I thought it was interesting because the story that Popova
40:39
Speaker 1: kind of examines looks into what happens when a fan
40:42
Speaker 1: fiction community when something from the real world and packs it,
40:47
Speaker 1: especially in this case we're talking a real person fiction.
40:50
Speaker 1: So here's a quote. The Hockey RPF community used a
40:52
Speaker 1: range of RPF cannon construction techniques in their evaluation of
40:56
Speaker 1: the rape allegations against Patrick Kane. By bringing in community
41:00
Speaker 1: members own experiences of sexual assault and the criminal justice system,
41:03
Speaker 1: they constructed a version of the complainant um left nameless, faceless,
41:07
Speaker 1: and voiceless by measures ostensibly intended to protect her, that
41:10
Speaker 1: they could empathize with and whose credibility was boistered. The
41:13
Speaker 1: district attorneys professional reputation, use of loaded language, and possible
41:17
Speaker 1: political motivations were used to construct three different versions of him.
41:21
Speaker 1: All of these characterizations were used to humanize and give
41:23
Speaker 1: face to the law, allowing Hockey RPF community members to
41:27
Speaker 1: engage with and challenge the criminal justice system in complex
41:30
Speaker 1: and nuanced ways. So this was it was really interesting
41:35
Speaker 1: because it was a Patrick Kane as a hockey player,
41:37
Speaker 1: as a hockey player had these allegations, allegations and then
41:42
Speaker 1: that that kind of community had to deal with how well,
41:46
Speaker 1: how are we going to talk about it? How are
41:47
Speaker 1: we going to handle it? So in this space and
41:49
Speaker 1: in this particular case, several of the stories challenged the
41:52
Speaker 1: law and the way cases like this are treated and prosecuted,
41:56
Speaker 1: and especially in terms of sexual violence and kind of
42:00
Speaker 1: the flaws there. So it was really interesting. So in
42:04
Speaker 1: the RPF community, is it a big sports network up
42:09
Speaker 1: community sports? I'm very surprised to hear that hockey is
42:14
Speaker 1: actually based in all of this. Yeah, no, actually I
42:18
Speaker 1: was too, But I'm pretty sure several listeners have written
42:20
Speaker 1: in about being a part of the the sports RPF community,
42:25
Speaker 1: and actually, they're your letters really interesting. I hope you're
42:28
Speaker 1: still listening, because a lot of them talked about how
42:31
Speaker 1: it was they kind of got double judged sometimes because
42:35
Speaker 1: um sports is seen as a more masculine Spanish activity,
42:39
Speaker 1: whereas fan fiction is very much more feminine right Fanish activity,
42:44
Speaker 1: and so it was kind of like everybody was looking
42:47
Speaker 1: at them kind of skew almost. It was sort of
42:51
Speaker 1: what they described to me is what it sounded like. Um,
42:54
Speaker 1: but that it was. It could be very supportive and
42:55
Speaker 1: people were really passionate in it. I think I've said
42:58
Speaker 1: this before. The biggest celebrities are pretty big, but I
43:02
Speaker 1: would say the biggest part of URPF is definitely UM musicians.
43:06
Speaker 1: Musicians and for a while was like one direction all
43:10
Speaker 1: that was under action? Is it now? BTS? Probably probably listeners.
43:16
Speaker 1: I know, so a listener has written in about a
43:18
Speaker 1: BTS fan fiction they're working on. Yeah, that's awesome. No,
43:22
Speaker 1: like I said, I wrote, I wrote one. I wrote
43:24
Speaker 1: one about Billy green Day. I love screen days. Very interesting.
43:32
Speaker 1: I like this mix. Uh, it's like one of those
43:34
Speaker 1: moments of like, huh. Interesting to see it being placed
43:36
Speaker 1: on real people that actually exist. I wonder if they
43:40
Speaker 1: read them. Oh I somebody wrote one about me and
43:43
Speaker 1: sent it to me and I loved it. Okay, didn't
43:45
Speaker 1: Misha Collins have Like, didn't he actually read one of
43:48
Speaker 1: his own or something like? Yes? I feel like he did.
