Capitalism and Sexuality
Capitalism and Sexuality
This chapter picks up on the issues of temporality and psychoanalysis as recurring problematics in previous chapters to explore the implications of Deleuze’s rejection of the productivity of the orgasm and sexual pleasure in relation to his and Guattari’s Marx- inspired conception of capitalism. The capitalist movements of de- and recoding that liberate flows only to reclaim and employ them in the service of capital are used to analyse ways in which sexual pleasure and the orgasm are put in the service of capital production. This ‘capture’ of sexuality, which Deleuze and Guattari analyse in Anti- Oedipus, is one of the reasons why it is left behind in their development of a more creative conceptualisation of impersonal desire. The chapter shows how the ‘money shot’ in pornographic film is emblematic of the way in which sexuality is captured by capitalist flows and agrees with Deleuze that facialised forms of sexual pleasure offer little in terms of creativity. However, this chapter argues, by lingering with this paranoiac movement of capture Deleuze remains blind to the revolutionary potential of sexual pleasure. Rather despite themselves, Deleuze and Guattari’s project of creating schizzo- flows which unsettle capitalist and Oedipal economies can be employed to develop a more productive understanding of the orgasm.
Keywords: Capitalism, Labour, Economic capture, Territorialization, Facialization, Money shot, Schizzo- flows
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