Testo Junkie : sexe, drogue et biopolitique

by Paul B. Preciado

« Celles et ceux qui ont lu Testo Junkie en ont été à jamais changés. »
Les Inrockuptibles

Ce livre est le récit d’une expérience politique. Celui de l'administration quotidienne, pendant 236 jours, de testostérone synthétique. Une expérience vécue comme un acte de résistance face à l’assignation à la naissance d’une identité sociale et sexuelle considérée immuable. A travers le récit de sa transformation corporelle, Paul B. Preciado dessine la mutation politique contemporaine des technologies de pouvoir. Entre chronique autobiographique et essai philosophique, Testo Junkie est pour la génération queer, trans et non-binaire ce que L'Anti-Oedipe de Deleuze et Guattari était pour la génération 68. Un livre incontournable, une lecture urgente, qui bouleverse nos certitudes et invite à transgresser les normes de genre et de sexualité.

Paul B. Preciado est philosophe, commissaire d'exposition et auteur. Dans la lignée des travaux de Kathy Acker, Judith Butler, Monique Wittig et Michel Foucault, ses ouvrages, traduits dans une dizaine de langues, sont des références internationales des études queer, trans et non-binaires.

Traduit de l'espagnol par l'auteur.

Genres: Nonfiction, Queer, Feminism, Philosophy, Theory, Gender, LGBT

432 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Paul B. Preciado has become one of the leading thinkers in the study of gender and sexuality. A professor of Political History of the Body, Gender Theory, and History of Performance at Paris VIII, he is also the author of Manifiesto contrasexual, which has become a queer theory classic, and Pornotopía: Architecture and Sexuality in Playboy During the Cold War, which has been named a finalist for the Anagrama Essay Prize. He teaches political history of the body, gender theory and history of performance at Université Paris VIII and is the director of the Independent Studies Program of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelone.

Reviews

[Tope · Rating 3 out of 5]

Splitting the difference. As a scholarly product in the abstract - quite impressive, in the tradition of and remixing from Foucault, Butler, Haraway, Wittig, and many other (primarily French) philosophers. But not quite satisfying in the end.

The "pharmaco" bit of Preciado's argument is engagingly and convincingly presented; the "p*rnographic" bit, for all the words expended on it, never quite comes together. I'd say it's hampered by a level of introspection and self-centering that is extremely indulgent - no doubt deliberately so, but nevertheless to the detriment of the argument. Preciado's conclusion is that "gender hacking" - conscious, micromanipulations of the body from without and within to resist gender binaries and produce new possibilities of gender - is "revolution" against the fictions of gender produced and circumscribed by a pharmaceutical regime (bodies disciplined by The Pill, Viagra, synthetic hormones, etc) and globalized p*rnified audio-visual media. But it's ultimately unclear what connection, if any, there is between such "revolution" (creating "open biocode[s]" of gender) and actual benefit to the groups Preciado rightly identifies as most exploited, oppressed, and dehumanized by these regimes (people of color/working classes/trans* and queer people).

Relatedly, Preciado's discussion of these oppressions reduces those who experience them to an undifferentiated mass. When race and class come up - not nearly often enough - she seems to say the right things, for most of the book. But it's all very abstract. The increasingly nagging feeling I had as I read the book that Preciado's "gender revolution" involves more than a little bit of white feminist identification with hegemonic male power and privilege is unfortunately confirmed near the end of the book - she reduces Jimi Hendrix to an organ/sexual potency in a way that disturbingly resembles so many other examples of white women fetishizing Black men. She then dismisses the only Black feminist thinker that (as far as I noticed) she engages with at all in the entire book - expressing annoyance at the "prohibitions" of "dominant feminist politics," including the "prohibitions about destroying the house of the master with the tools of the master." This is a reference to a well-known Audre Lorde quote and essay (though Preciado doesn't bother to even name Lorde).