43:54
Speaker 1: All right. So, as part of the book, Popova interviewed
43:57
Speaker 1: readers and writers about what all of this mean in
44:00
Speaker 1: terms of real world implications. And here's a quote from
44:03
Speaker 1: Popova about their response. On the one hand, it is
44:07
Speaker 1: a source of knowledge about consent, and this knowledge is
44:10
Speaker 1: created by the whole community and focuses on lived experiences
44:14
Speaker 1: and emotions. On the other hand, it is also a
44:17
Speaker 1: space where they can creatively explore the issues that come
44:19
Speaker 1: across in their own life and make their own contributions
44:23
Speaker 1: to the community's knowledge. Fan Fiction readers and writers take
44:27
Speaker 1: what they see as problematic mainstream text and rewrite them
44:31
Speaker 1: to suit their own needs. In this process, they seek
44:34
Speaker 1: to hold accountable both creators of mainstream media and, as
44:38
Speaker 1: we will see in the remainder of this chapter, each
44:41
Speaker 1: other for the kinds of representation they offer in key
44:44
Speaker 1: areas such as gender, sexuality, and consent. Fan Fiction communities
44:49
Speaker 1: provide a space where readers and writers can make issues
44:53
Speaker 1: of consent and it's representation in mainstream media visible, where
44:57
Speaker 1: they can name the problem of the normalization of sexual
44:59
Speaker 1: vio lens and coersive sexual practices as just sex, and
45:03
Speaker 1: where they can collectively come up with alternative ideas, knowledges,
45:08
Speaker 1: and imaginaries. All of this, in turn allows fans not
45:12
Speaker 1: only to challenge dominant ideas of sex, sexuality, and consent,
45:16
Speaker 1: but also to understand and challenge the role of social
45:19
Speaker 1: institutions like the law and the criminal justice systems in
45:23
Speaker 1: sexual violence. Yeah. And one interesting point that this book
45:28
Speaker 1: drove home and we sort of mentioned a little bit
45:30
Speaker 1: was the tagging on a O three, along with trigger
45:34
Speaker 1: and content warnings, often placed at the top of chapters,
45:36
Speaker 1: which aside, it was really fun to read someone explaining
45:39
Speaker 1: fan fiction as someone who knows it so well, I
45:42
Speaker 1: gotta kick out of it. Yeah. So, like a lot
45:45
Speaker 1: of times, you've got the tags that kind of tell
45:46
Speaker 1: you what you might be getting. Um. And then when
45:50
Speaker 1: you at the start of every chapter usually have a
45:51
Speaker 1: trigger content warning and you can click on it and
45:54
Speaker 1: it will skip to the bottom of the chapter, so
45:56
Speaker 1: you won't be spoiled. Not all of them do that way.
45:58
Speaker 1: Some some of them just happen on the top, um,
46:00
Speaker 1: and it'll be like, you know, here's what's happening in
46:03
Speaker 1: this chapter if you're worried about any of these particular things.
46:05
Speaker 1: And sometimes there will be an author's note like, oh
46:08
Speaker 1: this is you know where I was coming from with this,
46:11
Speaker 1: and I wasn't in a good space or whatever it is.
46:14
Speaker 1: So you have all of that, which is indicating that
46:17
Speaker 1: the authors of this fan fiction are actively thinking about
46:20
Speaker 1: what they are writing and how it will and could
46:23
Speaker 1: be perceived, and the health of those that read it,
46:27
Speaker 1: um including that of sexual abuse survivors who are largely
46:30
Speaker 1: women and also largely the audience. Reader's interviewed discussed how
46:35
Speaker 1: important it was to their enjoyment and knowing whether the
46:37
Speaker 1: author intended to explore something problematic or was unaware that
46:42
Speaker 1: they were doing so. Quote. Through tags and other para text,
46:46
Speaker 1: authors can clarify their intent outside but adjacent to the
46:49
Speaker 1: main body of the fan work. Interviewees saw such clarifications
46:53
Speaker 1: as particularly important when it came to issues of consent. Blissy,
46:56
Speaker 1: somebody that was interviewed for this, summarized the importance of
47:00
Speaker 1: this communication channel outside the text, the tagging. I find
47:02
Speaker 1: that really important because that tells you that the person
47:05
Speaker 1: has thought through what they're writing. This comment shows that
47:08
Speaker 1: where issues of sexual consent feature in a work of
47:11
Speaker 1: fan fiction, readers find it important to know, and writers
47:14
Speaker 1: seek to show that the author has consciously thought through
47:18
Speaker 1: them and deliberately chosen to explore them as part of
47:20
Speaker 1: the story. In particular, when the sexual situation depicted in
47:25
Speaker 1: the story includes elements of ambiguous are dubious consent or
47:28
Speaker 1: is a depiction of rape. Both readers and writers use
47:31
Speaker 1: the meta data around the stories, such as tags, warnings,
47:34
Speaker 1: and author's notes to determine whether these elements are deliberate.
