Debating intimate partner violence in lesbian fan communities
RIS ID
73223
Abstract
My interest in the issue of intimate partner violence was the result of following the sudden and intense flame wars in online lesbian fan forums based on The L Word television series (Showtime, 2004-2009) over the apparent violence between women in a long-term relationship. These flame wars sparked my interest in the passionately argued positions that lesbians took over the possibility that a woman could (or could not) be violent to her partner. This led me to look at other representations of violence in the series between a transgender character and his female partner, and between a heterosexual male character and his female partner, and to the question of why these did not lead to the same level of passionate argument in the forums as did the incident between the lesbian couple.
Publication Details
Walker, R. 2012, 'Debating intimate partner violence in lesbian fan communities', in R. Gajjala & Y. Ju. Oh (eds), Cyberfeminism 2.0, Peter Lang, New York. pp. 231-234.