Becoming one’s own Polaroid: Scenes of Submission at the Interface of Play and Work

Abstract

This paper explores the relationship of play and work by looking at des- potic domination techniques of enslavement and their ludified renais- sance in the context of the BDSM subculture between kinky private pleasure and professional service. Thereby it argues that especially masochistic settings are able to negotiate psycho-social, socio-material and symbolic-discursive processes from a queer point of view by tempo- rarily suspending the claim to self-determination in the subordination and concentration on pain. In this setting, which is oriented towards radical, present alterity, an aesthetic becoming is possible that allows the participants to temporarily experience themselves as a creation and not as a product.