What did he mean by a system of equivalence, or universal equivalence...

"Pornography is only the paradoxical limit of the sexual, a realistic exacerbation and a mad obsession with the real-this is the "obscene," etymologically speaking and in all senses. But isn't the sexual itself a forced materialization, and isn't the coming of sexuality already part of the Western notion of what is real-the obsession peculiar to our culture with "instancing" and instrumentalizing all things? Just as it is absurd to separate in other cultures the religious, the economic, the political, the juridical, and even the social and other phantasmagorical categories, for the reason that they do not occur there, and because these concepts are like so many venereal diseases with which we infect them in order to "understand" them better, so it is also absurd to give autonomy to the sexual as "instance" and as an irreducible given to which all other "givens" can be reduced. " (FF 38).

What on earth does this mean?

cont.
This is a perfect instance where Baudrillard's grammar is incomprehensible, specifically when deploys the analogy of how absurd it would be to separate XY and Z in other cultures... "for the reason that they do not occur there". What is this sentence getting at? It's crucial for his main thesis that sexuality (and, consequently, libidinal desire) is purely constructed and simulated

read Database Animals

I feel like I'm trying to grasp a slippery frog when I read this, so close but a couple key points are not so clear to me

Been re-reading for the past hour or so and it's driving me nuts.

The only thing I have is that while examining other cultures, the social categories we utilize to understand them (i.e. Religious, Economic, Political, Juridical) are themselves discourses imported from a Western system of organization that degenerate an "untouched" culture for the benefit of our own understanding. Similarly, with sex, pornography is a "a mad obsession with the real" insofar as it attempts to tabulate, represent, and understand the "production" of sex as a process of uncovering everything obscene and secret about it the same way the categories above attempt to uncover the secrets of culture.

I could by wildly wrong, and wrt to what he means by "it is also absurd to give autonomy to the sexual as "instance" and as an irreducible given to which all other "givens" can be reduced. " I'm lost

>almost 2018
>still Davidposting

what are you talking about

He's posting about Larry David, the guy in the photo

that is so fucking inane what is happening to this board

>Pornography is only the paradoxial limit of the sexual
Porn is an illusion, the hyperreal limit of sexuality, but is limited through the illusion itself
>A realistic exacerbation and a mad obsession with the real
The illusion is based in the material sense of sexuality, which is why it works as an illusion (hence why people self-insert)
>this is the "obscene"
Self-explanatory
>But isn't the sexual itself a forced materialization, and isn't the coming of sexuality already part of the Western notion of what is real
Sexuality is based within the material, in the sense of procreation, and is therefore seen in a Western notion as something purely material
>the obsession peculiar to our culture with "instancing" and instrumentalizing all things
The industrial manner of Western society is diametrically opposed to sexuality, due to it's purely material nature, not fully functional to industrial whims (hence why pornography is paradoxial)

The rest of the text is saying that since other cultures cannot seperate aspects of their categorical society, and that our "understanding" of their societies relies on the cultural virus that we transmit, that it is not possible for a virus like our culture, to not force sexuality in functionality, hence pornography

>hence why people self-insert
are you referring to gonzo porn or just substitution in general

>The industrial manner of Western society is diametrically opposed to sexuality, due to it's purely material nature, not fully functional to industrial whims (hence why pornography is paradoxical)
This is confusing to me, isn't it because of its purely material nature that it's so easily "instrumentalized" by industrial whims? How could a western society be diametrically opposed to sexuality if it's been producing it (in the sense of making it appear) for centuries?

>it is not possible for a virus like our culture, to not force sexuality in functionality, hence pornography
So is he claiming that pornography is the hyperreal, functional manifestation of sexuality?

>are you referring to gonzo porn or just substitution in general
substitution in general
>isn't it because of its purely material nature that it's so easily "instrumentalized" by industrial whims?
It's different from an industrial material (like say, furniture), since sexuality relies on the circumstance of an individual existence, and is approached by functionality in the hyperreal, instead of the characteristic of itself. Therefore, it cannot purely be instrumentalized
>How could a western society be diametrically opposed to sexuality
It is unapproachable to the functionality of industrial relation
>so is he claiming that pornography is the hyperreal, functional manifestation of sexuality?
You're correct

>"Pornography is only the paradoxical limit of the sexual, a realistic exacerbation and a mad obsession with the real-this is the "obscene,".

