Queeronomics: Neoliberal Co-Optation Of Queer Masculinities

Mudar Al-Khufash

Dating apps such as Grindr, sex parties, and Truvada PrEP are popular products among queer subjects. By examining these products, this article claims that the current manifestations of queerness and the term queer are not political. It was first articulated by activist group ACT UP to address the political, social, and cultural marginalization of sexual minorities. But rather a neoliberal co-option of the term queer and queer masculinities. By situating neoliberalism and queerness as historical counterparts, the piece argues that while the former spread as an ideological hegemony, it co-opted, commodified, depoliticized, and fragmented the latter. The article utilizes the terms emodity1, postmodern theory and identity-forming, biopolitics, and decoloniality2 as a theoretical frame to dissect these products as a way to criticize contemporary queerness and as a way out of neoliberal co-optation.

Due to word count limitations, the article will only go through ‘Sites of Co-optation’ and ‘Speculative Future’. For the complete article, please contact the magazine for a pdf copy.

For the purpose of this publication, we will

skip the contextual settings and cut into sites

where co-optation occurs. From affiliation

with LGBTQIA+ rights and the appearance

of tolerance to recreational sex, relationships,

and bodies of queer subjects. Moreover,

we will draw parallels between ‘Network

Capitalism’ beliefs, how it influenced the

formation of the products mentioned earlier

and how these products helped shape queer

identities in the form of these products.

The first site of co-optation that we begin with is recreational sex. Following, emodity3, a term coined

by Eva Illouz, will help explain the experience economy that centers on consumption through experience

and emotional identification of consuming these products that become an integral part of forming one’s own identity.

“To consume it is not only to buy products, but also, to buy an identity”5 There are problems to consider in the idea

of liberation through sex. Sexual agency and the right to sexuality assume that politics are merely about individual resistance to the system and risk depoliticizing sexual minorities’ struggles. One can contest the state if one could have the luxury to do so. Otherwise, it only displaces and at the same time reproduces oppressive ideologies. It is also important to consider the ones that do not fit into the narrative of White universality or in the eurocentric epistemologies of personal freedoms and queerness.

The emergence of the new queer stereotype in media during the AIDS pandemic, and the commodification of “promiscuous queer lifestyle” depoliticized sex of its liberation ends, reduced to merely recreational sex, aligned with neoliberal ideals of experimentation, entrepreneurship, self-realization, and autonomy. Sex on this “upper” end is considered glamourous, fun consumerist sex culture (e.g. BDSM fashion, sex parties), and it tends to attach itself to emancipatory agendas and is seen as a form of “empowerment” and “transgression”. Unlike the “lower” end, exploitative circuits of sex in global capitalism (Agathangelou 2004), such as pornography, human trafficking, prostitution, and sex tourism.6

In practicing recreational sex on the “upper” side, a value is created in the affective labor associated with it. Subjects not only consume sexual commodities but also associate themselves with the free and empowered of those who have the power to affect and be affected. Thus recreational sex does not sell products per se but is a lifestyle commodity that fulfills several tastes and helps sustain individual identities. According to this understanding, recreational sex produces capital and social relations that legitimize and advance neoliberalism. This understanding, as Illouz explains, “also implies a new relationship between labor time and commodity as experiences.” Anticipatory excitement, relaxation, happiness, flirtatiousness, friendliness, are among the many emotional moods these experiences produce, before, during, and after their experience, “Consumers become “guests,” producers become “stagers of events”, and commodities into experiences” (Illouz 2017), which could be described as “experience economy,” where the act of consumption is equipped with performativity, which is what makes such consumption feel so authentic. 7

As of queer masculinities’ consumption of recreational sex, we can take the internationally acclaimed gay fetish-focused party Snax taking place at the Berlin club Berghain twice a year as an example, and as described by Gracia:

“In its current incarnation, Snax takes place in the spring and autumn of every year: on Easter Weekend and sometime in November or early December. While the autumn edition of the event always adheres to the same sports-fetish theme (‘FC Snax’), the Easter edition constantly selects new eroticized themes to guide the design of its spaces. The realization of these goes well beyond decorative accents; an immense investment of time, resources, and energies goes into thoroughly redesigning the dance- and play-spaces according to these themes. For example, the 2014 edition featured a military setting, for which a complete military field-camp was built in the Kubus area, including army-issue canvas tents representing various functions (medic, canteen, bunks, intelligence) filled with relevant furnishings and equipment. Throughout the sprawling sex-labyrinth built in the rearmost section of the building, camouflage canvas netting was draped along with other elements that evoked both a battlefield and a training obstacle course.” 8

What we could draw from this description, in a sex party, the consumed commodity is, in fact, the experience, organized within a set time slot and alternative spatial frame, by the fact that the commodity purchased can be encapsulated as a biographical event (“my party at Snax”); and by the fact that the experience is highly aestheticized: set-up and induced by spatial layout, music, clothing, objects, architectural and interior design which correspond to highly aestheticized symbols. 9

Emotions, in this sense, exist empirically within a network of organizations, objects, images, and discourses.

The consumption activities and the money generated by the scope of such an event, including ticket sales, sales of beverages, or indirectly as in investing in apparel ( mandatory to suit an identity that fits the event/community), transportation, hotel accommodation, buying recreational drugs, and so forth, are vast.

Consumption activities here are seen as a more integral part of forming identities and ideal authenticity10. They did not adapt itself to consumers' pre-existing needs and desires; instead, it shaped the consumer in the image of the products it produced.11 Individualism and the awareness of the possibility of one choosing one's own identity, what differentiates each individual from another is a set of consumption choices and experiences.12 Which excites subjects to research potential identities and cultural consumption activities to navigate different identities to fit all situations. By changing their identities, consumers always aspire to be socially desired. 13

Therefore, products are bought not only for their use-value but also for the emotional experience they provide and the emotional charge embedded with these items. Thus what motivates us to consume are emotions, and the cost-benefit value is not a deciding guideline. The value is immaterial, cognitive, and aesthetic; it touches the consumer deeper than the actual product itself, helping to boost self-confidence, self-worth, and feelings of happiness. According to Jean Baudrillard, what we purchase is not just a product but also a piece of “language,” a signifier that creates a sense of who we are. Our purchases reflect our innermost desires so that consumption is caught up with our psychological production of self14.

Queer identities are thus self-constructed; they convey the outsider image, the odd, the rebellious against the normative patriarchal systems. The consumer is then an actor and producer of meaning. The act of consumption has become the process by which people define themselves in contemporary society. 15

Historical processes going back to the civil unrest in France in May 1968 16, that led to critique co-optation, and the acknowledgment of workers' feelings, and later the inclusion of minorities' rights helped intensify private life in the work sphere and elevated emotions to a more moral claim. However, unfortunately, by this adjustment, capitalism increased its legitimacy and helped expand consumer capitalism and further commodify emotions and subjects.

As we have seen how neoliberal co-optation of concepts like queerness work, we can see how this contributes to its depoliticization.

Grindr: Alone Together

The adaptation of the logic of the new spirit of capitalism — network capitalism — in machine-mediated relationships on networked devices is what I seek to point out here. The hook-ups or dating apps are the second site of neoliberal co-option of queer masculinities. I do not doubt and do acknowledge the vast positive aspects these dating apps offer, enhancing friendship, connections, education, safety, and recreation. This section's aim is not to judge or criticize these new communication technologies. It instead aims to explain how we are changing as technology offers these new ways of communicating. How self-commodification, Othering, and instant messaging have changed the expectations of our relationships to ourselves and others, how boundaries between intimacy and solitude are redrawn, and how identity formation is influenced and reconceptualized by these new technologies.

"The politics of consumption must be understood as something more than what to buy, or even what to boycott. Consumption is a social relationship, the dominant relationship in our society, one that makes it harder and harder for people to hold together to create community. At a time when for many of us the possibility of meaningful change seems to elude our grasp, it is a question of immense social and political proportions. To establish popular initiative, consumerism must be transcended-a difficult but central task facing all people who still seek a better way of life."