47:37
Speaker 1: This stance in contrast to the kind of unsuccessful attempt
47:41
Speaker 1: to depict con sexual sex we saw fan fiction readers
47:44
Speaker 1: and writers criticize and mainstream media. Fan fiction community members
47:48
Speaker 1: see situations they can identify as problematic or as violations
47:51
Speaker 1: due to power differentials involving dubious consent for other reasons,
47:55
Speaker 1: are being outright non consensual depicted in mainstream media as
47:59
Speaker 1: perfectly unproblem addic normal consensual sex. In many cases, they
48:03
Speaker 1: are aware of having themselves absorbed some of these attitudes
48:05
Speaker 1: to sex from media, and of the work it has
48:08
Speaker 1: taken for them to unlearn some of them. And yeah,
48:12
Speaker 1: you see this a lot. You'll see like the interactions
48:14
Speaker 1: between like the authors and commoners and um kind of
48:21
Speaker 1: this just ongoing discussion around it, and and authors will
48:24
Speaker 1: be really open about whatever they they are working through,
48:29
Speaker 1: or or why they wanted wanted to explore something, or
48:33
Speaker 1: why they depicted it a certain way. And I think,
48:36
Speaker 1: like I said at the top, That's been one of
48:37
Speaker 1: the biggest changes I've seen is I feel like ub
48:39
Speaker 1: Coom when I first started reading fan fiction was very
48:43
Speaker 1: much romanticized, and now it is very much not. It
48:47
Speaker 1: is not at all. They still exist for sure, but
48:52
Speaker 1: people like like they're they're saying and all the clothes
48:55
Speaker 1: we've read. People will be like, hey, it's kind of problematic.
48:58
Speaker 1: You need to tag it this way, and that makes
49:01
Speaker 1: the person think about it like, oh, Okay, I didn't
49:05
Speaker 1: really realize, and sometimes, you know, they might dig their
49:07
Speaker 1: feet in and be like no, no, no, no. But
49:09
Speaker 1: other times, a lot of the time they'll be like,
49:11
Speaker 1: oh okay, I didn't I didn't realize, and then that's
49:15
Speaker 1: just that can shift a whole Like then that person
49:18
Speaker 1: might start rethinking all these other things, and then it
49:21
Speaker 1: just spreads. And I have started thinking about because as
49:25
Speaker 1: you know, I've written many hand fiction during lockdown, there's
49:30
Speaker 1: one that I'm like, maybe I will follow this this one,
49:32
Speaker 1: and I started to think about how I would tag it.
49:34
Speaker 1: And it's been a really interesting thought exercise because you
49:37
Speaker 1: really have to think about like how people will interpret it,
49:41
Speaker 1: anything that could be harmful people, I mean, people tag
49:44
Speaker 1: like mental health issues, it kind of reminds me of us,
49:48
Speaker 1: and we're trying to capture when our trigger warnings all
49:51
Speaker 1: the things, right, I mean, like, yeah, we talked about
49:54
Speaker 1: the fact that was content warning of ours is trigger warning,
49:58
Speaker 1: um it brief mentions up the is because essentially we're
50:01
Speaker 1: not necessarily delving into specific situations that we're not getting graphic,
50:05
Speaker 1: but still just a topic alone, just hearing the word
50:08
Speaker 1: would be good, you know, which I find that interesting.