Paradoxical limit of the sexual, because its the height of the sexual, in pornography the highest limits of sexuality can be explored: But this is paradoxical it is the height, when pornography is consumed by many many people, who are not actually partaking in the sex.
>But isn't the sexual itself a forced materialization, and isn't the coming of sexuality already part of the Western notion of what is real-the obsession peculiar to our culture with "instancing" and instrumentalizing all things?

Sexual is forced materialization: It starts as an idea in the mind. The sexual comes into existence by minds with sexual ideas forcing those ideas to materialize.

Instancing and instrumentalizing all things: making boxes, categories, allotting time: It is not sex time, lets go to the sex room. It is now food time, lets go to the food room, and experience the instance of food.
>Just as it is absurd to separate in other cultures the religious, the economic, the political, the juridical, and even the social and other phantasmagorical categories,

In some more ancient cultures, like middle eastern, all these things are not so separate in western instant boxes, 'ok now its time to vote, now its the political instant', 'ok now its sunday, now we experience the religious instant'.
>for the reason that they do not occur there

The separate instances dont occur in these older cultures, but are all interwoven: see Islam?
>and because these concepts are like so many venereal diseases with which we infect them in order to "understand" them better

He seems to assume western forces its western boxes onto ancient or indigenous cultures in order to understand the cultures, actually my bad, just noticed the """""understand""""", under the guise of understanding, but likely ulterior motives for westernizing the nonwest, wink wink.
>so it is also absurd to give autonomy to the sexual as "instance" and as an irreducible given to which all other "givens" can be reduced."

The sexual maybe does not by and of itself exist in boxes, in instances, but is more alike the ancient development of entwinedness? I dont entirely get this part, maybe, speaking to and on people claiming 'the sexual' is the fundamental, primal earthly concept which all other concepts offshoot out of? But that is presuming that there are fundamentally earthlyly these neat boxes already, of which 'sex/sexual' is the most prime and fundamental, but maybe he is saying things aren't so linear and orderly?

>and is approached by functionality in the hyperreal, instead of the characteristic of itself. Therefore, it cannot purely be instrumentalized
This makes sense. Is there anything "human" that can be purely instrumentalized or is Baudrillard claiming that each dimension intrinsic to people (sexuality, rationality, creativity, etc.) can never be purely functional without an industrial, hyperreal counterpart?

>Sexual is forced materialization: It starts as an idea in the mind. The sexual comes into existence by minds with sexual ideas forcing those ideas to materialize.
This clears up a lot of confusion, good point.

I think you're right on the money with the idea of compartmentalization of sexuality (via instrumentalization of its physical manifestation -- the sexual).

>>so it is also absurd to give autonomy to the sexual as "instance" and as an irreducible given to which all other "givens" can be reduced."
Still struggling with this one as well but I think it may have to do with his criticism of Foucault's "bio-power". Where Foucault sees power and sexuality as a positive development (as opposed to its historical, negative etymology) he implicates sexuality and desire is an autonomy to which all things can be reduced which is false

Instrumentalizing maybe: the idea of using: I will use sex, or the female, or fetishes, as an instrument of pleasure, or an instrument to fulfill this desire in my mind.

>Still struggling with this one

Maybe something about: he is getting at the sexual is not real, as in physically real, (as in it starts as ideas in mind)

>Just as it is absurd to separate in other cultures
>for the reason that they do not occur there
>the religious, the economic, the political, the juridical, and even the social and other phantasmagorical categories

Dicey conjecture and declaration that """the religious""", ""the economic"", policial, juridical.... """"""dont really exist"""" in other cultures?