That would be disturbing enough on its own, especially the identification of Lorde as a representative of the very "dominant feminist politics" that she wrote searingly about being excluded from and harmed by. Preciado's meaning is in part that the "tools of the master" in producing modern fictions of gender - in her case, testosterone - can in fact be used to destroy those same fictions. But she continues to say that she wants to "[fulfill her] sexual and political desire to be the master...without apolog[y]...the way a biomale would." [By "biomale" she seems to mean cisgender man.] Later she restates this desire to "To acquire a certain political immunity of gender, to get roaring drunk on masculinity, to know that it is possible to look like the hegemonic gender.” There's been lots of ink spilled on why white women wanting to be more like men/enjoy the privileges of hegemonic masculinity is anything but gender liberation or revolution, so it was rather disappointing to see that this is where Preciado ends up.

The first, last, and intercalary chapters are all personal memoir centered on Preciado's self-administration of testosterone (turning herself into an "Auto guinea pig), her love and sex life during this time, mostly with French author Virginie Despentes, and her reminiscences about and engagement with the memory of a close friend and fellow author who died a few months into her experiment with testosterone. It's self-indulgent and exhibitionist by design - this works a lot better on an individual level, as an individual account of gender, than as a manifesto for collective gender revolution. These chapters are pretty engaging reading when they avoid getting too abstract (much of it is outright erotica) and they tie in to the more historical/theoretical sections in interesting ways.

A perhaps minor point: Preciado's chronology is partially wrong - she takes as fact Thomas Laqueur's argument about the premodern "one sex body," which Katharine Park and other medieval/early modern scholars have persuasively debunked. It doesn't change much in terms of the validity of Foucault's concepts of biopower and biopolics, or Preciado's concept of pharmacopornopolitics (*sigh*), but it does have some implications for her argument about understandings of the body that it would have been nice to see her explore. Unfortunately Laqueur's argument has quite a bit of traction in this field despite not being supported by the historical record.

I realize this review is a bit opaque, but believe me, the book is even more so. Writing a completely lucid review of the book would require far more words and time than I have the luxury or inclination to spend on this. In any case - if virtuosity were the only measure, I'd give it 5 stars; for not quite being coherent and for extremely individualistic political ends that are ultimately troubling, I'd give it quite a few less. 3 stars seems about right.

[Sceox]

This book is a drug. A text biolinguistically formulated to produce the same kind of effects BP gets when he takes T. Excitation, mania, desire, and gender reprogramming. And if BP is trying to get you hooked on TJ, he's also trying to get you on T. Like Yerutí, the book made me want to take hormones. BP is a pusher. Do testosterone, he's saying, take estrogen, have wacky sex and dose yourself with queer theory, irresponsibly and without asking permission. I was already hooked, as it happens; just getting my fix. TJ is a strong dose; even with the significant tolerance I have from doing this stuff for years, I felt its affects.

What BP also wants to do is to present his practices (including post-porn) as a programmatic politic. This is where I jump off. TJ's diagnostic layer, which develops a theory of power and control operating in a pharmacopornographic mode, is fascinating, relevant, potent. Its insistence on the constructedness of gender and sex, yes. Its seduction of the reader into somatic self-experimentation, sure. Its conflation of hedonism and radical politics I won't rule out, but I want to hear more. BP's narration of his sex life, well, at least it's not long-winded. The call for the non-commercial production and distribution of post-porn, I'm not even listening. BP's optimism reaches such a technoutopian peak it becomes hard to separate from transhumanism or #accelerate. Could this be BP's drug regime manifesting in his theory? A TJ-induced analysis demands an affirmative response. On uppers like T and speed one might respond to the pharmacopornographic apparatus with the urge to take it over, speed it up, fuck it. This repulses me, and makes me want to see where a parmacopornographic critique would go under the influence of a strong dose of pessimism.

There is something else to add about TJ as imitation-theory. BP's style of doing theory in TJ is all over the place (anti-methodical?), they jump to unfounded claims and make wild comparisons (the clearest example being the side-by-side of panopticon and Pill). This isn't BP's only mode--Pornotopia is much more precise. So however you feel about the style (I am ambivalent), there's a consistency between this approach to theory and the imitative-experimental approach to gender. I don't think BP makes any explicit claim to this effect, but it is one of the ways this book will haunt me.

