Choosing The Monster: Otherness, Desire, And Masculinity In Contemporary Monster Romance
Author
Kjølner, Mira Pedersen
Term
4. term
Education
Publication year
2026
Abstract
This thesis examines contemporary monster romance as a literary and cultural form in which monstrosity becomes central to romantic fulfilment. Drawing on a corpus of 100 texts and close readings of A Soul to Heal, Deceived by the Gargoyles, Wicked Creation, Wolves and Whipped Cream at Hallow’s Cove, Whispers of the Deep, The Revenant’s Heart, The Saltwater Curse, and A Darkness So Sweet, it combines cultural analysis, quantitative pattern-tracking, and close textual interpretation. Engaging scholarship on monstrosity, romance, gender, and power (including Cohen, Halberstam, Radway, Foucault, Ahmed, Berlant, Connell, Butler, Hall, and hooks), the study develops the concept of the Preferred Other: a structure in which nonhuman lovers are not normalized but chosen precisely as Other. The analysis situates the genre amid post-Roe reproductive uncertainty, the rise of manosphere discourse, and polarized gender relations, and argues that monster romance reconfigures desirability by aligning ordinary masculinity with absence or harm and monstrosity with care, stability, consent, and emotional openness. It further shows that the preference for monsters persists even without direct human male threat, queering heterosexuality by directing desire toward visibly nonhuman bodies. Interpreted as a compromise fantasy, the genre both critiques patriarchal authority and remains attached to certain romance conventions. The thesis concludes that monster romance reveals how desire adapts under cultural pressure and offers the Preferred Other as its central contribution.
Denne afhandling undersøger nutidig monsterromance som en litterær og kulturel form, hvor monstrositet bliver central for romantisk opfyldelse. Med et korpus på 100 tekster og nærlæsninger af A Soul to Heal, Deceived by the Gargoyles, Wicked Creation, Wolves and Whipped Cream at Hallow’s Cove, Whispers of the Deep, The Revenant’s Heart, The Saltwater Curse og A Darkness So Sweet kombinerer studiet kulturel analyse, kvantitativ mønsterregistrering og tekstnær fortolkning. Med udgangspunkt i forskning i monstrositet, romance, køn og magt (bl.a. Cohen, Halberstam, Radway, Foucault, Ahmed, Berlant, Connell, Butler, Hall og hooks) udvikler afhandlingen begrebet den Foretrukne Anden: en struktur, hvor den ikke-menneskelige elsker ikke normaliseres, men vælges netop som Anderledes. Analysen placerer genren i en samtid præget af usikker reproduktiv autonomi efter Roe v. Wade, fremvæksten af manosfæren og polariserede kønsrelationer, og argumenterer for, at monsterromance omformer begær ved at knytte almindelig maskulinitet til fravær eller skade og monstrositet til omsorg, stabilitet, samtykke og følelsesmæssig åbenhed. Den viser også, at præferencen for monstre består selv uden direkte menneskelig mandlig trussel og ”queerer” heteroseksualitet ved at rette begær mod synligt ikke-menneskelige kroppe. Som kompromisfantasi kritiserer genren patriarkalsk autoritet, samtidig med at den forbliver forbundet med visse romantiske konventioner. Afhandlingen konkluderer, at monsterromance synliggør, hvordan begær tilpasser sig under kulturelt pres, og tilbyder den Foretrukne Anden som sin centrale teoretiske pointe.
[This abstract has been generated with the help of AI directly from the project full text]