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    Kayla Heddens

    Kayla Heddens

    Department of Sociology and Criminology
    Adjunct Faculty
    Campus:
    Kent
    Contact Information
    Email:
    kheddens@kent.edu

    Biography

    My dissertation examines gender, consent scripting, and consent culture in “deviant” marginalized subcultures, particularly in members of the BDSM/ Kink community. This community highly values consent and structures its norms, values, attitudes, and sanctions to create a consent culture. I conduct qualitative interviews about participants' lived experiences within the BDSM/ Kink community to discover and evaluate how consent culture is created, enforced, and maintained and to what degree gender norms are subverted or reproduced within a consent culture. The project also examines consent culture as positive deviance. Implications for the impact of consent education are explored.

    Research and Academic Interests

    • Consent
    • Consent Culture
    • Gender and Sexualities- BDSM /Kink /Polyamorous /Queer communities
    • Deviance- Positive Deviance
    • Social Psychology- Symbolic Interactionism
    • Stigma

     

    Education

    Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Sociology from Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia.
    Master of Arts (M.A.) in Sociology  from , Kent, Ohio.

    Publications

    • Hilling, Alexis, Andro, Erin, Cagwin, Kayla. 2020. “Dominant Hasslin’ and Subordinate Hustlin’: A ContentAnalysis Using the Generic Processes that Reproduce Inequality” Pp. 8- 29 in Shameless Sociology: Critical Perspectives on a Popular Television Series

    Awards/Achievements

    • 2018 LEADS (Leadership, Excellence, Academic Achievement, Dedication, and Student Success) Award

    Documents

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    Department of Sociology and Criminology

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