Developing my ideas upon desire, I began to reconsider the ideas of Lacan, and, after re-reading 'Sexuality and its Discontents', the theories of Deleuze and Guattari, particularly in relation to the connections between desire and capitalism. They argue that capitalist society imposes constraints to regulate "allowed" desires - those which centrally relate to the reproduction of the family. uch psychologists argue the Oedipal triangle, a concept introduced by Freud, in which the child comes to sexually desire the parent of the opposite sex, and simultaneously resent the parent of their own, 'is the personal and private territoriality that corresponds to all of capitalism's efforts at social reterritorialisation'; as such, the family framework is trapped within the capitalist concepts of sexuality, which in turn distort the production of desire, and is 'complicit with how capitalism has constructed social order'.
Reconsidering Maslow's Hierachy of Needs, I started to contemplate the manner in which we are marketed products and services based upon our desires, and our need for fulfilment and 'self-actualisation'. Reading articles upon "Cupcake Feminism"
and how to "brand" modern feminism, it appeared to me that contemporary
feminist thought seemed almost like a strategy to market a product - as
Nina Power points out 'the height of supposed female emancipation
coincides so perfectly with consumerism', presenting the 'remarkable similarity between 'liberating' feminism and 'liberating' capitalism'. As the The F Word states 'we are not interested in pushing forward a hip, 'fashionable' kind of feminism', and these ideas around consumerism and capitalism, combined with my previous work upon sex dolls and the sex industry could be an interesting way to develop my practice.
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