Soundtracks of human mimetic sexual play: The case of East Asian regional sexual vernacular

Abstract

This article presents and discusses the sonic aspects of human sexual play, focusing on soundtracks and sonic scripts related to sexual “faking”. The author’s ethnographic archives are used to exemplify these complicated mimetic sounds, as they travel and bounce within the sonic nexus of pornography and everyday human sexuality beyond porn. Recognizably regional East Asian vocalizations are used to showcase subtle relations between sonic enactments and those sounds that are, presumably, directly rooted in pleasurable sensations. Pretending in sexual acts often gets perceived as hedonically empty, lacking, or negative, in stark opposition to both pleasure and sexual agency. The undertaken ethnography of South Korean female mimetic sexual plays complicates this opposition. According to these ethnographic voices, supported by more recent findings in human ethology, these two modes of sexual behavior, while remaining conceptually separate, happen in infinitesimally close vicinity and often overlap. Vocal and other sounds that vacillate between these modes contribute to layered and complex enactment and the materialization of pleasure.