[Marie-Therese · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too much jargon, too little insight.

While there is a lot that's undeniably stylish here and the opening and closing chapters are emotionally vivid, the text as whole gets bogged down in analysis that now seems hopelessly dated and was even a bit passé at the time of writing. Preciado tries to jazz it up with lots of sex, drugs (even a bit of rock and roll) and name-dropping aplenty but it's still dull as dishwater and the prose is just about as murky. I did like the clear timelines and history of contraception and hormonal treatment, and wish the rest of the book retained some of that clarity. I'm not sorry to have read this but doubt I'll read anything else by Preciado again.

[La Central · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Este libro llegó a mis manos cuando tenía catorce años y recuerdo que lo devoré en pocos días, sin entender del todo el marco teórico que despliega Preciado pero con la intuición de que ahí había algo muy importante. Tenía razón, pero no entendí por qué hasta muchos años después, cuando descubrí que era una de las obras clave de las teorías queer en España. Sin embargo, como ocurre con tantos libros de estudios de género, hemos tenido que esperar diez años para tenerlo de vuelta en las librerías.
En un momento en el que los debates feministas son más vivos que nunca y que resurgen con fuerza cuestiones como la necesaria (y ya inaplazable) ampliación del sujeto político del feminismo, las modulaciones del capitalismo y su giro hacia el control del cuerpo, la subjetividad y el deseo, la crítica al binarismo y la apropiación de las técnicas de producción de género (en este caso la testosterona que Preciado se aplica en gel), Testo Yonqui es más necesario que nunca.
Con su particularísimo estilo que encarna el lema «lo personal es político», Preciado establece las coordenadas para una cartografía del poder y sus formas rizomáticas de operar en nuestros propios cuerpos, así como de las posibilidades de resistencia." Clara Fernández de Lis

[Liza · Rating 5 out of 5]

A long time ago one of my teachers told me it wasn't enough just to write a love song to Foucault, you had to actually build on him, and I was like come on that's impossible, but Preciado totally does it here. And that is only one of several ways this book blew my mind. Crazy compelling, it is a sex/drug/philosophy page turner that will keep you up late and make you wonder if you should take testosterone too.

Before I read this, I was going to go see her at NYU but I spent so much time eating falafel and EVERY LAST sweet potato fry that I didn't get there until it was already full. Wish I had ditched some of those fries because, I feel like I have to know what she is doing NOW -- this book was already out for awhile before it was translated, and what will the next be?

[Kalashnikovpiti · Rating 5 out of 5]

vaya viaje de libro prim necesito darle un abrazo a preciado y comerle el pililon

[Emily Fortuna · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hmmmm. Here's the thing: in the abstract this book is great as exposure to a different perspective than more "conventional" transsexual narratives or feminist treatises. BUT, to really you need to already be well versed and very well read in feminist theory to the most out of this book, because Preciado sure isn't gonna explain it to you. As soon as you open the book, you're jumping onto a roller coaster where Preciado is battling it out with the ideas of Foucault, Haraway, Butler, and others with no lead-in explanation. It's just assumed you're familiar with philosophies of each.

And this was the common theme I felt reading the book. Preciado puts forth many interesting ideas, but doesn't bother taking the time to bring you into the discussion. Perhaps this is by design; perhaps Preciado's whole point about taking back feminism to the underground, more marginalized groups, away from the betrayal of white feminism means these points are not intended for me. But that seems like an unsatisfactory explanation because what is the point of writing a book, if not to dissemniate an idea, or in Preciado's words create a "prosthetic implementation of subjectivity." Preciado makes a number of points that could really grab the average reader: in today's world we already live in a world of manufactured genders: the widespread use of the Pill is already modifying the hormonal makeup of a sizable portion of the population. This is huge!

However, where Testo Junkie falls down is rather than drawing the reader in with these ideas (that really effect everyone), is Preciado develops a language that further distances people from them. For example, by referring to hormones as "somato-politic biocodes" and "biotechnologies" under the reign of the "pharmacopornographic regime" Preciado reduces the potential influence of these ideas when obfuscated by the additional level of a personal vocabulary. There are cases where introducing new vocabulary is useful to describe specific topics not otherwise concisely delineated, but to me this really doesn't feel like it fits into that category. Rather the introduction of this jargon distances the reader from the issues.

