Rethinking transgression: disgust, affect, and sexuality in Charlotte Roche's Wetlands

This article explores the critical reaction to Charlotte Roche's novel Wetlands, and considers the ways in which this reaction reflects contemporary thinking on sex and transgression. While reviewers position the text as the site of a subversive politics and a specifically sexualized form of affect, much of the affective power of Wetlands lies less in its treatment of sex than in its largely ignored descriptions of the revolting body. Via an analysis of the different forms of affect in operation within Wetlands, this article will explore whether the association of sex with politically charged subversion may now be subsiding.