Session 19: Pleasure and technologies

A queer nation legacy of visible sexuality for today’s evolving technologies
Gabriel Gomez & Elspeth Kydd

Before digital and Internet based media, alternative analog media offered an arena where sex could be discussed, viewed, presented or produced. Independent films, videos, and published material like zines, fed LGBT and feminist communities with crucial information.

In the early 1990′s, the mock presidential campaign of Queer Nation’s Joan Jett Blakk used such queer venues to parody a traditional US political campaign. The sexualized persona of an African-American drag queen forced sexuality into an arena that was nearly impervious to LGBT concerns.

A media campaign grew around her appearances in clubs, on the street, at political fundraisers, in parades, all because of an ever-present video crew. The resulting work appeared on public television (PBS) and in many film festivals to further the goal of underscoring queer exclusion from US electoral politics.

This paper examined that campaign, which is now archived in the Schomberg Archive in NYC, to see if there are similarities or forgotten strategies that might be of used for making sex and sexuality creative and integral to the era of flash mobs and activist campaigns like “It Gets Better”. One thing is clear.

Media campaigns have a logic dictated by technological means and this is great for publicity but it cannot replace true political discourse or engagement.

Paper tba

Post-feminist etiologies in female sexual dysfunction
Katherine Angel

Neverending sex: male underperformance
Raffaella Ferrero Camoletto