I mean, maybe he means they don't exist as atomized instances: that they are all entwined together and looking at the culture as a whole, it is difficult to tell where one 'instance' begins and another ends.... and these in turn force the hands and play roles on 'what sexuality' is possible, to come to exist in that culture, what ""sexual stuff"" is allowed to become real in that culture.

ahhhh, it is absurd to give autonomy to the sexual as instance...pretty much the word it seems he should have been using, or we can use to make sense of what hes getting at is: vacuum.

The sexual instance, is not autonomous, as a real thing itself, that actually as a real existence..and as a single irreducible,

That sex fetish C is a pathology: this sex instance Q is an irreducible conceptual instance: and attitudes, and thoughts, and feelings, and actions, and fashions, a, b, c, are givens, which can neatly reduced into Particular Sex Instance Concept Q

>>The sexual instance, is not autonomous, as a real thing itself, that actually as a real existence..and as a single irreducible,
vaccum in the sense that it has its own givens and exists independent of sexuality?
Is he saying the sexual (understood to be a physical manifestation of sexuality's ideation), as instance, is no different from the absurdity of granting self-determination to the "religious", "economic", "political", etc. as though they were in a vaccum?

>so it is also absurd to give autonomy to the sexual as "instance" and as an irreducible given to which all other "givens" can be reduced.

So, if I grasped this correctly, the autonomy of the sexual, like that of the economic, political, etc., is illusory and fallacious, no more than an application of Western "instrumentalization", as instance.

Could you elaborate a bit on your fetish analogy? I think I get it but am missing what you mean by "can neatly reduced into Particular Sex Instance Concept Q"

From the next paragraph:

These are cultures which maintain long processes of seduction and sensuousness in which sexuality is one service among others, a long procedure of gifts and counter-gifts; lovemaking is only the eventual outcome of this reciprocity measured to the rhythm of an ineluctable ritual. For us, this no longer has any meaning: for us, the sexual has become strictly the actualization of a desire in a moment of pleasure -- all the rest is "literature." What an extraordinary crystallization of the orgastic function, which is itself the materialization of an energetic substance.

The sexual as an instance has been reduced exclusively to its material manifestation in the process of Western "production" (pro-ducere) -- a crystallization of ejaculation, and consequently an end to sex's non-material dimension of symbolic exchange and ritual. It's an absurdity and a paradox because it defies the obscurity, defies the intertwinedness of --

I think the essence of what he is saying is things dont exist in a vacuum: things dont only actually exist as instances, Those concepts aren't Real Object Things that exist here and there as instances.

But that there is a messy: The economic influences the judicial, and they both influence the religious, and the religious influence them, and the political is influenced by them and influences them and is partly them, and the religious is influenced by them, and the sexual is influenced by it all, and those all are influenced by the sexual.

Its not: The political object exists over there in the world, you can find it on the Tree of Real Political Fruit Objects and in this instance it is political time, so now everyone be political in the political space at the political time.

I dont think he was saying these concepts dont exist at all, or there is no good reason to look for the separateness, and particularness, and borders of these concepts, but just that the borders can be blurry, and they can in parts be found in each other.

>the sexual as "instance"

>as an irreducible given

>to which all other "givens" can be reduced."

Fetish A is an Irreducible Given (like a real object or concept thing that exists in the world...or maybe not, afterthought, backburner thought, conjecture, guessing...speaking for myself, ignore this parentheses).

Symptoms of Fetish A include "givens" a, b, c, d, e.

These "givens" can be reduced into the irreducible Fetish A.

You have symptoms of b and d? Oh that can be neatly reduced into Fetish A... which is irreducible and exists as an instance in a vacuum. And has nothing to do with religion, political, social, economics,etc.

Autonomy means independence (in a sense right), purity, of selfness:

It is absurd to say the sexual is a pure independent instant:

And as an irreducible given: no more can be said or thought about it, it is simply just 1 single in a vacuum object that cannot be reduced to anything else.

But other, givens, can be simply reduced into ...

Ok, now I see.

When he says:

>so it is also absurd to give autonomy to the sexual

I now think he might mean "The Sexual", as a whole, "All That Is Possibly Correctly Considered Sexual". The Totality Of The Sexual.

And all (givens that may be related to sexual) "givens" can be tossed into The Sexual, category.

