SEXUAL POACHERS: AN ANALYSIS OF WHERE FANDOM, SEX EDUCATION, AND MARGINALIZED SEXUALITIES COLLIDE

Fanfiction community practices that build new universes, plotlines, and relationships with their beloved media properties grant fans a unique relationship with authority, meaning-creation, and resistance. As poachers, they are notably adept at filling in the gaps of institutional structures that are not fully serving these commonly marginalized and intersectional communities. Utilizing the theoretical lenses of Foucault’s (1972) regimes of truth, Collins’ (2005) controlling images, sexual script theory, and embodiment theory this thesis interrogates how fans fill in the margins of K-12 public sex education. Employing a grounded theory based analysis of tags combined with a content analysis of three fan stories from the Sex Education fandom, this thesis researches how fans explore, disseminate, and fill in gaps about sex and relationships leftover from the most common forms of school-based sex education. Findings indicate that certain tropes and story choices within the Sex Education fan community provide embodied lessons to fan consumers and impart essential community knowledge concerning romantic and sexual information. Discussions include how these tropes identify failures in current systems and reify community-based knowledges. Engagement with first-hand expertise on impactful sexual and romantic issues like pregnancy solidifies community-based knowledge over scientific or academic authority. Noting the potential of fan writers to offer embodied, peer-based sexual and romantic education this study recommends peer-based sex education as a solution to current models of limited sex education.