Theorizing Pornotrope by Gabby Benavente

In the introduction to Sensual Excess, Musser states that "flesh is the territory of the marginalized. It is the side of the Cartesian dualism connected to the body; it traffics in objectification, abject and mindlessness" (5). Musser largely draws from Hortense Spillers, who theorizes flesh through an analysis of how Black bodies were commodified as flesh through the transatlantic slave trade. As such, we can understand the production of flesh as "one of white supremacy's tactics of domination" (6) due to an investment in depersonalizing and removing subjectivity from enslaved peoples.

After unpacking how the concept of flesh operates in her book, Musser proceeds to expand on an important way that bodies have become flesh. Musser states that Pornotroping, that which objectifies people in accordance with hierarchized systems of racialization" (6) is one specific example of how some bodies become flesh. Musser, again, draws from Spillers, who defines pornotroping as "a process of objectification that violently reduces people into commodities while simultaneously rendering them sexually available" (6). Musser illustrates that for Black and Brown people, "violence is inextractible from theorizations of sexuality" (7). This is to say, to be desirable does not protect one from violence, and to experience violence does not solely mean repulsion. Violence and desire can go hand-in-hand.

Due to the conditions of the pornotrope, Black and Brown bodies are not granted the privileges of sovereign subjectivity. As Musser states, "subjectivity has never been granted and that these restrictions on the category of the subject are violently produced; for them desiring is not a possible action" (7). This lack of subjectivity, which can be understood in relation legibility due to the normativity of the sovereign subject, grants those deemed flesh a "mysterious quality". As Musser describes, "Through [the Pornotrope's] discourse of fleshiness it emphasizes the ways that power and projection produce certain bodies as other, thereby granting them a mysterious quality of desirability, which is always already undergirded by violence and the assumption of possession" (6).

Although this mysterious quality, which arises from existing outside the dominant paradigms of whiteness, often leads to different forms of violence, it can also act as a form of limited agency in the face of white supremacy. To make sense of Blackness and Brownness, the majoritarian subject often demands coherence on the part of Black and Brown people. Since Black and Brown people are assumed to not have "subjectivity or interiority" (10), white people often demand transparency on the part of the Black or Brown person to try to make sense of their existence. Opacity then can act as a "minoritarian strategy because it disrupts the assumption that visuality is equivalent to transparency by alluding to something else" (10). Musser builds upon Munoz's concept of "feeling Brown", which affirms that "no matter what its register, minoritarian affect is "always partially illegible in relation to the normative affect performed by normative citizens" (10). Opacity therefore can function as a form of agency, "one that can be an activity of maintenance, not making; fantasy, without grandiosity; sentience without full intentionality; inconsistency, without shattering; and embodying, alongside embodiment" (Musser 5).

In this presentation, I will be focusing largely on Musser's conceptualization of the pornotrope that is laid out in her introduction. I will expand on the concept of the pornotrope to think about ways in which trans women of color experience violence under this system. I will do this largely through an analysis of the television show Pose, which takes place in NYC in the 1980's, and explores Ball culture largely through the lens of Black and Brown trans women. I will be presenting clips in class, but if you want to familiarize yourself with the show, you can read articles / watch trailers on Youtube. See for example: http://www.cc.com/video-clips/mfn6an/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-janet-mock---putting-transgender-characters-front-and-center-with--pose----extended-interview

Additionally, I want us to think of a few questions before class on Wednesday:

When Musser talked about "the flesh being the territory of the flesh", I felt a strong resonance because it encapsulated the ways that is true for many trans women, particularly trans women of color. Often, trans women of color are thought about in terms of flesh through people's fascination with our genitalia, and the surgeries that we have or have not gotten. I am curious if others felt immediate resonance with this idea of the flesh being the territory of the marginalized, either through lived-experience or through observation.

Additionally, I want us to continue conversation we've been having surrounding opacity vis-a-vis legibility. For a lot of trans women of color, opacity does not necessarily operate as strategic because it is precisely our inability to be seen as women that often results in violence. Through this experience, I am thinking about ways in which achieving some level of legibility, for some people, is often a form of strategic survival, i.e some people may never be seen as legible or make coherence, but we can approximate these categories. Within queer and academic theory, which sometimes privileges the nonnormative, can there be space to explore the ways in which opacity and legibility are continuously negotiated?

Lastly, I want us to sit a little longer on the paradox of being simultaneously hated and desired as a condition of the pornotrope. For many trans women, this also immediately resonates because it's the men who are most often attracted to us the ones most likely to kill us due to an inability to come to terms with their desire not fitting normative modes of subjecthood (i.e, heterosexuality). Are there other instances in which you've see this paradox play out?