Meena Kandasamy on Misogyny & Incels in ‘Fieldwork as a Sex Object’

Meena Kandasamy explores deepfakes, revenge porn, incels and online misogyny in Fieldwork as a Sex Object, a darkly comic novel examining how digital abuse can rapidly spill into real-world violence.

At the centre of the story is Amrita ‘Amy’ Chaturvedi, whose life unravels after a deepfake pornographic video of her circulates across social media and WhatsApp groups.

The novel also interrogates influencer culture, performative politics and Hindu nationalism, while questioning how women are judged and punished online.

Its themes feel especially timely amid growing concerns around AI-generated nudification tools and coordinated harassment campaigns targeting women.

Blending satire with sharp social commentary, Kandasamy presents a story where the online world becomes inseparable from lived reality.

Ahead of its release on May 21, 2026, Meena Kandasamy chats to DESIblitz about the inspiration behind the novel, the rise of online misogyny and why women must refuse to be shamed into silence.

Technology, Misogyny and the Threat of Online Exposure

Meena Kandasamy believes the rapid growth of technology has exposed how quickly digital spaces can become hostile towards women, especially outspoken women.

That anger and anxiety sit at the centre of Fieldwork as a Sex Object, which explores deepfakes, revenge porn, online pile-ons and the wider culture of misogyny surrounding them.

She says: “You see technology make advances and you are rattled at how quickly they can turn anti-women, and especially anti-outspoken women.

“I have seen at close quarters how the simple act of women sharing their intimate pictures has eventually turned into revenge porn, which in turn has been deployed as a tool of threat and blackmail, used to rape and gang-rape women, and to recruit more victims.”

Kandasamy frames revenge porn or AI-generated abuse as tools of coercion rooted in wider societal attitudes towards women’s sexuality.

“The threat of online leaks is very real for ordinary women, and many of them resort to extreme steps, afraid of society’s judgment.

“I wanted to write to all women and tell them that we cannot let something so fleeting, so f***ed-up, so fake, tear us down.”

Although the novel feels sharply relevant to current debates around AI, Kandasamy believes the story would not become outdated.

For her, the underlying misogyny was always going to outlast technological trends:

“I started writing this in 2020.

“I did not feel that any of this book would be dated, for two reasons: one, misogyny of the scale that we were witnessing would not go away easily; and two, when you are writing about female sexuality, you are always one step ahead of the curve.”

Humour and Refusal to be Defined by Abuse

Despite the darkness of its themes, Fieldwork as a Sex Object relies heavily on humour and satire.

Kandasamy uses wit as a way of disrupting the suffocating nature of online abuse and preventing the story from collapsing into despair.

She states: “When the theme is dark and hideous, you need to let in light.”

That approach is reflected through Amy, the protagonist, who refuses to accept victimhood despite being targeted by harassment and public humiliation.

Rather than presenting her as broken by abuse, Kandasamy portrays her as confrontational, sharp and defiant:

“It is her spunk that allows Amy to navigate the world, and someone like that will fight back with all she has – she will also find a way to eat up her detractors.”

Amy represents a familiar reality for many women navigating online spaces.

Abuse campaigns, anonymous trolling and orchestrated outrage have become embedded within the experience of visibility on the internet, particularly for women who speak publicly about politics, gender or power.

Kandasamy explains: “I think she is a stand-in for a lot of us: women navigating the digital public sphere where hate, abuse, lies, and scandals are thrown at you from anonymous accounts, and you have to face these online mob lynchings from multiple quarters.”

Kandasamy also uses Amy to interrogate the contradictions of online activism and performative politics. The character’s communist persona and privileged upbringing create tensions around authenticity, credibility and public performance.

“She could be accused of performative politics. There is no denying that there are a lot of grifters out there.”

At the same time, Kandasamy argues:

“But there are also a lot of jobless, virtue-signalling warriors online whose entire occupation is to cancel anyone who speaks, cast aspersions on anyone who challenges power, and find some loophole to make critics less credible.

“They are there to enable oppression, not fight it. Amy, as a character, is in strife with these charlatans as well.”

Incels and the Reality of Online Violence

The novel also examines incel culture and organised misogyny, which Kandasamy sees as deeply tied to contemporary internet culture.

She says: “Incels are by definition chronically online and pathologically misogynistic, so they are in multiple ways a contiguous group.

“There is a definite subculture, one that has now grown to include men’s rights groups as well, and they’re far noisier than their actual numbers.”

For Kandasamy, the tactics associated with incel culture have increasingly spread into wider political and ideological spaces. Coordinated harassment, disinformation and public pile-ons are no longer confined to fringe online forums.

“I also think the incel playbook is now used by all kinds of interlopers – neoliberal political parties, for example.”

Those observations are informed by her own experiences with sustained online abuse.

She recalls: “Beginning in 2012, when I first faced acid-attack, gang-rape, and death threats for a tweet, it has never abated.

“It has only intensified, ending in bomb threats and threats against my own children.”

Her comments reflect broader concerns around how online radicalisation and misogynistic rhetoric can escalate into physical harm.

Meena Kandasamy argues that anonymous accounts often mask organised political intentions rather than random acts of trolling.

“People come and pacify you, saying it is some random anonymous account, but the scary reality is that there are actual people with actual political agendas behind this.”

She points to the murder of Jo Cox as evidence that violent rhetoric online cannot be dismissed as harmless:

“British MP Jo Cox was murdered.

“We can never take the hate lightly or believe that just because it is online or virtual, it is any less real.

“The spillover is one hundred per cent there. It is all the more frightening because once this was the domain of the far right.

“At the moment, it has become a toolkit in the hands of anyone who is power-hungry.”

Challenging Judgment and Reclaiming Agency

Across Fieldwork as a Sex Object, Meena Kandasamy repeatedly returns to the idea of public judgment and the speed with which women are condemned online.

Much of the abuse explored in the novel depends on shame, surveillance and the expectation that women should feel ruined by sexual exposure.

Kandasamy wants readers to interrogate those instincts within themselves, especially when witnessing online pile-ons against women.

She says: “If everyone stops for a moment and checks themselves before jumping to judgment about a woman; if every reader sees a pile-on going on against a woman online and realises these are orchestrated attacks; if readers, especially my women readers, can be absolutely defiant when any man threatens them about any old nude they have sent, the book would have achieved its goal.”

Rather than centring humiliation, she positions defiance as the novel’s driving force.

Even while exploring misogyny, deepfakes and organised hate, Meena Kandasamy ultimately focuses on the ways women continue to resist systems designed to silence them.

Through Fieldwork as a Sex Object, Meena Kandasamy examines the collision between technology, misogyny and political extremism without separating online abuse from its real-world consequences.

She highlights wider anxieties surrounding AI-generated deepfakes, coordinated harassment and the growing normalisation of misogynistic rhetoric across digital spaces.

At the same time, the novel refuses to frame its central character through victimhood alone, instead focusing on resistance, defiance and the politics of public judgement.

By combining satire with sharp social commentary, Kandasamy explores how internet culture shapes ideas around gender, sexuality and power in increasingly volatile ways.

Fieldwork as a Sex Object by Meena Kandasamy is published in hardback on May 21 by Brazen Books.