The pornification of work: a reflection from Paul B. Preciado

Abstract

This is a contribution to the twenty-first edition of V!RUS, “We have never been so digital”, addressing the link between digital technologies and precarious works. I propose a theoretical review about what Paul B. Preciado called “pornification of work”, with the purpose of pointing out the prominence of this notion in the context of the global pandemic of 2020. To delimit the concept, I point out its relationship with the idea of “biopolitics”, on the one hand, and its distance from the “post-Fordism” theorists, on the other. In the sequence, I explain how Preciado associates pornographic production with current ways of working. Finally, I argue that the pornification of work emerged in the pandemic situation under the sign of a multitude of disposable and available bodies. By specifying this dimension of the global pandemic crisis, my intention is to highlight the predatory character that the neoliberal economy has recently acquired and, by extension, the general precariousness of working conditions.