The nail in the coffin for me, so to speak, was some of the false equivalencies Preciado makes, for example likening the circular Pill dispenser design to the panopticon design of a prison building enabling optimal surveillance on the prisoners, like the state's surveillance over females. This, without a stronger argument for why they are connected, feels far fetched and unfortunately casts a shadow over other points Preciado raises that I know to be valid (such as the particular exploitation of "non-white bodies" and the rise of sexual dimorphism thinking in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries).

So, all in all, on the plus side it is a very unique perspective, and Preciado does highlight some interesting connections in the history of our notions of genders and sexualities. On the downside, though, it is hidden behind jargon and some of the more extreme ideas weaken the book.

[M. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Someone recommended me this book, suggesting I would find a lot to like about it. Me, a trans nonbinary person thinking about testosterone myself and obsessed with cyborgs of the pop culture and then Haraway sense. But naw, this jawn was excruciating to read. It's taken me months. I found many of the paragraphs and sections to repeat themselves over and over with slightly different phrasings, as if intellectual/academic narrative style was akin to poetry or... I don't really know what to call it. Like I got to a section on page 314 that I thought succinctly & plainly stated something that its preceding theory-dense chapters rambled on about, and I don't know why it took so long to get there. Many concepts-spoken-as-statements, the repeated use of a French phrase referencing a dense concept (orgasmic force), the insufferable stringing along of like... 4-5 syllable phrases (pharmacopornographic) had me OVER this book. I found it incredibly inconsiderate to the reader. I have to wonder if the original Spanish reads any less punishing. And then when it DOES manage (finally) to make it back to the confessional/personal chapters, it comes off to me that most of the book's theorizing is based off of Preciado's predilection for theory-speak and subsequent desire to describe their personal experiences through its self-legitimized style. For me, a lot of the global theoretical statements struck me as flippant judgement calls relevant largely within the author's own daily life. And as another reviewer pointed out, I found it lacking when it came to explicitly addressing race/anti-Blackness (it does this the most in footnotes which is very sparingly??). Again, the author is Spanish and living in Europe when writing the book, so there's that.

I guess that most of what I found valuable about this book I already encountered in other areas like...Tumblr discourse, science fiction anime, personal experience/talking to friends, and other academic cyborg theory type books. Power to you if this was your thing, but I just didn't like it! I think this book is more for people who are well read in postmodern theorists, and by well read I mean DEEPLY, like maybe that's what you do for a living.

[Max · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very frustrating book. Preciado's Foucauldian analysis is brilliant, a superbly lucid and convincing account of the operations of pharmacopornographic biopower -- and yet he ends this dazzling description of the global assemblages of sex and gender with a call to revolution through... drag king workshops? It's just baffling that such a comprehensive analysis would ultimately revert to the most naive and dated element of Gender Trouble. Queer theory of the "my preferred gender/sexual practices just so happen to be the most politically subversive" variety is pretty much always tiresome, and it's hard to believe that anyone this theoretically astute can really claim toxic masculinity as revolutionary praxis. The theory and analysis in this book is SO good, you might want to do yourself a favor and just skip all the diary-style chapters of bro-y braggadocio and casual misogyny.

[Clara García Vela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me ha parecido una lectura necesaria que me ha llevado a reflexionar y cuestionarme las construcciones que asumía sin revisión.
Testo Yonqui es un ensayo sobre las actuales condiciones políticas para la construcción del sexo, la sexualidad y el género; y, por otro lado, una autonarración del protocolo de administración de testosterona a la que se sometió mientras escribía su ensayo. El objeto de esto era que su reflexión teórica emanara de su práctica corporal, considerándolas ambas inseparables, además de tratar de aunar la teoría feminista y Foucault.

