Nasty pleasures: xenovisuality and schizo eroticism in trans-species pornography

The present research aims to study phenomenologically the irruption and rise of (xeno)pornographic search categories such as “Furry”, “Pet play” and “Anthro”, in 3 differentiated fields of pornographic production: in mainstream pornography through the Pornhub platform, in the underground pornography of the Deep web and in the postporn movement. The aim is to carry out an analysis of pornographic xenovisuality in three spaces with different audiences and social reception in dialogue with the level of repression and/or cultural acceptance.The research is organised along three thematic axes that interrelate and interrogate each other: posthumanism, sexuality and xenovisuality. The posthuman question emerges from the inevitable hybridisation and questioning of the material and symbolic limits of the human present in the trans-species erotic relationship. Understanding the trans-species as any practice, identity or relationship that exceeds the - socio-historically understood as - human, a trans-species eroticism or sexuality would include those erotic relationships that include machinic, fictitious and/or animal elements.The relationship between sexuality and humanity appears as a fundamental object of study with the intention of clarifying and reviewing how historically both categories have mutually determined each other. To be read as a desiring subject functions as the gateway to a regime of humanity founded on the capacity to exercise domination in the erotic-symbolic relation. Offering the non-human the possibility of being, firstly, object and, secondly, subject of desire, radically reconfigures our conception of the human, its relations, its identity and its sexuality. The relocation of these elements opens the door to destabilising - as the xeno and queer movements do - deeply binary, colonial and speciesist human behaviours and structures.Xenovisuality, on the other hand, refers to new queer ways of looking and being looked at. Understanding the image as a privileged social code of high pulsional charge in what we know today as scopic capitalism, the audiovisual analysis of the xeno is presented as an innovative technique appropriate to the digital context. Finally, interrelating these three categories allows us to formulate the research question: how is the xenovisuality of trans-species pornography reconfiguring the regime of humanity and its socio-political implications?Queer and crip theories become complicit in exposing and revealing the transformative potential of the abject, the monstrous, the unrecognisable and uncodifiable. Haraway's cyborg, Foucault's self-transforming and mutating impulse, or Preciado's biohacking, join forces to configure an epistemology of disgust that takes erotic relations out of the wardrobe of human heteronormative binarism. Therefore, the starting point is to situate the cyborg as a non-place, as a mixture, a crossbreeding between categories and bodies whose frontiers are diluted and linked in symbiogenesis with other bodies. The monstrosity of the cyborg thus makes it appear as an illegitimate existence, as Haraway calls it, a bastard existence. Unrecognisable and unclassifiable bodies, crip bodies capable of arousing rejection, terror, nausea.Following Deleuze and Guattari - and understanding sexuality as the main index of what they call schizoanalysis - the object of study is understood as schizophrenic. This adjective given to trans-species eroticism refers in this research to the transgressive and deterritorialising character of a difficult-to-interpret eroticism that escapes the codes and rigid readings of sexuality, bodies and identities. In this sense, innovation is inherent to both the content of the analysis and the approach in line with a continuous opening and broadening of horizons.Moreover, recent news reports and annual statistics from the pornography site Pornhub (Pornhub, 2021) are manifesting the rise of sexual identities and practices that exceed the human and are situated in in-between and deviant spaces. During 2023, a number of news reports surfaced regarding a case in the UK of children identifying as animals. It seems that this was not an isolated phenomenon, but that in some Western countries it is increasingly common to find children who understand themselves outside the traditional human label. These data, together with the popularisation of posthumanist themes in culture and art as a reflection of a social and productive system pushed to its limits, show that this is a truly topical issue. Furthermore, the novelty of the subject is evidenced by the scarcity of scientific material that deals with it. In this sense, the void in the scientific literature becomes an impulse to begin to take small steps in its analysis.Taking into account the currents and axes that guide the theoretical framework, the main objectives of this research are the following:General objective: To study how trans-species erotic relationships are presented audiovisually and perceived.Specific objective 1: To conduct an audiovisual analysis of trans-species pornographic content on the Pornhub platform, the Deep web and the post-porn movement.Specific objective 2: To situate this erotic xenovisuality within the framework of an entry into crisis of the human as a cause and consequence of it.In order to carry out this analysis, a qualitative methodology is used, specifically oriented towards an audiovisual content analysis. This combines a qualitative analysis of visual signifiers using Atlas.ti software, where key theoretical dimensions are coded in the form of indicators. This approach allows for a systematic interpretation of hybrid images and narratives, considering their impact on the construction of subjectivities and the reconfiguration of social imaginaries. This work contributes to methodological and theoretical development and innovation by focusing on an emerging field of sociology (the posthuman / trans-species), which is also located in an emerging space (the digital).As indicated in the first paragraphs, this analysis of audiovisual content is structured around 3 different pornographic spaces related to the Pornhub web platform, the content of the Deep web and the audiovisual productions of postporn. In each of the 3 spaces, 100 videos corresponding to categories ‘Furry’ ‘Pet play” and ‘Anthro’ will be collected in order of number of views and likes. From these 100 videos, a selection of the top 10 videos will be made for each pornographic space, resulting in a total representative sample of 30 videos. This representative sample will be subjected to the corresponding audiovisual analysis guided and organised on the basis of dimensions translated into indicators. In this way, for example, the ‘human’ or ‘animal’ dimension can be identified and studied in the videos on the basis of physiognomic and sound indicators such as ‘skin colour’, ‘amount of hair’ or ‘intelligibility of the sounds emitted’. The sexual dimension, on the other hand, could be analysed on the basis of indicators related to the roles of power in the erotic relationship, the appearance or not of penetration or the incorporation of objects in the sexual act.Once the samples have been organised and categorised we could begin to draw conclusions about how this trans-species sexuality is presented audiovisually, being able to compare the results of the 3 spaces and, therefore, studying the similarities and differences between 3 places that, symbolically, represent trans-species sexuality from places that are more repressed (Deep web), accepted (Pornhub) or openly in a counter-hegemonic struggle (postporn).On the basis of this sample and the conclusions drawn from its analysis, we will be able to frame these erotic representations in our socio-historical conditions by analysing their inevitable interrelation as both cause and consequence. Thus, the implications of a trans-species and schizo eroticism - such as the one analysed - for xenofeminism, the posthumanist current and the resignification of bodies and identities can be studied.This doctoral thesis project aims to draw conclusions and relevant information regarding the way in which trans-species sexual and erotic relations are presented in pornography. The exhaustive and rigorous analysis of the selected sample aims to understand the erotic imaginary of the trans-species from its intrinsic xenovisuality, its practices and the identities that appear in them. Obtaining this information is fundamental to understanding the identity and bodily transformations that queer, cyborg or trans-species existences confront us with. Therefore, the extracted data can be useful and interesting for any research interested in the questioning of human frameworks, the development of technology, speciesism and, of course, transformations in the field of sexuality.This study contributes substantially to innovation in social research by addressing contemporary and new issues through digital and audiovisual media, which are increasingly relevant and decisive for the configuration of social imaginaries and cultural meanings. Sexuality and visuality intersect in pornography to form a conductive mosaic of human fantasies and drives, appearing as potential guides for a reconfiguration of our biopolitical devices. As Mon García tells us in “La resurrección de las monstruas” (2023): ‘bodies, pleasures, desires, sexualities are the challenge that the present is in crisis (...) the personal is political and the sexual as well’.