[Metalab] Arse Elektronika 2011 / Call for Submissions: 'SCREW THE SYSTEM: Sex, technology, class, and culture'

[das ende der nahrungskette]

monochrom's
Arse Elektronika 2011

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SCREW THE SYSTEM: Sex, technology, class, and culture

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Call for papers, performances and machines.
Deadline: 28 February 2011

http://www.monochrom.at/arse-elektronika

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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?

What does production, regulation, distribution, and consumption of 
sex tech look like outside of North America, Western Europe, and 
Japan?  How do state-sponsored religions or religious states interact 
with these issues?  How do majority Muslim cultures differ from one 
another and from non-Muslim cultures on these issues?  What's the 
intersection of sex tourism and sex tech?  Is Japan's pornographic 
dominance in the Asian market an exception to the Korean wave?  How 
does a country's pornography (or lack thereof) reflect its 
culture?  Who consumes racist pornography?

How do the class and cultural impacts of differential access to 
shifting reproductive technologies like IVF, surrogacy (especially 
international surrogates), egg and sperm donors, birth control, and 
abortions affect the ways people have sex and construct 
relationships?  Do these technologies or their social deployment 
enforce heteronormativity?  How could the sex tech industry 
positively impact control and awareness of STIs?

What's the intersection of sex tech and hospitals or hospice 
care?  Where are the sex toys for the elderly?  Where are the sex 
toys for prisoners?  What are the pornography surfing habits of 
homeless people in libraries?  Can technology meaningfully contribute 
to solutions for sexual social problems like rape?  Should the 
government allow or require masturbation aids in prisons to reduce 
prison rape?  Should your health insurance be paying for your 
vibrator?  How do your sex toys hurt you?  What are the health risks 
of using everyday objects as sex toys when you can't afford the good stuff?

Who buys sex tech?  Is sex technology a luxury?  Does the demand 
elasticity for sex tech vary across subcultures?  By age, sexual 
orientation, race, etc?  How much does the average lesbian couple 
spend on sex toys?  What are the substitutes employed to or within 
sex tech if it's unaffordable or unavailable?  Is consumption of sex 
tech correlated with any other social significant behaviors or 
consumptions, positive or negative?  How do distribution methods 
affect who consumes sex tech?  How will the DIY movement change the 
sex tech market?  Will we be able to print our on sex toys on rapid 
prototyping machines?

Who can afford to challenge sex tech?

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