NAKED ATTRACTION: STRUCTURE OF DESIRE

Abstract

The article conceptualizes the structure of desire, which is inherent in the society of the spectacle of consumption. The nature of the representations of diversity, equality, and equivalence, which constitute the contemporary subject of desire and exhibit the singularity of desire directed at a partial object, is determined. The specificity of the culture of contemporary society, which is oriented towards various methods of "self-invention" through the publication of the construction of the personality, is fixated on body. It is about the dominance of defragmented images produced according to the principles of commodity form through representation, which is ensured by the development of contemporary media technologies. In this perspective, the capitalized body is reduced to its instrumentality, the production potential of its parts, which is legitimized by the process of transformation of sexuality, which can be observed in the contemporary media space, in talk shows, in particular Naked Attraction, the characteristic features of which are considered in the article.

The subject of the society of the spectacle of consumption is the subject of desire, which focuses on the surfaces of the body as a wrapper in which pleasure is wrapped. The process of unpacking appears as one that gives pleasure. In the Deleuzian projection this type of desire and this mode of jouissance is interpreted as masochistic, which is realized in the form of a contract and, in particular, in the "suspense" of unpacking/undressing. In the spectacle of consumption, we are talking about the gradualness of desire, which moves from organs/parts according to the logic of unpacking as the fanning of desire. The figure of the subject of desire/spectacle/consumption is defined through points of divergence/convergence: natural/cultural, whole/partial, single/multiple, intimate/extimate. Thus, it is argued that there is no single whole subject, a personality to be reproduced or imitated. Instead, there is a partiality of the multitude that is in the transformational process of self-(re)presentation. In this context, life appears as a movement from part to part, the quality of which is assessed by the ability to give/receive, produce/consume, exhibit/contemplate pleasure/enjoyment, which unfolds in the deconstruction and transformation of the subject of desire and in particular sexuality.