[boocia]

really fun read ! just a punchy style for the theory chapters, and a exhilarating-heartbreaking momentum in the memoir sections. book too big for my little pea brain ofc so here's some glancing thoughts

i liked the extension of 'copyleft' + technological freedom to biotechnological freedom. if we should be allowed to platform whatever software we want on our phones than the same should be said for what we put into our bodies; no need for a psychiatrist to get involved if someone wants to get on testosterone. obviously the conclusion that biotechnology is technology too is fun, but also the observation that bodies are technologized, reverberating back to how technological advancements create new metaphors and near-metaphors for the self both physical and mental, is just fun.

there is something a very punk and a lil anarchist in Preciado's attitude of course, and I'm not sure how far it goes. it feels a little baby out of bathwater; Preciado's rejection of existing medical structures to 'help' mediate his gender -- for extremely good reason -- is paired with a seeming disinterest in a larger body of knowledge , an alternate science, as a whole. instead of going to a doctor who will psychologically validate that he 'needs' T, he gets it from a friend, which, yeah, fine. but he makes a point to mention that it's a secret when he starts, he won't tell his 'dealer' as he calls this guy that he's started. he seemingly makes up dosages on his own without ? or at most omits any details about asking his trans friends about their dosages, or doing his own research? it's just vibes, in isolation. he does mention that part of the inception of the pharmacopornographic regime is the repression of alternate forms of knowledge like indigenous medicine, but his ultimate take feels super privatized and super personal. it's about how everyone should be able to shoot up heroin and get on testosterone without regulation. i want to see the other part, i guess. the building of a body of knowledge by a community or something. maybe a overhauled or altern medical system is too rotten to imagine, but give me the stackoverflow of HRT if you're gonna talk about biohacking.

i really don't know how i feel about sex as an emancipatory act i think is part of it. maybe i'm just jaded. or maybe the individualization of sex is just a symptom of late capitalism or something and i'm the problem. but my distrust there extends to biohacking too; like having full control of your body and by extension gender and doing butler-ian genderfuck sex performances is/sounds personally revolutionary but like, do you ever bring it anywhere else? maybe i'm just jaded by shit like the toothless mainstream reinterpretation of pegging as some sort of emancipatory act . i definitely buy that disidentifying with your gender makes you see gender oppression better and not in the boring white feminist way but in the actually useful way, and solidarity can come from there? but again maybe this book's personal scope is a narrower than what i want, the solidarity/community/revolution left as an exercise to the reader.

on the subject i think it's very elegant how preciado points to woman-focused feminism as a, at minimum, outdated way to think about gender oppression, without being mensrightsy or undercutting women's oppression. i guess he's just very surgical in framing it as 'feminized bodies' or 'bodies interpreted as female, marginalized, or non-masculine-regimed' or whatever. it helps that he's quick to point out LAYERS of hegemony; sovereign power still exists on top of and in conflict with state disciplinary power on top of and in conflict with pharmacopornographic power. so female oppression exists but men are still being fed viagra and anti-balding regimens and testosterone scandals all of which are just ways to define what 'man' means in a way that makes you spend money, just as much as breast implants and birth control are, but that observation doesn't negate domestic violence statistics nor does it negate the history of medicalized hysteria.

i like when books are about how transformation is disgusting, scary, dangerous, and suicidal. and Preciado touches on that vibe w T also; like he does frame it as an 'addiction' and it does make him talk about himself as being a more violent, rape-y person, but i guess that's just like camp? but i think that's the other more fun thing about eschewing the existing body of medical knowledge right; you will fuck yourself up, or you can fuck yourself up, and maybe our definition of being fucked up just has to move with it, or you just allow yourself to be fucked up. but as i mentioned i really think i wanted to see an alternate science in this project too (where science means community). maybe the problem is that science is categorization and this whole bit is that gender as category is always going to be controlling and inaccurate and trying to talk about gender usefully ("T will make your voice drop") just comes with too much baggage ("why is voice drop about gender" re-engages you with a whole apparatus and history that is rough to think about). anyway digression aside radically embracing the heterogeny of change (you'll become more yourself; you will die) is just always a fun one.

