The TRANSformacije Collection

Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era

Since its first publication in 2008, Testo Junkie has gained a reputation as an important continuation of Foucault’s History of Sexuality and is considered one of the key works of contemporary trans theory. This auto-theoretical work combines an intimate diary with philosophical analysis, a critique of the contemporary sexual regime that provocatively questions what sex means in the twenty-first century beyond the binary of the “real” man/the “real” woman. Through their own experience of taking testosterone, Preciado unfolds the history and effects of hormonal technologies from the mid-twentieth century onward, as well as the ways pharmaceutical, medical, and media technologies produce sex, pleasure, and normativity. The author introduces the concept of the pharmacopornographic regime, denoting the fusion of the pharmaceutical industry and the pornographic imaginary as a central apparatus of late-capitalist biopolitics. Somatopolitics, hormones, drugs, and images function as tools of control over our bodies, yet, as Preciado lucidly demonstrates, they are also potent materials for personal and collective experiments of resistance against the late-capitalist order.