Representing disability in queer fanfiction: Analyzing the role of whiteness and intimacy in depicting desirable disabled masculinity

Abstract

Fanfiction is a media which blends canon texts with audience reimaginings, wherein fans take up existing narratives and make them their own. This paper analyzes story tags on the fanfiction site Archive of Our Own (AO3) and a case study of “Malex,” a notable relationship between two canonically disabled characters, to examine the salience of their disabilities in fanfiction which presents them as desirable romantic and/or sexual prospects. I discuss the desexualization of disabled people as well as the tendency for fanfiction to (re)produce norms of whiteness and maleness, and examine how Malex-focused stories are similar to and different from stories about characters who are not canonically in a relationship. Overall, I argue that fanfiction has the ability to queer and crip existing social narratives, depicting disability as a real and desirable part of diverse relationships. However, as it stands, whiteness, maleness, and the intimacy of perceived vulnerability remain the cornerstones of desirable disabilities.