Representing Kink

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.

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.

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.