Beyond Consent: Patriarchal Pedagogy and the Narration of Harm in Paula Bonet's La anguila (2021)

Spain's post-La Manada debates have defined sexual ethics through the language of consent. Paula Bonet's autobiographical novel La anguila (2021) shifts this focus, revealing how patriarchal power is sustained through education. This article argues that the portrayal of a consensual professor-student relationship exposes how a pedagogical bond that becomes sexual generates forms of harm that exceed the ethical and legal limits of consent discourse, distorting the student's understanding of herself, her sexuality, and her self-expression. Formally, the novel's composition of letters, memories, and poetry resists coherence, defying the expectations of linear and objective testimony often imposed on survivors of sexual harm. Bonet ultimately envisions creation and teaching as collective practices of repair.