Document Type
Thesis
Date of Award
2022
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Communication Studies
First Advisor
Jill Tyler
Abstract
As the internet grew in popularity, fanfiction followed suit. As of April 2022, there are over 9,188,000 works posted on Archive of Our Own, one of the internet’s most popular fanfiction hosting sites. A large number of the stories posted on this site feature a concept known as self-insert, where an author chooses to write themselves into their own story as a central character. Instead of naming their self-insert characters, many authors will use the tag y/n—meaning “your name”—to expand the fantasy to include all readers. Curiously, a subsect of self-insert fanfiction features rape or non-consensual sexual acts perpetrated against the inserted character. This research endeavors to uncover the primary reasons that authors craft tales of rape and sexual violence with themselves as the primary victim. This study consisted of 11 individual virtual interviews with self-insert fanfiction authors who wrote works with rape and other non-consensual sexual acts committed against the inserted character. Pre-existing rape fantasy rationale and Uses & Gratifications theory were used to guide a thematic analysis of the authors’ responses. Four central themes emerged: “Safety in fantasy,” “Need Fulfillment,” “Support for rape fantasy theories,” and “Narrative Reclamation.” Responses indicated that the authors utilized self-insert fanfiction to safely explore their fantasies; though they fantasized about rape, the authors did not want it to happen to them in reality. In some form or another, a portion of each author’s needs were not being met in the real world. The use of fanfiction to fulfill their unmet needs provided the authors with some form of gratification. Each of the three rape fantasy theories analyzed—sexual blame avoidance reasoning, openness to sexual experience reasoning, and sexual desirability reasoning—received some level of support from the participants’ responses. Previous research had established a connection between writing about trauma and healing (Pennebaker, 1997, Smyth & Lepore, 2002, DeSalvo, 2006), and the results of this study endorse that narrative healing extends to self-insert fanfiction with rape and non-consensual sexual acts.
Subject Categories
Communication
Keywords
Archive of Our Own, author interview, narrative reclamation, rape fantasy, self-insert fanfiction, Uses & Gratifications theory
Number of Pages
74
Publisher
University of South Dakota
Recommended Citation
Humble, Diana Rose, "The Inclusion of Rape and Other Non-Consensual Sexual Acts in Self-Insert FanFiction" (2022). Dissertations and Theses. 312.
https://red.library.usd.edu/diss-thesis/312