[Lawrence Baker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Donna Haraway observed that "illegitimate offspring are often exceedingly unfaithful to their origins". This is the technobiopolitically produced illegitimate love child of Haraway and Foucault. Far from being "inessential", however, Preciado is unafraid to take them in a new subversive direction to not only offer a compelling, punk and psychotropic analysis of gender, sex, power, subjectivity, drug-taking, desire, the nature of work, and capitalist reproduction but also sketch how we could "transform such minority knowledge into collective experimentation, into physical practice, into ways of life and forms of cohabitation (pp. 350)"

Unfortunately, in doing so Preciado often reduces others (to name a few: their sexual partners, Black theorists, and Jimi Hendrix) to mere props for their individualistic account of gender-hacking. After name-dropping almost every European philosopher, including an odd chapter applying Max Weber's 'Protestant Ethic' to the phenomena of Paris Hilton, it is perplexing that Preciado never engages with, to give one example, Achille Mbembe's necropolitics. This is combined with the almost morbid hypersexualization of nearly everything, from equating women who provide manicures to those who give 'happy-endings', to reproducing anti-black stereotypes of sexuality in the chapter of Hendrix. All of this results in an unsatisfying climax, where the earlier promises of being able to determine our own biopolitical framework through "experimentation, voluntary intoxication and mutation" ends with us in drag king workshops.

[Mary Peterson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm still waiting for post-structuralist queer theory with a practical application that improves the lives of trans people outside of the academy. Preciado's critique of the unpublished "Anus Public: An Interview with Nobody" seems true of Testo Junkie's thesis:
"I think it's still inadequate, too tender for the brutality of the century, too obviously selfish in the face of the impending collective suffering and the gradual disappearance of the living."

[PaulaPé · Rating 5 out of 5]

Que me entierren con esto

[Marea sdp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Creo que me lo empecé allá por 2023. He hecho como 3 veces la de cogerlo y empezar a leerlo, y me encantaba. Pero cuando lo dejaba, pues me costaba volver un montón, no entiendo por qué. Como las lentejas, que me gustan pero se me olvida que me gustan.

El libro es una experiencia literaria que combina filosofía, ensayo histórico, narrativa, diario, un increíble uso de la metáfora, etc. Quizás esa cualidad que me parece increíble también ha sido la que ha hecho que lo leyera un poco a trompicones. Aún así, es un libro muy bueno. Lo recomiendo mucho.

[clove · Rating 2 out of 5]

i dragged my feet to finish this book. at its best, there are chapters with interesting history about the pharmaceutical development of chemicals that affect secondary-sex characteristics / hormones. what preciado does by mixing this historical information with post-structuralist / gender theories and personal narrative is generally useless to me. initial testing of the pill to gain FDA approval was overwhelmingly in colonial compounds built in puerto rico, where the US developed booming pharmaceutical infrastructure? tell me more! juxtaposing images of the circular pill dispensers with panopticon blueprints? i'm out. misogynistic descriptions of the women you want to fuck, and feel entitled to fuck because if cis-men can do it why can't you? i'm out. preciado's narcissism and desire to present new and edgy philosophy shines brighter than the actual ideas in this book, but honestly had i read this at 18 or 19 i would have loved it. if you can match preciado's levels of mania and excitement about picking apart the bones of gender and eating its rotting flesh, self-experimentation, and playing with theory, i can see it's a wild ride. just not where my interests lie currently, as i found myself searching for any material implication of preciado's ideas beyond gender deviant jouissance.

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

A text built of gibberish and non-sequitors, but compellingly so. It's heart is in the right place, like a friend where you get the point of what they're trying to say, and you know its not only really important to them, but also a really important idea, but you're kind of like, what? ok. sure, yeah.

[Julia · Rating 1 out of 5]

Self-indulgent. Male gaze-y. Look how smart I am and how I get ALL the women, even the girls at school. Could be a worthwhile read if you enjoy hate-reading out loud with friends who will also see through the academic jargon for the problematic shit that's within. Don't be fooled—there's heavy toxic masculinity in here.