And The Sexual category, is its own separate category, in a vacuum: Just as The Economic, The Social, The Religious, The Juridical, are their own separate irreducible Categories

Fuck you baudriiladildadild you retarded faggot scumbag shitlord cocksucking fucking scum faggot

-- sex, sexual, and sexuality. So when he speaks of "autonomy" of the sexual as instance, he refers to its sunderance from its own sexuality into a material form which can be bought, sold, exchanged, compared, and integrated into a system of equivalence:

>"Besides, the body to which we constantly refer has no other reality than that of the sexual and productive model. It is capital which gives birth in the same movement to the energetic of labor power and to the body we dream of today as the locus of desire and the unconscious. "

>Fuck you baudriiladildadild you retarded faggot scumbag shitlord cocksucking fucking scum faggot
Because I had to (yes, we know I didnt) spend time unpackaging his purposefully incomprehensible garbled jargon which he wrote that way because he was afraid if he did not write obscurantibly he would not be placed on a pedastal by the intelligentsia of 'mmhermmm you plebian masses just dont understand this modern sacred text and I am the new preist' social signaling 'farmers and carpenters send your children to pay a ton of money to us for us to explain and unpackage this text we are thankful was not written as simply and coherently as it could have been because then we wouldnt have lucrative carreers' scumbots

Someone please tell me his writing was so obscure because the french was thrown through the equivalent of a beta version google translate

I think I messed this up.

>Fetish A is an Irreducible Given (like a real object or concept thing that exists in the world...or maybe not, afterthought, backburner thought, conjecture, guessing...speaking for myself, ignore this parentheses).

>Symptoms of Fetish A include "givens" a, b, c, d, e.

>These "givens" can be reduced into the irreducible Fetish A.

Maybe it is that: THE SEXUAL.

Is, AN IRREDUCIBLE GIVEN.

And all fetishes, and sexual possibilities, and symptoms, a, b, c, d, a1, c6, b12, q, r, p etc. etc.

Are merely and only and purely, and independently, and autonomously: THE DOMAIN, THE PURE, INDEPENDENT, IN A VACUUM REALM, OF THE SEXUAL

To be clear, her is saying this
Is not the case.

The Sexual, is not absolutely, purely, independently, separate from other things.

>What did he mean by a system of equivalence, or universal equivalence? In the context of exchange value it's intuitive he means fiat money, or "exchangeability" wherein objects can be compared, exchanged, and liquidated for any other object.
>But he seems to extend the implications of this principle of equivalence beyond commodity exchange, especially with respect to consumer objects. Perhaps he's to mean sign value can be just as exchangeable as commodities?

Maybe he means this basketball is $9.99 and this pizza is $9.99 but basketball and pizza are different?

burmp

>Is not the case.
>
>The Sexual, is not absolutely, purely, independently, separate from other things.
The Sexual is conceived to be the irreducible given in the context of modern society, correct. Just as things that are rationalized into Economic, Religious, and Political, so too are they sexual.

Therefore, using your example,

Sexual is a sphere, an autonomous given, into which all other "givens" (Fetish A and its corresponding patholgies) are reduced.

MOREOVER,

this "sexual" sphere can be understood in the context of power and desire under which EVERYTHING is reduced, hence the closing sentence of the paragraph:

>We need to do a critique of sexual Reason, or rather a genealogy of sexual Reason, as Nietzsche has done a genealogy of Morals because THIS IS OUR NEW MORAL SYSTEM. One could say of sexuality as of death: "It is a habit to which consciousness has not long been accustomed."

bermp

Thus,

what is Sexual is the physical manifestation of capital in the form of bodies: acts of "sex" (I use quotations because sex is no longer framed in the ritualistic, symbolic sense of ancient cultures) are therefore instances of a autonomous "science" of sexuality into which desire and libidinal energy is poured.

One may have a sexual relationship just like one can have an economic relationship: your partner is your pleasure machine and a fuck-bag so to speak

>The Sexual is conceived to be the irreducible given
>to be the irreducible
>a
>to be a irreducible

He is making a very simple point. People dont think it be like it is but it do. People think it be like this way but it aint.

