Seksualnost kot kapital: med biopolitično ekonomijo užitka in nemožnostjo spolnega razmerja

Abstract

This article analyzes the contemporary dispositif of sexuality as an interweaving of medical, psychological, therapeutic and market esthetic discourses that shape the way sexuality is expressed, practiced and experienced. In the Western context, two dominant – seemingly contradictory but actually complementary – logics of understanding sexuality prevail. The first is the medical-psychological discourse, which draws its legitimacy from evolutionary biology and psychology and views sexual interaction primarily in terms of reproductive functionality, health and psychological well-being. The second is the logic of hedonistic representations of esthetic and sublime enjoyment as (re)produced by the mass media, the advertising industry and popular culture. In developed societies, sexuality is affirmed as a form of recreation, an expression of authenticity and a path to self-realization. Through an analysis of the psychologization and commodification of sexuality, as well as phenomena such as the “hookup culture” and the sexual recession, it is shown that today’s sexual freedom does not lead to liberation, but rather to a new form of regulation and psychological pressure – a compulsion to enjoy. The realm of sexuality thus becomes a domain of investment, production and accumulation of a specific form of capital – so-called sexual capital, as part of personal capital. The central thesis of this paper is that the contemporary dispositif of sexuality does not reveal the essence or truth of sexuality – even if it presents itself as such – but rather functions as a mechanism to disavow a key element: the non-existence of the sexual relation, as Lacan formulates it.