[Shia · Rating 2 out of 5]

physically painful & torturous experience reading this

[Victor Morote · Rating 5 out of 5]

sin palabras

[Jowix · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paul B. Preciado zapisuje mocną biopolityczną teorię ciałem i w ciele, odnajduje farmakopornografię zarówno we własnych afektach i działaniach, jak i w historii XX wieku, raz po raz wykracza poza konstrukt płci swoim doświadczeniem i demaskacją dyskursów, ale przede wszystkim grzebie ukochanego, a przeżywając żałobę, uprawia queerowy seks jako filozofię i fikcję wcieleń.
A robi to po mistrzowsku. Tak że dech zapiera i nic nie jest już takie samo.

[marcos_.02 · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOWOWOWOWOOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOOWOWOWWOOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOOWOWOWOOW

siempre leer a este autor es una revelación

[Martín · Rating 5 out of 5]

Banguer (a pesar de todo)

[Chase · Rating 5 out of 5]

Part auto-ethnography, part techo-punk psycho-philosophy, Testo Junkie is a testament to the rise and entanglement of pharmaceutical power with state bodies, individuals (i.e. the transformation and hybridization of Foucault's biopower) and the technological apparatuses that infuse bodies both with increasing surveillance as well as the potentiality for transformation. As a provocation, Preciado deftly interweaves personal testimony (a necrotic, drug-enhancing love story) with a complex scholarly reflection on the historical development of biotechnological products (e.g. the Pill, viagra, testosterone) in order to conceive of the spatiotemporal and material "pharmapornographic" era.

The book is lengthy - at a whopping 432 pages. However, the formatting (footnotes) and clarifying language (lots of sign-posting) helps to bridge the book from an academic rumination on the transformations of individual and state power to a more diffuse and accessible text which motivates a cyborgian (Haraway 1985), post-human embodiment to rethink feminist politics in the early 21st century. Scholars and general readers interested in feminist politics, cyborg relations, sexuality studies, contraception and reproduction, queer and trans studies, and identity politics will find this book particularly compelling. Overall, Testo Junkie is a captivating read.

[ju motter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mais uma obra BRILHANTE, crítica, viciante e muito bem escrita de Preciado. É um tipo de filosofia acessível e isso é importantíssimo, principalmente se consideramos a tradição da filosofia francesa ou da Teoria Queer (Butler poderia aprender um pouco mais sobre escrita com Preciado). Observações muito pertinentes sobre nossas outras possibilidades de experimentação do corpo e da vida. Esperançoso, sem ter a intenção. Só não dou cinco estrelas porque tenho a sensação de que Preciado escreve sem reconhecer o lugar privilegiado que ocupa. Acesso à testosterona, acesso aos grandes circuitos e teóricos etc. Em algum momento acho que ele acaba incorrendo em certa colonialização do pensamento, gordofobia, falocentrismo (sua tradução no senso comum) e esquecendo de pessoas assexuadas ou outras práticas sexuais que não giram em torno da penetração. Ademais, gostaria de saber como ele consegue ler tanto, escrever tanto, pesquisar tanto e transar tanto para ver se consigo umas dicas!!!!!!!!!!

[Domcia]

Na maksa pretensjonalne, edgy, wypełnione ruchaniem ale ruchaniem z bibliografią, więc mega mądrym ruchaniem. Idk, chyba polecam, dla mnie przygoda z tą książką trwałą jakieś pół roku, bo po pierwsze słabo umiem czytać, a po drugie ciężko było mi do tego wracać. Można się zirytować, pośmiać, skrindżować i zachwycić, więc super, mega różnorodność doznań.

[Alex Ia · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Pienso que, si los océanos se han secado y se han vuelto a llenar, también mi corazón puede vaciarse de política y volverse a llenar"

Primero, esta portada es horrrrible. Segundo, moy boen libro para la tesis. Tengo la sensación de que él me caería fatal, pero i love a problematic academic. Nada, que moy boeno. No me apetece escribir mas xao.

[javi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cogí reticente este libro, con miedo a encontrarme con la imagen poco accesible e intelectualoide que tenía de la filosofía, pero al final me dejé llevar por recomendación del chico que me gusta (<3) y no podría haberlo disfrutado más.