People think The Sexual exists in a box over there. The Social exists in a box over there. The Economic exists in a box over there. The Judicial exists in a box over there. The Religious exists in a box over there.

And "givens" can be reduced to Those Irreducible Givens (the boxes I just mentioned).

Ok. But if he is saying what you seem to be suggesting he is saying, then I am just not sure: You are suggesting he is saying:

The Sexual is the prime box, the most significant and important, or at least the most foundational, which most grounds and influences all other boxes. Maybe that is what he is saying and maybe I already accepted and admitted to that slightly, and maybe he is giving it more attention because of its history of being repressed.

But really why is he so enamored by sex, to think it is so interesting and important? Because personal pleasure is the prime desire and purpose of the individual, and sex is the grandest and easiest and most accessible way to experience the most pleasure?

>The Sexual is the prime box, the most significant and important, or at least the most foundational, which most grounds and influences all other boxes.
In all honesty I personally agree with the proposition that the sexual is its own box in a system of organized, codified boxes, but the context of the work (His refutation of Foucault's positive bio-power and will to knowledge) makes me think this sexual "box" is something of a, forgive me, superbox as it pertains to everything psychic and bodily:

>" This compulsion toward liquidity, flow, and an accelerated circulation of what is psychic, sexual, or pertaining to the body is the exact replica of the force which rules market value: capital must circulate; gravity and any fixed point must disappear; the chain of investments and reinvestments must never stop; value must radiate endlessly and in every direction. This is the form itself which the current realization of value takes. It is the form of capital, and sexuality as a catchword and a model is the way it appears at the level of bodies. "

I'm honestly really fucking disappointed with this text so far. Each paragraph brings forth a plethora of intriguing and radical ideas, but also a million interpretations consequential of this ambiguous, referential writing style

in the post I really hate him more than almost anyone I have ever encountered, it is just the difficulty of translations right, these arent close to exactly precise of how the french would read and understand right?

He is pretty much....fucking guessing to degrees, that in ancient history (thousands and thousands of years, thousands and thousands of different cultures), 'the sexual realm' and possible sexual processes and courting, has never been so reduced, and so accessible to: The Orgasm. or The Penis Feel Good.

Everything to do with seduction and mating ritual, and courting disappears and all that is left, for the first time in history, or for the largest time in history: Make The Dick Cum. Let Me Feel The Orgasm.

"For us, this no longer has any meaning (the ritual, gift giving)...(I swear im not just speaking for myself...for us...see I use Us...for us), the sexual has become strictly (never mind all those people who go on dates, and buy gifts, and court, and ask to go to the prom) the actualization of a desire in a moment of pleasure"

I can just go to a whorehouse and have fantasy sex when I get horny. I can just experience dick feel good and dick cum when I am horny because I can just watch a porn film instead of carrying out long complex mating rituals...

This somehow has some complexity, or profoundness. Never in history could a man masturbate, and prostitution is not said to be the oldest profession

It sounds like he was really horny, maybe had always been really horny and perverted, but now when writing this had begun to reveal in and get super excited at his celebrity and how scores and lines and mobs of prime 18 year old dumb liberal art hot chicks and their liberated pussies were throwing themselves at him to be degraded and whipped with hot wax while having their ass ate and Badurueldideldaddeladr was like "yooo... this shit is the bestttt!!! dude.... we have to completely change everything about society, this is what its all about right chere"

>I can just go to a whorehouse and have fantasy sex when I get horny. I can just experience dick feel good and dick cum when I am horny because I can just watch a porn film instead of carrying out long complex mating rituals...

It's more than just that. Baudrillard uses desire and the "crystallization" of blowing loads as a particular example of sexual expression, but he does have a point with the "naturalization" of the sexual

>Our center of gravity has in fact shifted toward an unconscious and libidinal economy which only leaves room for the total naturalization of a desire bound either to fateful drives or to pure and simple mechanical operation, but above all to the imaginary order of repression and liberation.