Elizabeth Ewen emphasize in Channels of Desire

Affect creation and massive body mobilization

allowed sex to be commodified for immediate

consumption and without any consequences. Relationships are sold on the market through dating apps as a form of sexual experience or an adventure.

Its value is in experiences provided by the act

of consumption itself. Practicing recreational sex,

as mentioned in the previous subchapter, as a way

of self-liberation and transgression create value

and accumulation of social wealth by those who

are physically lucky and socially privileged, and

who can cause an effect on others and could afford

living up to this idylle.

The needs for flexibility, free from strongly

binding commitment, mobility, autonomy, experimentalism, and entrepreneurship are neoliberal ideals and, safe to say, the logic behind

machine-mediated-relationships. The postmodern

`deconstruction of immortality’ - as Zygmunt

Bauman describes it in his article “On Postmodern

Uses of Sex”, the Postmodern tends to cut off the

present from both past and future, flatting time

and compresses it into the experience “(Erlebnis)

of the Jetztzeit,” which could be lived through as

“an intense Erlebnis of the now.” 17 This logic followed universal trends that affect in equal measure arts, politics, life strategies, and virtually every other culture area. Bauman gives a good example illustrating this trend: “Works of art, once meant to last `beyond the grave,’ are replaced with deliberately short-lived happenings and once-off installations.”

Alternatively, similar to one-night-stands instead

of long committed relationships.

He continues to explain how the cut of the

present from past and future paralleled cutting

eroticism apart from reproduction and love (exclusive loyalty). He ascribes the suitability of this postmodern culturally produced form of erotism, a product, in what he calls “Free-floating” 18 (cut from its both ends, productive and love), to attend the kind of free-floating identity — also a postmodern cultural product — which “is calculated for maximal impact and instant gratification.” Following this logic, romantic relationships have been redeployed as an economic factor and culturally processed through systems characterized by the simultaneous

deployment of images, pictures, and concepts.

According to the new spirit of capitalism logic, as Eve Chiapillo and Luka Boltanski articulated19-20, flexibility is the absolute virtue in the postmodern era. The postmodern avoid one-way paths that hinder the potential of experiencing endless possibilities and pleasures. Their identity is malleable, constantly adapting and adjusting, and can fit in different situations and projects. This aspect constitutes all aspects of postmodern identity, making it permanently underdetermined, incomplete, and always ready for change. Dating apps exploit these aspects, designing the apps in a way that is making app use addictive. Such apps use notifications that appear on the screen when users receive a message or match with other users. The notification system hijacks the brain’s system of reward learning, keeping individuals hooked. Over time, the user may begin to experience a reward response simply from the notification. Knowing something good is about to happen makes us feel more pleasure than the good thing itself 21.

The apps felicitate the endless networked potential of romantic or sexual partners, users can contact many people at once yet keep them at bay. Networked communication gives the illusion of choice and is a source of anxiety and fear of missing out on the potential of body pleasure-giving sensation and the illusion of more control over our relationships, conflict-free and with the amount of intensity the user sets 22. Moreover, the apps use advertisement slogans packed with neoliberal rhetoric that embrace the virtues of remaining unattached, such as “Single Does What Single Wants,” or “over 3 billion men in the world, why see a 100 a time” that implies excess variety as a positive aspect and is associated with freedom. It encourages a model of relationships based on extraction and objectification— an approach to interpersonal relationships that creates a sphere of uncertainty. In this sense relationships are reduced into “mere connections” 23 and connections into machine intimacies at the convenience of our pockets. “Blurring intimacy and solitude,” as articulated by Sherry Truckle in her book Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other (hence the title name of this subchapter), Turkle explains how networked communication provides a place for the emergence of a new state of the self. 24 A place where one can edit, adjust, become more, and project a more desirable image better than real-world reality. A process of commodification the following part will explain.

Self-Commodification and Weakening of Social Bonds

In a neoliberal capitalist hegemony, the more significant part of us is socially and

culturally shaped and indoctrinated by advertising and media as sensation-seekers.

