Author: Brandon West, Department of Humanities & Communication, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Contents:

	Acknowledgments (p. vii)
	Foreword (p. ix)
	Introduction (p. xi)
	Chapter 1     Rape as an Assertion of Masculine Identity: Problematizing Sexualized Revenge in Rape Narratives (p. 1)
	Chapter 2     Hiding the Rape: A Contemporary Outlook (p. 23)
		Part One: Hiding Rape (p. 23)
		Part Two: Partially Showing Rape (p. 47)
	Chapter 3     The Aesthetic of Disgust: Rape-Revenge Fiction’s Moral Shortcomings (p. 53)
		Introduction (p. 53)
		Disgust and Audience Reactions to Fiction (p. 55)
		Violence and Disgust (p. 56)
		Clarissa’s Agency: Peaceful Resistance and the Moral High Ground (p. 61)
		Disgust as Paradox (p. 67)
	Chapter 4     Pleasures of Disgust (p. 71)
	Part One: Enumerating the Pleasures (p. 71)
	Part Two: A (Disgusting) Case Study (p. 83)
			Section One:Teeth: Summary and Analysis (p. 83)
			Section Two: Pleasures of Disgust in Teeth (p. 93)
	Chapter 5     Showing Without Becoming (p. 97)
	Conclusion: Post-Catharsis: How RapeRevenge Works Show Protagonists Moving On (p. 131)
	Bibliography (p. 135)
		Primary Sources (p. 135)
		Secondary Sources (p. 136)
	Index (p. 145)

Description: »The extant scholarship of the rape-revenge narrative has frequently either upheld this narrative form’s feminist bonafides (Clover) or condemned it as misogynistic (Creed). In this volume, West argues that these competing camps of thought have largely elided rape-revenge’s inherent ambivalence, which stems from the paradoxical role disgust plays in rape-revenge texts. That is, disgust is essential for portraying rape as the horrific act it is, but employing disgust in a rape-revenge text risks alienating audiences. To explore this issue, Brandon West first shows the strengths and pitfalls of different methods rape-revenge auteurs have used to approach this disturbing narrative form. Showing rape and revenge in graphic detail has well-documented issues in the scholarship, but the author shows how texts that eschew such graphic portrayals also have their own consequent weaknesses. Thereafter, West articulates the paradox of disgust so he can isolate this key issue hounding these texts and analyses thereof. Then, West shows how disgust plays multiple roles in these texts, roles that make the paradox more challenging to resolve. To this end, the book shows disgust not only risks alienating audiences but also forms part of the pleasure these texts offer audiences. And so, West enumerates the possible pleasures of disgust. Finally, this book pulls these threads together to examine a couple of final rape-revenge texts, one of which, 2017’s 'Revenge', West argues, is the most successful anti-rape narrative discussed in this volume because of the balance it strikes between evoking disgust and avoiding alienating audiences. « (Source: Vernon Press)

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Wikipedia: Film: Rape and revenge | Sex and the law: Rape / History of rape