50:12
Speaker 1: I know we had that conversation when you were talking
50:14
Speaker 1: about trying to depict sexual violence and writing and how
50:16
Speaker 1: do you do it in a way that's not romanticized
50:18
Speaker 1: and or fetishized, And that's a big conversation in trying
50:22
Speaker 1: to figure out how do you do this in the
50:24
Speaker 1: best way that not only keeps you mentally healthy but
50:29
Speaker 1: others who were reading it. So it's a it's a
50:31
Speaker 1: thing for sure, for sure. Yeah, And I think that's
50:34
Speaker 1: one of the interesting things about fan fiction in particular,
50:37
Speaker 1: because one of my big hang ups is definitely like
50:39
Speaker 1: I don't want to hurt myself, I don't want to
50:40
Speaker 1: hurt anybody writing that. But also it just feels weird
50:42
Speaker 1: when it's like entertainment and like what is the value
50:45
Speaker 1: of showing this? But I feel like in fan fiction
50:48
Speaker 1: because it is written mostly by women and marginalized people
50:51
Speaker 1: and read mostly by women and marginalized people who do
50:54
Speaker 1: have higher rates of experiencing that, then I think it
50:56
Speaker 1: feels different to me where it still has to be
50:59
Speaker 1: done safely. Don't get me wrong, and always ask like why, what,
51:03
Speaker 1: what is the what am I working through? What? Why
51:05
Speaker 1: is it that I want to write this? But it
51:06
Speaker 1: does feel different because it's something that we're kind of
51:08
Speaker 1: all working through or unfortunately a lot of us, as
51:13
Speaker 1: compared to like mainstream media, where I feel a lot
51:15
Speaker 1: like squeakier about it, right, yeah, uh so. Popova continues
51:21
Speaker 1: This stance implicitly acknowledges that, given the fan fiction community
51:25
Speaker 1: consists predominantly of women and non binary people who statistically
51:29
Speaker 1: experienced sexual violence at higher race, a significant proportion of
51:33
Speaker 1: community members are or maybe survivors of sexual violence. This
51:38
Speaker 1: acknowledgement is critical to understanding the importance the fan fiction
51:43
Speaker 1: community places on issues of sexual consent and both as
51:47
Speaker 1: creative output and it's day to day practices. So the
51:51
Speaker 1: community actively chooses to center survivors safety and enable community
51:55
Speaker 1: members to give informed consents to the kinds of content
51:58
Speaker 1: they are exposed to, is in itself a form of
52:01
Speaker 1: cultural activism, a pre figurative act, a lived practice of
52:06
Speaker 1: how a world where sexual violence was not normalized would
52:10
Speaker 1: work on issues of sexual consent. In particular, fan fiction
52:15
Speaker 1: is a form of cultural activism. Readers and writers come
52:18
Speaker 1: together and as a community explore the kinds of difficult
52:22
Speaker 1: questions about consent that the dominant ideas in our society
52:26
Speaker 1: make all but an askable. In their interactions with each other,
52:30
Speaker 1: their community practices, and their infrastructures. Fan fiction readers and
52:34
Speaker 1: writers in act of practice of consent making, their knowledge
52:38
Speaker 1: is manifest in the real world in this way that
52:42
Speaker 1: they show us what a world without rape culture might
52:45
Speaker 1: look like. Fan Fiction then remains a crucial tool for
52:49
Speaker 1: developing our knowledge and understanding of consent. It continues to
52:53
Speaker 1: operate outside traditional knowledge production and valid structures. It builds
52:58
Speaker 1: on epistemologies rooted in lived experiences, and at the same
53:01
Speaker 1: time accounts for and challenges our society's dominant ideas about sex.
53:07
Speaker 1: We will continue to need these kinds of new, marginalized
53:10
Speaker 1: and subjugated knowledges for some time to come. Yeah, definitely.
53:15
Speaker 1: You have been spewing this for a while, and I
53:17
Speaker 1: say that in a loving manner that this really is
53:21
Speaker 1: even though there's of course toxicity any any community, especially
53:24
Speaker 1: in public forums and Internet world all of that, but
53:28
Speaker 1: it remains to be one of the most conscientious of
53:31
Speaker 1: platforms that exists in a way that does seem like
53:36
Speaker 1: kind of a hopeful Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's always
53:41
Speaker 1: one of those things I could obviously I can talk
53:42
Speaker 1: about this forever and forever and go on. But to me,
53:46
Speaker 1: there's just such a need for it because you don't
53:48
Speaker 1: if you don't see yourself represented for whatever reason, whether
53:52
Speaker 1: it's race or how you identify whatever it is, or
53:55
Speaker 1: you don't see couples that you identify with. But you
53:58
Speaker 1: love these characters and you want to go and they'll
54:01
Speaker 1: play in that sandbox, as they say, and then you
54:04
Speaker 1: get to interact with other people who also want to play,
54:06
Speaker 1: and maybe you're super specific niche box, and you have
54:10
Speaker 1: these conversations and you can tackle some really big things
54:13
Speaker 1: and people can be really supportive, and I love I
54:16
Speaker 1: love how people will like make fan art for something
54:19
Speaker 1: that people fan fiction people wrote and it's just um,
54:22
Speaker 1: it has the potential to be really powerful and beautiful
54:27
Speaker 1: and in a lovely space. And yes, I do think
54:30
Speaker 1: I should just teach a class on fan fiction. And
54:33
Speaker 1: it's it's definitely improved, there's still, like you said, there's
54:37
Speaker 1: still some areas of toxicity. I think one thing that
54:41
Speaker 1: I'm curious about is a lot of fan fiction is
54:44
Speaker 1: written by young girls. And when I was growing up
54:48
Speaker 1: and do it writing, I just feel like that can
54:51
Speaker 1: be I would I would implore everyone to be kind
54:54
Speaker 1: in their criticisms, just because I think absolutely you should
54:59
Speaker 1: you know, rate the point that you it could be
55:02
Speaker 1: a young girl who really doesn't know or has like
55:04
Speaker 1: really struggling with some something. Um, So I always keep
55:07
Speaker 1: that in mind. And I do worry about again, it's
55:11
Speaker 1: it's gotten way better, but I do worry about like
55:14
Speaker 1: the messages that you can get if you accidentally, if
55:16
Speaker 1: you find a bad fan fiction, it can stay with you.
