Platformed intimacy - drugged intimacy

It is clear that current pandemic intimacies depend on digital media, and that those intimate publics or scenes that already deeply mediated are well-positioned to keep their intimate practices intact.

An issue then is that adapting to mediated forms of intimacy requires work, and requires the practice and the physical engagement to change according to what the media infrastructure allows for or offers.

This talk draws from critical drug studies, conceptualizing how our bodies are able to feel and do as something we may experiment with, and enhance. The body is always-already technical, or somatechnical.

I present data from my research into digital engagements with sexualized drug use, anchored in counterpublics of "transgressive” practice. I show that drug-using mediated intimate publics or scenes experiment with how chemical interventions can change our bodily capacities. This, I argue, makes them better attuned to the specific opportunities of mediated encounters.