8.4 /10 1 Votes
Originally published January 2008 | 4.2/5 Goodreads | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Gender studies books Gender Trouble, The Argonauts, The Transgender Studies R, Bodies that matter, Gaga Feminism: Sex - Gen | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Testo Junkie is book of autotheory and philosophy by Paul B. Preciado, first published in Spanish in 2008 (Testo yonqui, Espasa Calpe), then in English in 2013 (The Feminist Press, translated by Bruce Benderson).
The book chronicles Preciado’s experience taking a topical testosterone called Testogel as a political and performative act, while working in Paris, France. Preciado’s writes of his use of Testosterone as a way of undoing gender inscribed on the body by the capitalistic commodification and mobilization of sexuality and reproduction. Testo Junkie is a homage to French writer Guillaume Dustan, a close gay friend of Preciado’s who died of AIDS.
In the book Preciado processes the changes in his body due to Testosterone through the lens of a romantic affair with his then lover, French writer Virginie Despentes, referred to as "VD."
Pharmacopornographic capitalism
Sex and sexuality is a major theme in the book, as it is framed to pick up where Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality, and the writings of Judith Butler leave off. Testo Junkie is a political history of reproductive technologies including: oral contraceptive pills, sildenafil and performance drugs, fluoxetine, and the history of clinical testosterone and estrogen usage, among other things.
Preciado coins the term Pharmacopornographic era in the book, a term based on the idea that the pharmaceutical industry, pornography industry, and late Capitalism are integrated in their responsibility to the cycles of reproductive and social control through the regulation of bodies.