Paul B. Preciado

Paul B. Preciado (born in 1970, Burgos, Spain),[1] is a writer, philosopher and curator whose work focuses on applied and theoretical topics relating to identity, gender, pornography, architecture and sexuality.[2] In 2010, Preciado began a process of "slow transition" where he started the process of becoming a male, physically. From this point on he has considered himself transgender as well as a feminist.[3]

Paul B. Preciado
Born (1970-09-11) 11 September 1970
Burgos, Castille and León, Spain
OccupationPhilosopher, writer
LanguageSpanish, English, French
SubjectSexuality, gender identity, History of Technologies

Preciado came to The New School in New York from Spain on a Fulbright scholarship to get an MA in Philosophy. Jacques Derrida and Agnes Heller became mentors to Preciado. Despite taking a short gap during the spring of Preciado's first year at The New School, Preciado maintained close relations with many professors. In fact, in 1999, Derrida, one of Preciado's professors, invited Preciado to teach a seminar in Paris on forgiveness and the gift during transformation. After transitioning into his professional career, Preciado and his new found partner, Alberto Perez, began to hold empowerment forums in impoverished communities. Later, he came back to the United States to complete his PhD in Philosophy and Theory of Architecture at Princeton University, writing a dissertation called, Pornotopía: Architecture and Sexuality in Playboy During the Cold War in 2010, which in book form later won the Prix Sade in France.[4]

Preciado has been professor of Political History of the Body, Gender Theory, and History of Performance at Université Paris VIII and was the director of the Independent Studies Program (PEI) of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (MACBA).[5] He was Curator of Public Programs of documenta 14, Kassel and Athens.

Since January 2013, Preciado has regularly contributed to French newspaper Libération′s website Liberation.fr, in a column having gender, sexuality, love and biopower as recurrent themes.[6]

Known originally as a female writer and identified as a lesbian,[7] Preciado announced in 2014 that he was transitioning[6] and, in January 2015, changed his first name to Paul.[8] Preciado dated French writer-director Virginie Despentes from 2005 to 2014.[7][6][9]

Testo Junkie (2008)

In 2008, the book Testo Junkie: sex, drugs, and biopolitics in the pharmacopornographic era, relating Preciado's experience on self-administering testosterone, was published in Spain (as Testo yonqui) and in France.[10] The work was later translated into English in 2013.

Preciado prefaces the book, stating "This book is not a memoir" but "a body-essay".[11] Preciado takes a topical pharmaceutical, Testogel,[12] as a homage to French writer Guillaume Dustan, a close gay friend who contracted HIV and died of an accidental overdose of a medication he was taking.[13] Preciado investigates the politicization of the body by what he terms "pharmacopornographic capitalism".[14]

Preciado described the act of taking testosterone as both political and performance, aiming to undo a notion of gender encoded in one's own body by a system of sexuality and contraception.[15]

In the work, Preciado describes and analyses the changes provoked by the testosterone from the point of view of the relationship with Virginie Despentes (referred to as "VD" in the book).[16] Testo Junkie also deals with the political aspect of other drugs that transform the body, such as birth control, Viagra, drugs used in doping, Prozac, and estrogen.

According to Preciado, all sexual bodies become "intelligible" according to a common "pharmacopornographic technology". There is no such thing as gender without technology. Technology is understood in large sense, from writing technologies, to bio-chemical and image production.

Publications
  • Pornotopia: an essay on Playboy's architecture and biopolitics. New York, Zone Books. 2014. OCLC 883391264.[17]
  • Testo Junkie: sex, drugs, and biopolitics in the pharmacopornographic era. The Feminist Press at the City University of New York. 2013.[9]
  • "The pharmaco-pornographic regime : sex, gender, and subjectivity in the age of punk capitalism" in Stryker, Susan, and Aren Z. Aizura. The Transgender Studies Reader 2. 2013. OCLC 824120014
  • Manifiesto contrasexual (Countersexual Manifesto). 2002. – Inspired by the thesis of Michel Foucault.[18] OCLC 745998182
  • An Apartment on Uranus. London, United Kingdom: Fitzcarraldo Editions; Los Angeles, CA: Semiotext(e). 2020.Tr. Charlotte Mandel.[19]

Art and Curatorial

References
  1. Preciado, Paul B. "Catalunya Trans". El Estado Mental. Archived from the original on 13 February 2015. Retrieved 13 February 2015.
  2. Stuettgen, Tim. "Disidentification in the Center of Power: The Porn Performer and Director Belladonna as a Contrasexual Culture Producer (A Letter to Beatriz Preciado)." Women's Studies Quarterly 35.1/2 (2007): 249–270.
  3. https://elpais.com/elpais/2016/01/27/eps/1453910313_124066.html
  4. "Gender Talents Special Address." Tate Modern. February 2013.
  5. “Beatriz Preciado," (author bio) Feminist Press. Archived 7 April 2014 at the Wayback Machine
  6. Preciado, Paul B. "La statistique, plus forte que l'amour". Libération. Retrieved 15 February 2015.
  7. Cécile Daumas, " Tête à queue ", Libération, 14 October 2008.
  8. Catalogne Trans, Libération, 16 January 2015
  9. "Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics". E-Flux.
  10. "Meet the 'Testo Junkie' Who Hacks Her Gender with Testosterone | VICE | Canada". Retrieved 1 August 2015.
  11. Preciado, Beatriz; Benderson, Bruce (17 September 2013). Testo Junkie : Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era. The Feminist Press at CUNY. p. 11. ISBN 9781558618374.
  12. "'Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era' by Beatriz Preciado". Lambda Literary. Retrieved 1 August 2015.
  13. Pila, Renaud (11 October 2005), "Mort de l'écrivain gay Guillaume Dustan, adepte du sexe à risques", La Chaîne Info (in French), retrieved 24 September 2008
  14. “Pharmacopornography: An Interview with Beatriz Preciado.” The Paris Review. 4 December 2013.
  15. Tucker, Ricky (4 December 2013). "Pharmacopornography: An Interview with Beatriz Preciado". Paris Review Daily. Retrieved 1 August 2015.
  16. Fateman, Johanna. "Bodies of Work". Retrieved 2 August 2015.
  17. Williams, Richard J. "Pornotopia: An Essay on Playboy’s Architecture and Biopolitics, by Beatriz Preciado", Times Higher Education, 16 October 2014.
  18. "The Contra-Sexual Manifesto". Total Art Journal. April 2013.
  19. "Fitzcarraldo Editions". fitzcarraldoeditions.com. Retrieved 20 April 2020.
  20. "Beatrix Preciado", Contemporary Art Daily, September 2014.
  21. “'La Pasión Según Carol Rama' at the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona" Archived 1 November 2014 at the Wayback Machine. Art Media Agency (AMA). 22 October 2014.
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