Consumer behavior and the consumer self have been recruited to the market

through cognition–affect–body complex 25. A coherent meaning system about

the good life is provided by media and advertising, and could be summarized as:

“freedom of choice is a fundamental human right”; “youth and a shapely body are

preferable to old age”; “goods provide respectability”; “happiness is a matter of

having everything one needs." 26 To reach these ideals, people in consumer culture

society must “recast themselves as commodities.” 27 Thus, “men and women

must meet the conditions of eligibility defined by market standards; with consumers

“driven by the need to “commoditize” themselves – remake themselves into

attractive commodities."28

This logic of seeing oneself as a commodity encourages people to think of

the self in terms of visual clues other people can see and evaluate. Clues such as

the shape of our bodies, the clothing one chooses, the places one hangs out, and

the choice of food. Clues which we evaluate others by and think others evaluate us

by. The body becomes the surface which objects of consumption get registered

and gain their social meaning.29

The process of self-modification on the hook-up apps starts when one opens

a profile. As in online stores selling material goods, users engage in self-branding

to market themselves as desirable commodities, a process of self-stylization for

self-transformation. By entering their specifics in their profile: height, eye color,

ethnicity, body type, tribes, to name a few, and selecting the best images of oneself

that would present the product in its best light, angle, and settings. Users create a

flattened version of themselves, an avatar existing on an online profile.

Commodification, individualization, and the social change brought by the

new spirit of capitalism weakened the solidity and security once provided by steady

romantic partnerships and family structure. Computer dating has transformed

romance and courtship into a sort of entertainment consumable experience where

users date securely with the knowledge that they could always return to the market

for another round of shopping. Hook-ups apps provide a platform for extensive

networks of endless romantic possibilities, eroding committed partnerships. This

excess weakens bonds, an essential condition for the successful social production

of sensation and experience gatherers, who become fully effective consumers.30

By staying single and uncommitted, ready to move and seek pleasure, dating

apps guarantee themselves more users (buyers and sellers), more user time,

and more money to accumulate. The financial profit is made not by physical labor

but in the user cognitive engagement and active performative participation in the

experience.

The commodification of The Other: The New Delight

Part of the positive arguments regarding using dating apps like Grindr is

that it provides a safer communication environment for men seeking men

(for sexual or romantic relationships). As mentioned in the above chapter,

networked communication facilitated through dating apps also provides

control and efficiency.31 One curious option, found in dating apps settings

and similar to those found in online shops, is the filters. To “enhance” the

user experience and make it more efficient, users can custom-make their

search, by setting up the parameters from age and height, to body type

and ethnicity, and by doing so, the profile selection showing on the app’s

grid is fit according to the user’s liking. On the one hand, filtering out ethnicities

can help marginalized groups find others of similar ethnicities in

a predominantly White space. On the other hand, users could use it as a

covert racist tool to exercise exclusion or even “inclusion” in the form of racist

affinity for the Other. Due to public pressure, some dating apps have recently

removed the ethnicity filter or made it an extra option with a paid monthly

subscription. However, removing the ethnicity filter does not necessarily

solve the problem. Dating apps represent a segment of the broader society;

the power structure, norms, and narratives are still in place and very present

on dating apps32.

Other manifestations of overt racism presented under the banner of

“personal preference” are statement such as the infamous “No Fats, No

Femmes, No Asians, No Blacks”, these are publicly stated in profiles and

usually explicitly expressed by white men, as research shows (Callander,

Holt, & Newman, 2012; Callander, Holt, & Newman, 2016).

