Raw Sex as Limit Experience: A Foucauldian Analysis of Unsafe Anal Sex between Men
In a world of increasing economic exploitation, rationalization, individualization, and the devaluation of former human skill sets by technology with the resulting outcomes of alienation, self-estrangement, and disenchantment, the risk (limit) experience offers an escape to a sensual universe of emotional intensity and self-determination. This paper examines the possible ramifications between limit experience, resistance, and the ethics of the Self in the context of what Baudrillard calls a post-orgiastic society. Using the works of Michel Foucault, our objective is to understand so-called `extreme' sexual practices as they relate to praxes of resistance and the governance of personal conduct in creating an ethics of the Self, and by examining what is often viewed as the `extreme sexual practice of intentional unsafe anal intercourse between men', we wish to unpack the political and ethical implications of resistance through transgressive behaviour and thus illuminate the sequence: transgression-politics-ethics by addressing the issue of bareback sex as one of many high-risk practices (including dangerous sports).Social Theory \& Health (2006) 4, 319-333. doi:10.1057/palgrave.sth.8700077
Article, 2006
Palgrave Macmillan, 2006