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Popular Culture Review
Similarly, there is also, in contrast to much female-authored fanfiction, a
distinct lack of sexual themes, particularly slash, within the mainstream of
W40K fanfiction. Indeed, my findings in this regard were remarkably similar to
Will Brooker’s (2002:129) experiences of interviewing Star Wars fan-authors;
most “seem never to have heard of [slash fiction], and those that have tend to
keep their distance”. This is particularly notable as there are a number of sexual
and other adult themes explicit within several areas of the canon:
The 41st millennium is rife with sex, drugs, and violence as
the teeming masses of humanity stretch the boundaries of
acceptable entertainment. The masses cannot gain all of their
sustenance from Imperial religion, so they satisfy their wild
urges by smoking obscura or gladstones, grinweed or other
such narcotics. They go to the pits to watch mutant clowns
disembowel each other with chainswords. They call upon
smile-girls (prostitutes) to satisfy their urges. From top to
bottom the 41st millennium has just as much depravity as one
could imagine exists in the 21st millennium (‘Dean’).
Likewise, one of the Chaos gods, Slaanesh, for example, is described within the
canon as a god of all forms of excess and pleasure, his followers venerating him
through indulging “every excess and depravity they can imagine” and “honing
their bodies to the limits of blissful endurance” (Thorpe & Cavatore, 2007:39).
Indeed, the vile excesses and forms of depravity practiced by the forces of
Chaos in general offer themselves easily for the fan-exploration of adult content
while staying within the parameters of the canon. Nevertheless, little, if any, of
this type of content finds its way into