Drawing information and findings from a research study by Wade

and Gary W. Harper, “the sentiments and perspectives of the dominant

group (White gay men) exert influence over gay/bisexual men of color within

the social/sexual landscape. As such, it will be important for researchers

to continue examining how Whiteness dictates the sexual and romantic

playing field, both passively (e.g. cultural beauty ideals) and actively (e.g.,

perpetuating and promoting racial sexual discrimination).”33

But what is more interesting in the research findings are the overt

manifestations of racism presented as inclusion. BIPOC participants in the

study spoke of the “eroticization” of their bodies by White gay men, but only

in the context of “situational sexual desire” and not as “viable romantic

partners.”34 Stereotypes attributed to the dark Other and sustained through

coherent meaning by the media, traits such as "thuggish Black guy 35, or the

violent Arab man 36", are well-established and documented representations

and are reinforced in these virtual spaces. Participants in the research also

expressed feelings of being fetishized and reduced to sexual objects by

scripts assuming sexual performances and characteristics attributed to

them, “For example, all racial/ethnic groups (including Black men) attributed

a large penis”. Or assuming that the dark Other would be a top. Sex with the

Other is described as “hot” or “passionate”. The “primitive” 37, the body of

the dark Other and engaging with them sexually represents an adventure

and experience to consume an act upon. That “symbolic frontier” 38 as,

bell hooks puts it in her book Black Looks, a place

for change and transformation and reconstruction

of the White self. Unlike covert racism that seeks to

dominate the Other, this overt manifestation of racism

by White men, don’t consider themselves racist,

but “they believe their desire for contact represents a

progressive change in White attitudes towards non-

Whites.” 39

As the Western postmodern is encouraged

to constantly seek pleasure, and the further commodification

of Otherness through diversity initiatives

“has led the White West to sustain a romantic

fantasy of the ‘primitive’ and the concrete search for

a real primitive paradise, whether that location is a

country or a body, a dark continent or dark flesh, perceived

as the perfect embodiment of that possibility.”

The consumption of the Other, in the pre-context of

inclusion, exchange, and eradication of difference

in the arena of sexual “primitive” fantasy “not only

displaces the Other but denies the significance of

that Other's history through a process of decontextualization”

(bell hooks, Black Looks 1992)

The research by Wade and Harpers, points

out that “sexual stereotypes influenced participants’

decision-making around selecting partners, and

thus these sexual decision-making processes were

racialized in nature. To this end, common “sexual

scripts” in gay culture often perpetuate racialized

stereotyping as it pertains to sex and sexuality, which

in turn organizes the structure of gay/bisexual men’s

sexual networks.” 40

When considering these dynamics in place,

and the tendency toward maintaining the social

acceptance of sexual discrimination, these virtual

places are safer for one group, but not very safe for

the marginalized Other. The anonymity provided

by using the app allowed for the rise of these racist

manifestations and microaggressions directed at the

dark Other and perpetuated by the White dominant

group. Unlike physical spaces, where social consequences

of covert racism are almost unavoidable, in

virtual spaces one can hide behind the screen without

suffering the consequences.

Truvada: Saved by The Pill?

The antiviral medication market has a value of 36.1 billion USD and is

projected to reach 44.2 billion by 202641. Half of the 50 licensed antiviral

compounds are used to treat HIV. Queer masculinities’ bodies are

among the highest groups in contracting HIV. Queer masculinities’ bodies

are among the highest groups in contracting HIV42 and the third site of

co-optation. Here we will focus on Truvada, the antiviral medication used

as Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) that inhibits exposure to HIV from

leading to infection. I do not doubt that PrEP is an important and valuable

tool to fight the spreading of HIV; I am myself a user of PrEP and have

benefited from its use. The aim is not to criticize PrEP or its users; instead,

this article would like to shed light on the social, neoliberal aspects and

capitalist interests behind using these medications. How these medications

change sexual behavior norms among queer subjects producing

new queer subjectivities, and how it could democratize sexuality and

depoliticize queer subjects and legitimize the capitalist neoliberal order.

Firstly, the financial aspect and pharmacopower will be discussed

and its interests, with the help of Paul Preciado’s concept of pharmacopornography

capitalism and lastly how the democratization of sexuality

could lead to the legitimization of capitalism and co-optation.

The Price of Chemical Condoms

Looking at the financial aspects and power generated from antiviral medication,

and the way leading antiviral producing companies handle the pricing

and the participation in the HIV research, the question imposes itself, whether

the purpose of Truvada is really to improve the lives of its users or to optimize

exploitability and compliance.

