Potentia gaudendi

In sexuality studies, potentia gaudendi or orgasmic force is the physical and mental potential (or capacity) for pleasure in a body.[1] The term was coined by philosopher Paul B. Preciado, who says contemporary economies exploit the body by offering services to increase pleasure—such as Viagra and cocaine—which turn it into a commodity.[2] It is similar to jouissance in Lacanian psychoanalysis and libido in Sigmund Freud's works.[3]

Potentia gaudendi is an important concept in Preciado's work, because it underlies his theory of "pornpower": the idea that sex and pornography is part of a larger and interlocking economic system.[4] The ability to desire, or to withhold desire, cannot be transferred; as a result, economies are always in the process of "emotionally engaging people in order to generate value."[5]

References

Citations

1. Pettman 2021, p. 37; Rivas 2015, p. 149.
2. Pettman 2021, p. 37.
3. Cooke 2020, p. 146.
4. Gotkin 2017, pp. 413–414.
5. Liska 2020, p. 423.

Bibliography

• Cooke, Jennifer (2020). Contemporary feminist life-writing. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781108805254.
• Gotkin, Kevin (2 October 2017). "Pornography's media breakdown: Troubleshooting in three parts". Porn Studies. 4 (4): 406–418. doi:10.1080/23268743.2016.1147373.
• Liska, Gerhard (2 October 2020). "An emancipatory topology of desire". World Futures. 76 (5–7): 420–433. doi:10.1080/02604027.2020.1778343. S2CID 221910576.
• Pettman, André (2021). "Get hard or die trying: Impotence and the displacement of the white male in Michel Houellebecq's Sérotonine". French Forum. 46 (3): 37–51. doi:10.1353/frf.2021.0002. S2CID 243419283.
• Preciado, Paul (2013). Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era. Feminist Press at The City University of New York Forum. ISBN 9781558618374.
• Rivas, Joshua (2015). "Intoxication and toxicity in a 'pharmacopornographic era': Beatriz Preciado's Testo Junkie". In Brennan, Eugene; Williams, Russell (eds.). Literature and intoxication: Writing, politics and the experience of excess. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9781349565184.