The involuntary confession of euphoria: ‘Chemsex’ porn and the paradox of embodiment

Abstract

This article focusses on the representation of the body in ‘chemsex pornography’ and looks at selected examples of embodiment in amateur and studio productions. Presenting the idea of the ‘euphoric body’, a representation of the body that shows sexual and drug-high pleasure, I explore how this depiction presents a paradox for pornographic representation because of how it disrupts the specific bodily performances associated with the form, and even ultimately the body’s raced white status. Looking at videos from both amateur and professional content producers, such as Nastypig303 on Pornhub and Liam Cole’s, ‘Scene Six’, Cum Junkie (2017), I explore the opportunities and limitations involved in representing drug-high sex. Deploying a social theoretical model, I discuss pleasure as being something fundamentally unknowable, and pornography, as a disciplining and knowledge-producing structure. Against these, I argue that representation of the euphoric body has created new visual tropes in pornography, whilst either challenging what is possible in the form, or actually reaffirming divisions linked to the biopolitics of class and race.