CENTER FOR SEX AND CULTURE

Talks, machines, workshops and performances.

monochrom's Conference on sex, technology, class, and culture.

The remarkable diversity of human behavior across cultures and classes also extends to sex and technology. Most discussions in this area tend to make certain assumptions about the culture, class, and race of the participants. Technologically represented sex tends to be ableist and heterocentric. Who gets left out of this, what effects does this have, and what would it look like to include them?

Is there working class, middle class and upper class porn? How does the commercial sex industry reproduce and enforce racial, gender, and class exploitation and dominance? How do people use sex and sexual technology to transgress or change social status? How can DIY porn and sex tech counter the social injustices reproduced by the commercial sex industry? Does gay porn make use of the class, race, and power tropes found in heterosexual pornography, and if so, how?

Is kinkiness a luxury? What does kink from different social classes look like? Can economic realities poison the power dynamics of a D/S relationship? What are the demographics of people admitted to hospitals with weird objects up their asses? Does activity in a swinger or BDSM scene act as bridging social capital? Are there class dynamics at work in the feminist debate over porn?

How and why do governments intervene in sexualities? When do governments shape or use sexual desire, both implicitly and explicitly? Can sex tech challenge the future of biopolitics and what Michel Foucault calls "biopower" (the subjugation of bodies and the control of populations by modern states)?

What are the labor conditions of non-Western workers who make most of the world's sex toys? What's the environmental footprint of a technologically assisted orgasm? How does the criminalization or stigma of sex tech production harm the communities in which it is produced? What's the product life-cycle and planning horizon of sex tech? What are the barriers to entry for sex tech production? How important is intellectual property to sex tech, and how is it enforced?

If any of those questions make you wet, check this out!: http://www.monochrom.at/arse-elektronika/about.html

And dig the presenters and topics!!:
http://www.monochrom.at/arse-elektronika/index.php

And here's the link to tickets!
http://arse2011.eventbrite.com/