Art Beyond Facial Value: of Metaphorization and Functionality of Sexual Scenes in Selected Nigerian Short Stories in the Cyberspace

Abstract

This paper sets out to examine selected short stories published in digital media as expression of twenty first century youth culture with the exploration of sexual scenes as a paradigm. Digital literature is a relatively new type of text which has created a fluid space for digital interactions enabling writers to express themselves informally using sexual scenes as motif. The digital media platform offers new systems and cultures of expression which challenge the pre-existing modes and forms of literature of the hard text captured mainly in the features of immediacy. Immediacy in cyberspace constitutes rebellion in digital literature and also represents literary creativity. This type of literature uses informal language and undisguised representation of sex as a part of its distinguishing features. The aim of this paper therefore is to explicate the functionality of sexual scenes in digital literature and how it represents social norms that constitute expressions of dissent to conventional portrayal of sexual scenes in print literature using remediation as the theoretical framework.

Key Words: Sex, Deviance, Digital Literature, Nigeria, Cyberspace