Maintaining the societal status quo of neoliberal beliefs-set that helped

shape late capitalist societies in the shape of the products it produces means to

guarantee production flow of highly priced antiviral medicines and high profits

generation for companies producing these medications. These HIV Antiviral

medications save lives when taken daily by blocking the virus from reproducing

and undermining the body’s defense systems. They are given to HIV-positive

patients and as prophylaxis against contracting HIV among high-risk groups,

mainly men having sex with men, demonstrating its high efficiency against

contracting HIV type 1 virus when taken every day. “Chemical condoms,” as Paul

Preciado calls it in his book An Apartment On Uranus. Truvada, an antiviral pill

produced by Gilead Sciences, was approved in 2013 by the FDA, The US Food

and Drugs Administration, as Pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, to be administered

daily for high-risk groups. Before the generic was available, Truvada was

sold at 1200 USD for a one-month supply and generated three milliards USD

in the first year alone. 43

According to Aids Map and The Global PrEP Tracker, 1.307.561 (one-third

of men who have sex with men worldwide) have taken PrEP since the second

half of 2021, only a third of the UNAIDS 2020 target. 44 A related problem is

the still-high cost for HIV drugs, as pharma companies creatively use legal

frameworks and patents to maximize profit, contrary to the interest of patients,

potential PrEP-users, and the general public. The pricing of these medications

is especially disgraceful given that public research institutes financed the major

PrEP studies. And the pills are toxic to kidney and liver function as well as bone

density, among other complications related to their long-term use. In 2018 the

FDA approved the use of Gilead Sciences’ Descovy as PrEP, a newer patent

formulation of Truvada. Smaller in size, less toxic, and has fewer side effects

with a price tag of 1200 USD for a one-month supply. If PrEP-users’ health and

optimum well-being is the concern of Gilead, then the price tag of Descovy

nulles it out. Especially considering that the significant development of PrEP was

lead by gay stakeholders in the initial most crucial PrEP-MSM study.45 Some

argue that Gilead is using gays to create a bigger market and exploit PrEP users

economically, given that the number of uninfected people is higher than those

infected. Others point out that Gilead “donated” the pills for the PrEP research

and has not financed these studies as a counterargument. Considering that

the research on HIV medication is publically funded, and the financial benefits

in the prospect of selling Truvada for healthy people are very high. According to

ACT UP, the pill cost the manufacturer 20 US cents, 6 USD a month, whereas

Gilead sold Truvada at 1500 USD. Not to mention the public image and the

benefits Gilead may acquire by “donating” pills. I propose that a multinational

pharma company like Gilead would not engage in charitable activities without

a win-win situation.

Production of New Subjectivities

“In the fields of biotechnology and pornocommunication,

there are no objects to produce; it’s a matter

of inventing a subject and producing it on a global

scale.” Paul Preciado

According to Preciado, we live in a

Pharmacopornographic capitalist era, that had its

beggings during the Cold War era, which is when

the United States put more money into scientific

research regarding sex and sexuality than any other

country in the world. Changes in late capitalism

were not only characterized by the transformation

of gender, sex, sexuality and sexual indtities into

products to be managed and monetized upon, but

they are also managed through advanced technocapitalism,

global media, and biotechnologies.

Based on his idea, the pharmaceutical industry, the

porn industry, and late capitalism are intertwined

in their responsibility for the cycles of reproductive

and social control through the regulation of bodies.

In this type of capitalism, there are no objects to

produce; but rather inventing a subject and producing

it on a global scale. Preciado claims that power

nowadays works on the molecular level, through

pharmaceutics which have become an intrinsic part

of sexuality. In other words: social control is not only

occurring through the psychological mechanism of

identification (nonbinary, trans, queer, gay, lesbian

or heterosexual) but also through the mediciations

we ingest (viagra, contraceptive pills or PrEP) to

become the sexual beings we aspire to be. This profoundly

changes sexuality by technologizing it, and

allowing for new surveillance and control. Preciado

also explains how pornogrpahy produces desire and

has full access to our bodies in the services of creating

profit.46

In the pre-AIDS era, sex without condoms

was standard in gay pornography, the majority of

producers started to ask performers to wear condoms

during the 1980s. In the late 1990s, ‘bareback’

videos started to surface, as a sort of sexual terrorism

as Preciado put it. Out of the research done by Sharif

Mowlabocus from 2013, many of the interviewees

found that bareback or condomless sex is hotter and

Democratization = Legitimization

Thanks to the prevalent use of PrEP among men who have sex with

men, the stigma around non-heterosexual sex and the distinction

between heterosexuality and homosexuality seems to be dissolving.