Beyond the dating game and poetry of "Us" in the relationship, everything that touches sexuality has become COMPLETELY colonized by the process of production and instrumentalization. Think about modern discourses on sex, sexuality, and relationships: we herald communication and "transparency" as guiding principles by which to steer our relationships.

Having trouble getting off with your partner? Forget the aspect of seduction (or, disappearing), you must talk talk talk! Produce, make transparent everything possible and do everything to uncover the ritualistic secret that is sexuality in your relationship. Summon the subtlety and libidinal to the microscope where you can, often by the aid of marriage counselors, conquer your impotences and anxieties with the power of analysis!

The Sexual is highly fundamental, and primal, prime-al, primarily, if only because sex is required to propagate the species: finding a sexual mate is the most important thing.

Having a fetish for having your balls crushed while dressed up as your waifu hardly belongs in a superbox, or Thee Most Significant Worldly Box

Or we see here how the religious sentiment related to sex is about. Sex for reproduction is the primal The Sexual box. And yes, that aspect, is most important in a sense, though in its ways, tied with economic, social, judicial, religious, etc.

'Nuh, uh... all the fetishes are in the sex box, and the sex box is more important, so me liking to stick a cockroach up my butt while I whistle my fair lady is more important than economics and history'.

I laughed.

But, in the context of the work as a refutation of fucking Foucault's history of sexuality, it's no surprise he dedicates so much to the topic.

>In all honesty I personally agree with the proposition that the sexual is its own box in a system of organized, codified boxes
This is exactly what I was trying to express he was saying was not the case. For half of this thread I had been stating logical following statements, which were what I thought he was trying to say was not the case:

That western tried to separate everything into boxes, but in reality the boxes spill over into one another. So its hard to say: That right there is just an instance of just that, concept B.

When he is saying, concept B contains many other concepts of all wide ranges (social, religious, economic)

You misunderstood me,

I meant I personally agreed with the interpretation of the text stating that Baudrillard's view of Western society is that it compartmentalizes everything, including sex.

In nature obviously these things spill over like crazy, but this is what the reality of western analysis has brought upon us

Can you not even see the marketing gimmick behind that though: all you, pardon my french... intellectuals... are going to read this book... its verrry provocatve... "Forget Focoult" hehehehe

I couldn't give less of a fuck for the distractions of the French intellectual "celebrity class" and all its low hanging fruit, TV-broadcast polemics.

There's obviously pollution in these works and both writers have massive ego complexes but guess what, nobody's gonna escape that, not in politics not in philosophy.

There's some value to Baudrillard's theses and they're worth picking apart and understanding

In essence: In the past the individual was not seen to be as most important to itself. Now the individual can view itself as most important in the world. And furthermore, likely, a free individuals biggest concern is its own pleasure. Sex is a large sphere of possible pleasure for an individual. Therefore, as a part from the history of the individual being oppressed and repressed, since the individual is escaping oppression and repression in these modern times: sex (in all, or many, of its possible iterations) is gaining in importance, value, interest, celebration, analysis, etc. ?

>sex (in all, or many, of its possible iterations) is gaining in importance, value, interest, celebration, analysis, etc. ?

On the contrary sex was always a topic of importance, value, interest, etc. it was just a matter to what extant and under which discourses. Recall Foucault's History of Sexuality where he discussed the falsehood of the repression hypothesis: Sex was always a huge topic in western discourses; the confession, the psychoanalysis, the scientia sexualis was a process of expressing power (in both its positive and negative forms) on the individual's sexuality.

>Now the individual can view itself as most important in the world. And furthermore, likely, a free individuals biggest concern is its own pleasure.
You are right to think he can view himself as most important in modern society, but his "freedom" of sexuality and choice is no less subject to the powers of "repression" that dominated medival society: today his body is subjected to, as Baudrillard says, capital.

>expressing power (in both its positive and negative forms) on the individual's sexuality.
I should add that sexuality isn't some undiscovered, libidinal territory we can make strides in like Columbus did the americas, but a produced identity, consequential of the discourses and power relations of the time.

