What (else) can a sexy
body do?
Nick Fox
Professor of Sociology
University of Sheffield
To understand sexualisation, let
us see how it works, what can
it do ?
Introduction
• A Deleuzian approach to sexuality
• What is an assemblage?
• Desire
• Ecology of sexuality- assemblages
Body assemblage
A Deleuzian Perspective
• Different ontology: connectivities and
networks rather than bodies.
• Positive desire.
• Territorialisation.
• What else can a body do?
Life is lived through
assemblages
Image: ‘The bride stripped bare by her bachelors, even’. Marcel
Duchamp ,1923.
Assemblages
• Assemblages are ‘a kind of chaotic
network of habitual and non-habitual
connections, always in flux, always
reassembling in different ways’
(Potts 2004: 19).
• Desiring-machines
Assemblages of Relations
• Physical (e.g. hormones, medicines).
• Psychological (e.g. Oedipal, fetishes).
• Social-cultural (e.g. institutions, imagery,
norms and values).
• Philosophical and abstract (e.g. chastity,
religion, sexual liberation).
• (Experiential/individual)
Examples of Assemblages
mouth – hunger - milk – nipple – mother
patient – disease – doctor – biomedicine – health
technology
sex organ – hormones – other body
Desire
• Deleuze and Guattari criticise traditional
ideas of desire as a lack.
• Positive desire: the creative,
experimenting, driven body.
• Capitalism exploits the gap between
desire and lack.
Territorialisation
• Assemblages territorialise the BwO.
• It can be de-territorialised by novel
relations.
• It can be re-territorialised.
• It can achieve a line of flight from a
territory.
What can a body do?
• Assemblages of relations create the
conditions of possibility for desire.
• The number and intensity of a body’s
relations shape what it can do.
• This question provides a methodology .
Mark Rothko at work
An Ecology of Assemblage
• Assemblages bring together entities that
are organic and non-organic; material and
abstract , technological and natural.
• The unit of analysis should be the ecology
of relations, not individuals or bodies.
• Explore the connectivities within this
ecology of assemblage.
The Rabbit Assemblage
Rabbit-Assemblage
• Don’t think of an entity called ‘rabbit’ , but
of an ecology of rabbit-ing.
food – field – rabbit – other rabbits – warren
- predators – my roses – angry human –
shotgun
• I am part of the rabbit-assemblage and it
is part of the Fox-assemblage.
‘
‘Once the machines are assembled,
they have an identity and a life of
their own’
(Ballantyne 2007: 23)
Sexuality as assemblage
• The sexuality-assemblage comprises disparate
relations.
• It shapes what the sexy body can do.
• It shapes our desire.
Exploring Sexuality
• ‘Given a certain effect, what machine
[assemblage] is capable of producing it?’
• ‘And given a certain machine, what can it
be used for?’
(Deleuze and Guattari 1984: 3)
What can a sexy body do?
• Be aroused
• Get sexual pleasure/orgasm
• Get sexual partners
• Fall in love
• Be unfaithful
• Etc. etc.
Waterhouse: Hylas and the Nymphs 1896
Sexuality-assemblages
A pubescent assemblage :
hormones – sex organs - imagery (e.g. kiss)
– role models – sexual others + ???
An adolescent assemblage:
hormones – sex organs - sexual imagery –
ideal types (Jlo, Pitt) – partial objects (e.g.
breasts, pecs, ass) - sexual others– peer
group – romance – isolation - ???
Sexuality assemblages
A generalised assemblage:
hormones – sex organs - (sexual) past
history – sexual imagery/marketing/porn –
partial objects - fetishes (e.g. clothing) sexual others – romance – love – marriage
- ???
Sexualisation
• In any era, the sexuality-assemblage
incorporates social, economic, ideological
and political relations (e.g. capitalism,
patriarchy, sexism).
• Sexualisation is a narrowing of sexuality,
within a body – commodity assemblage.
Sex as commodity
• Capitalism exploits the gap between
desire and lack (Deleuze and Guattari
1984).
• While there is scarcity, there is this gap.
• The sexuality-assemblage is drawn into a
larger economic machine (assemblage)
that turns bodies into commodities and
desire into money.
Territorialising sexuality
The commodified sexual body is
territorialised:
- Youthfulness
- Looks and beauty
- Body shape
- Sexual behaviour and responses
- Types of sexual activity and fantasies.
The Viagra assemblage
‘My best friend at the office introduced me to
Viagra a week after he saw my attitude
change at the office due to my noticeable
depression. Thanks to Viagra, I felt I am
gaining my manhood again, but now lazy
of doing sex without the blue pill. I am
now becoming a big fan of Viagra, and
afraid of having sex without Viagra’
(George).
The Viagra assemblage
sex – bedroom –penis – male sexuality –
Viagra – identity - consumerism – sex
partner - internet - pharmaceutical industry
– profit – capitalism
(Fox and Ward 2008)
This may be very constraining and not
welcomed by partners (Potts et al 2003).
The Viagra-assemblage
• Links the private world of the sexual
conduct to the interests of global
capitalism.
• Contributes to sexual and health identities.
• Shapes the experience and expectations
of sexuality.
Too much sex ... or not enough?
• Commodification narrows the expression
of sexuality.
• Desire is territorialised within a fantasyassemblage.
• The positive desire of the body engages
with the materiality of bodies and
sexuality.
Some conclusions
• Sexuality is an assemblage that shapes
how the body’s desire is directed
• Look at the ecology of the network.
• Assemblages link flesh to the economic
and political forces of global capitalism.
• De-territorialise a myriad of individual
possible sexualities.
In the Fox-assemblage
• Deleuze and Guattari
• Ansell Pearson
• Latour
• Buchanan
• De Landa
• Potts
What (else) can a sexy
body do?
Nick Fox
Professor of Sociology
University of Sheffield