Los capítulos teóricos me dejaron sin palabras al principio: tenía la sensación de estar leyendo algo completamente nuevo, de estar accediendo a un tipo de conocimiento hasta ahora secreto que ponía de manifiesto lo endeble de las bases en las que cimiento mi identidad. Noté que incluso cuando me apartaba del texto seguía respirando un aire enrarecido, que lo que había leído me entraba en el torrente sanguíneo como la testosterona que Preciado se administra clandestinamente.

Tal grado de infiltración me recordaba constantemente a esta cita de mi queridísimo Hervé Guibert recuperada por Preciado: «Yo soy como siempre en la escritura al mismo tiempo el experto y la rata que destripa para su estudio». Efectivamente Preciado disecciona su identidad, su adicción, sus afectos y su círculo al escribir; sin embargo, cuando termina deja las herramientas de quirófano sobre la mesa y te invita mediante la lectura a que realices el mismo ejercicio. Me he descubierto así pues mirándome delante del espejo e intentando visualizarme en una era presexual, sin la influencia del bombardeo farmacopornográfico; me he imaginado después hipertestosteronado, con alopecia androgénica; más tarde hasta arriba de estrógenos y con las tetas crecidas; saltando de un género a otro, revirtiendo la educación recibida y despervirtiendo mi sexualidad...

Preciado te coge de la mano y te guía como si estuvieses en uno de sus talleres drag king. Nos demuestra lo ridículamente maleable que es el género y lo arbitrario del sexo, certezas que al principio pueden causar vértigo, pero a la larga se revelan liberadoras.

Por otra parte, los capítulos autobiográficos me han cautivado por los diversísimos tipos de apegos y vínculos que expone más allá de la matriz heterosexual y sus dictámenes afectivos. Me ha encantado leer sobre amistad, amor, sexo, rencor, celos, inseguridad y chulería desde una perspectiva tan queer: me ha inspirado a abrirme al extenso abanico de la experiencia humana lejos de preestablecidos. También le agradezco la generosidad a la hora de citar y recomendar, de ensalzar y poner en valor la obra y las contribuciones de su círculo de intelectuales, escritores y artistas queer franceses de finales del XX y principios del XXI.

En definitiva, esta lectura ha sido un guantazo, pero de los que gustan y pides más.

[Guille · Rating 1 out of 5]

Preciado follows the post-modern time honored tradition of namedropping Marx and then shoehorning his ideas into something so distorted and utterly unrecognizable that you end up why bring him up in the first place. Of course, the end product bears no relationship to Marx's ideas: Preciado talks about the "pharmaceutical-pornographic capitalist system", says that people are no longer exploited for their labour power but for their "fuerza orgásmica" [orgasmic power], and that they produce "sexual and toxicologic surplus value".
Whatever those ramblings are supposed to mean, this would only amount to just another post-modern claptrap session were it not for the disturbing passage where he recalls having sexual relationship with underage girls who were his classmates, which starts setting alarms off: it is revolting to read him delight in the memory of how some of them "cried afterwards" after having "allowed" him to fondle their breasts. Him bragging about others who stopped talking to him "after they took their panties off" in his room or lamenting they betrayed him to school authorities after being locked together in school toilets speak volumes about the questionable consent in those relationships, if there was any, that is.
I'd like to think that the whole part is just the author indulging in a bit of biographical revisionism in order to present the image some of the readers are looking for. But even if that's the case, the sleaziness and rapey undertones of the whole thing reminds you of a crypto-liberal who thinks that freedom means imposing your will to do whatever pleases you on other people. Incidentally, Ayn Rand glorified rape in his works of fiction.

[Andrew Ringsmuth · Rating 2 out of 5]

After an hour with this book, I'm undecided between persevering and putting it aside. So far, it's like listening to a monotonous recording of a frustrated intellectual dry humping a bucket of adjectives. How much jargon does a person have to invent and toss around before they feel validated as a thinker? Sure, the subject matter is interesting and the author's accounts of her/his gender transition are fascinating at times. I just find the rest of it all a bit too self indulgent.