>On the contrary sex was always a topic of importance, value, interest, etc. it was just a matter to what extant and under which discourses. Recall Foucault's History

But Boobalard is criticizing Foucaults and his (some) theory/s in what we are discussing?

And I thought he was mentioning how things were changing, from that ancient cultures.

Ok, ok, so: sex was always topic of importance and interest: but now we may have the mental and otherwise tools to better understand it in all its possible iterations?

>but his "freedom" of sexuality and choice is no less subject to the powers of "repression" that dominated medival society: today his body is subjected to, as Baudrillard says, capital.

Ok. So, sexuality has always been aided or hampered by economic, social...etc. (should just write, should have done this earlier, e, s, r, j,) and still is,

but some people are trying to escape all that, and attempt to analyze and think about, on one hand, and some people on both hands, and dive into the immediate explorational experience of such?

And he does or does not know or does or does not think a pure The Sexual can be talked about or experienced apart from all this e, r, j, s,

What does he hope for? What does he want? in relation to this topic. What is not obvious about what he is pointing out?

Is he saying: you think you are experiencing good, real sex, but you are wrong, because this... so consider that, and maybe you can, experience better sex? What is his point?

Is he saying we have to take away power from religious, social, political, law, economic, instutions and forces from having any power over the individual striving to experience sexual pleasure?

Is he trying to make an encyclopedia of all the possible things that can be considered sexual? And think about how more sexual they could be if economics didnt exist?

>I should add that sexuality isn't some undiscovered, libidinal territory we can make strides in like Columbus did the americas, but a produced identity, consequential of the discourses and power relations of the time.

>but a produced identity

What is interesting about the potentials of that produced identity? The potential power it can have in shaping individuals lives, the world? And/or the potential scientific units of pleasure and individual can experience? Anything else?

The interesting thing about it, for the first question, is, that strippers, and pornstars, exist and they can get a decent amount of money and effect a decent amount of peoples lives? Is there anything else interesting, substantial, or profound about what is being gotten at?

Are you the same guy that initially posted about Fetish C and sexual instance Q or whatever? A lot of these questions were addressed earlier.

> but now we may have the mental and otherwise tools to better understand it in all its possible iterations?
No, sex isn't an objective truth we can mine from the unconscious: it's obscure and elusive; it, by nature "seduces" and makes hidden, rather than proactively puts itself forth and known. Baudrillard is saying the way the West has come to understand and define everything "sexual" is through a process of production and instrumentalization (see above), an autonomous instance to which all "givens" can be categorized.

e, r, j, s are analogies to this process of compartmentalization.

I don't fucking know his solutions or his counter propositions yet because I'm only a third of the way into the book so anything I say about that is pure conjecture

is sex anything besides the desire for chemical pleasure, the desire for aesthetic pleasure, and the desire to not be lonely, the desire to be/feel wanted and loved, the desire to feel power/powerless?

I don't fucking know man, I tried reading the next 4 or 5 pages of the text and I'm back to square 1. There isn't a single sentence that can be anticipated logically or a generalization that isn't wildly objectionable (if not just plain wrong).

>We act as if the sexual were "repressed" wherever it does not appear in its own right: this is our way of saving sex through the "sex principle ." It is our moral system (psychic and psychoanalytic) which remains hidden behind the hypothesis of repression and which governs our blindness. To talk about sexuality, "repressed" or not, "sublimated" or not, in feudal, rural, and primitive societies is a sign of utter foolishness (like reinterpreting religion, ne varietur, as ideology and mystification) . And on that basis, then, it becomes possible again to say with Foucault: there is not and there has never been any repression in our culture either-not, however, according to his meaning, but in the sense that there has never truly been any sexuality. Sexuality, like political economy, is only montage (all of whose twists and turns Foucault analyzes); sexuality as we hear about it and as it "is spoken," even as the "id speaks," is only a simulacrum which experience has forever crossed up, baffled, and surpassed, as in any system

What does this paragraph mean and how are any of these points justified? We may never know

>The only thing I have is that while examining other cultures, the social categories we utilize to understand them (i.e. Religious, Economic, Political, Juridical) are themselves discourses imported from a Western system of organization that degenerate an "untouched" culture for the benefit of our own understanding. Similarly, with sex, pornography is a "a mad obsession with the real" insofar as it attempts to tabulate, represent, and understand the "production" of sex as a process of uncovering everything obscene and secret about it the same way the categories above attempt to uncover the secrets of culture.
Haven't read the rest of the thread but this is good

All I can kind of if anything glean from this paragraph is, he is maybe suggesting that we talk about and experience 'the phenomenal' of sexuality, but we don't know the noumena of sexuality or if there is even such?