As a result, queer sexuality went from being a marginalized subculture

to be commodified and regulated by neoliberal capitalism. This gives

the impression that homophobia is no longer an issue, and which could

further depoliticize queerness and legitimize capitalism. It is important

to bear in mind that Truvada emerged from fear of the “gay plague”

and is rooted in homophobia.

Instead of organizing and contesting the neoliberal capitalist

and patriarchal systems that cause much of the shame, guilt, rejection,

exclusion, and discrimination48 that queer people go through, the conditions

that lead queer subjects to engage in risky sexual and addictive

behavior. Instead of understanding the stresses and the responsibilities

that neoliberal consumerist societies put on the individual to perform

and consistently achieve, the loss of financial and job insecurities, the

conflicts raging all over the world, and the effect of climate crisis that

become more apparent and more real, all of which leads to feelings of

anxiety, instabilities, and loneliness. Instead of rethinking individuality

and what sexual freedoms mean in relation to others among high-risk

groups and the approach to sex as a product to consume without consequences,

as sex consumption and the excitement that surrounds the

experience of meeting new people which, like any other consumption if

over consumed, can quickly become an addiction, a coping mechanism

that in most cases has negative consequences on the individual.

Queerness and queer subjects in their current manifestation

are depoliticized and co-opted under the banner of tolerance and the

illusion of liberation through legislative and medical means and are

encouraged to sustain the new spirit of capitalism, be dependable on

pharma and state-controlled apparatus to regulate and monitor queer

bodies with antiviral medications supposedly freeing queer individuals.

The new spirit of capitalism conditioned most of us to think of

the self in visual clues and as a malleable desirable product, aspiring

for beauty standards and lifestyles that are almost unattainable. Queer

subjects help to create further co-opted spaces with no political ends

that are exclusive and racist and make all sorts of consumption possible

and glamorous under flickering colored lights and decorated spaces, a

spectacle of indulgence and extraction of the Other in forms matching

one’s conception of needs, “rights” and personal freedom. It is essential

to ask whether Truvada has cleared queer subjects of the aforementioned

conditions or has only treated a symptom. Are we winning the

fight against the AIDS pandemic, or is the pandemic rather structural

discrimination and homophobia? Is Truvada another tool to legitimize

capitalism and its oppressive structures?

more authentic. According to the interviewees, the

hotness lies in the fact that it represents a taboo or

something they should not be doing47. What used to

be a porn market niche, a dissident and a transgressive

act, is now co-opted. Bareback (condomless

sex) nowadays is the industry standard and is no longer

considered transgressive or taboo. By condom

use becoming less desirable and being considered

less hot, PrEP is becoming the new safer sex norms

and is putting pressure on more queer subjects to

take it. With this, the pharma industry managed to

create new subjectivities with the help of pornography.

PrEP constructs the consumers’ subjectivity

to be projected toward the future, as, unlike condoms,

they are not taken during the sexual act but

in advance. This way, PrEP alters the users’ lifetime

and body, their imagination and the perception of

possibilities and interactions, producing new forms

of relationships, desire and feeling with it. Through

the absence of physical preservatives, like condoms,

paradoxically, the PrEP-user gains the impression

of absolute sexual independence and autonomy,

when in fact their body is mediated by highly complex

pharmaceutical technologies.

The research cost of these medications is

enormous, but reproduction and distribution on a

global scale are not. The real work lies in the production

of new subjectivities that would use these

medications. These new gay or queer subjectivities

are the product of the Pharmacopornographic

industrial complex.