Consent capital: From Romantasy’s “Alpha male archetypes” toward a new cultural theory in post-digital storytelling

Abstract

The article introduces the concept of “consent capital” to analyze how writing and reading romantasy, a leading book genre on contemporary bookish platforms often criticized for its young female communities and “trivial” nature, has become a site for political discourse. Drawing on feminist research on romance since the 1980s, and theories on consent culture and cultural capital, the analysis traces romantasy’s role in the post-digital storytelling of body politics, particularly after 2016. Through a comparative analysis of contemporary romantasy series, exemplified by a case study on Rebecca Yarros’s Empyrean series and a focus on “alpha male archetypes,” the article argues that notions of consent, bodily autonomy, and trauma have been transformed into a form of cultural capital, which is actively practiced, but also discussed and aesthetically reflected upon on social media platforms. In post-digital storytelling, it informs cultural value debates and commodification strategies on “sides” like BookTok, where romantasy’s fictional renegotiations of consent capital intersect with the current political, legal and cultural debates on “consent” in countries in the “Global North”.