Perhaps.
I'm really not so sure about this anymore. The preceding three or four pages were incomprehensible. Going to eat and come back to it, maybe it'll make more sense with a full stomach

Here's another perfect example

>This is the body which serves as a sanctuary for psychic energy and drives and which, dominated by these drives and haunted by primary processes, has itself become primary process-and thus an anti-body, the ultimate revolutionary referent. Both are simultaneously conceived in repression, and their apparent antagonism is yet another effect of repression. Thus, to rediscover in the secret of bodies an unbound "libidinal" energy which would be opposed to the bound energy of productive bodies, and to rediscover a phantasmal and instinctual truth of the body in desire, is still only to unearth the psychic metaphor of capital.

How does a body, haunted by primary processes, metamorphose into an "anti-body", or primary process itself?
What the fuck is a revolutionary referent?
Both [what] are simultaneously conceived in repression? What antagonism is at play here, and how is it "conceived" in repression?
Which leads to the obvious question, are we still talking about the same repression? What is that definition now?

>This is the body which serves as a sanctuary for psychic energy and drives and which
The body should be a sanctuary, should be our pleasant, comfortable home (???)

>dominated by these drives and haunted by primary processes, has itself become primary process-and thus an anti-body

But it is an anti home, anticomfort, because the drives and dirty primary processes (sexual desire, the instinct of procreation?)... the Sexual Body, (during sexual desire, horniness) becomes primary process... as if it is no longer ourselves or our home, but the body a mechanical machine, carrying out its programmed tasks...primary processes..

>the ultimate revolutionary referent

To try to reclaim these, urges, drives, instincts, and control them, and use them for your own pleasure and experience and exploration, is attempt to revolt against them totally controlling you?

>Both are simultaneously conceived in repression, and their apparent antagonism is yet another effect of repression.
??psychic energy and drives??

>Thus, to rediscover in the secret of bodies an unbound "libidinal" energy which would be opposed to the bound energy of productive bodies

Having sex is more fun (opposite) of working (being a productive worker in the moment?)... sexual energy is wild and unbound experience, difficult to define, an area of freedom, the experience... as opposed to the strict, rules, order, boundedness

>and to rediscover a phantasmal and instinctual truth of the body in desire

>is still only to unearth the psychic metaphor of capital.
metaphor of capital: power? Ownership? Control? claim?

>carrying out its programmed tasks...primary processes..

It's a freudian term for those good old urges
encyclopedia.com/psychology/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/primary-processsecondary-process

Or maybe Baudrillard fucked up and meant something else?

The preceding sentence for more context, not that it illuminates anything really...

>Besides, the body to which we constantly refer has no other reality than that of the sexual and productive model. It is capital which gives birth in the same movement to the energetic of labor power and to the body we dream of today as the locus of desire and the unconscious.

>the body to which we constantly refer has no other reality than that of the sexual and productive model.

The body itself, as a natural evolutionary object, is nothing more than 'needing sex to reproduce more bodies' and 'needing to work, be productive, to live to be able to get sex'.

>It is capital which gives birth in the same movement to the energetic of labor power

Capital takes that 'natural productive work potential of body' and gives birth to its new potentials....including....

>the body we dream of today as the locus of desire and the unconscious.

How we think of the body in this more modern era, as something more than just sexual and work/productive: a locus o desire and the unconscious: The potential to pursue dreams

burps

Good thread lads

Moving topic to a fresh thread Let's keep the discussion going. Will see if I can get another coherent interpretation or two before I fall asleep