55:19
Speaker 1: It can it can haunt you. And that's why tagging
55:22
Speaker 1: is so important. That's why it's so important. And also
55:25
Speaker 1: like to mind the tags. If I've I've read some
55:28
Speaker 1: authors who are like, look if you if if this
55:32
Speaker 1: tag and you know you can't handle it, please don't
55:34
Speaker 1: really like please don't, please, don't. I'm trying to help you.
55:38
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think about you. And that's something else
55:41
Speaker 1: I've seen that's interesting lately is up for when I
55:44
Speaker 1: when I was going, I felt like you had to
55:47
Speaker 1: like say, I'm writing fan fiction for constructive criticism because
55:50
Speaker 1: it's I want to be a better writer, which a
55:52
Speaker 1: lot of people still do, and that's great. But now
55:53
Speaker 1: some people have said, like, I don't want any criticism.
55:56
Speaker 1: I'm doing this for fun. If you don't like it,
55:57
Speaker 1: you can get kind of like you're like, look, this
56:02
Speaker 1: is supposed to be the safe space and y'all all
56:10
Speaker 1: if you don't just move on. Yes, yes, but it's
56:13
Speaker 1: just funny because it used to be you've had to
56:15
Speaker 1: defend your why you were writing fan fiction, and now
56:17
Speaker 1: it's become very much like this is just for fun. Um.
56:21
Speaker 1: You know, if you want to leave a comment, just
56:22
Speaker 1: don't be mean about it because I'm really not looking
56:24
Speaker 1: to improve and that's just gonna invest my you tell
56:28
Speaker 1: me I'm a terrible writer. But yes, people are in
56:30
Speaker 1: my experience very open about the tax like they want
56:33
Speaker 1: to get that right. But yeah, Fantish communities are far
56:36
Speaker 1: from a utopia and fiction is so different there, especially
56:39
Speaker 1: like little sex that are pretty problematic. UM. We see
56:43
Speaker 1: bleed over with issues UM from our entertainment at large.
56:46
Speaker 1: They're like a prioritizing at the trauma of white characters.
56:50
Speaker 1: There's some really harmful and toxic content and behavior in
56:53
Speaker 1: the space and that should always be called out. But overall,
57:00
Speaker 1: like I said, I've been It's been almost twenty years
57:02
Speaker 1: and I've really seen it change, and I've seen it
57:06
Speaker 1: become a more positive in support of space where people
57:10
Speaker 1: are really thinking about others and and and themselves um,
57:14
Speaker 1: which is great, Which is great, And I love this
57:17
Speaker 1: idea that can be this tool for activism and having
57:19
Speaker 1: these conversations. I really love the book. If it wasn't clear,
57:22
Speaker 1: I know it was really quote heavy, but trust me,
57:24
Speaker 1: I cut out a butt I did. I did. I'm like,
57:28
Speaker 1: let's just read the whole book. Also, I really want
57:30
Speaker 1: to come back and talk about like a bio now
57:32
Speaker 1: because I really have a lot more thoughts after reading
57:34
Speaker 1: this book than I did before. But today is not
57:39
Speaker 1: that day. If you would like to get the book,
57:41
Speaker 1: we recommend it. You can find it that it is
57:43
Speaker 1: available now. UM And as always, we love getting suggestions
57:47
Speaker 1: for you at our next book pick should be. You
57:50
Speaker 1: can email the Stuff I du mom Stuff at ihart
57:52
Speaker 1: meia dot com. You can find us on Twitter at
57:54
Speaker 1: mom Stuff Podcasts or Instagram and stuff I've Never Told
57:56
Speaker 1: You Thanks. It's always to our super producer Christina You.
58:00
Speaker 1: Thanks to you for listening. Top Onder told the Protection
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