Abstract
Nudes have become a common everyday media practice, integral to the expression of sexuality and a medium of desire. By capturing the sexualized and eroticized body through partial and full nudes on smartphones, these images are at the heart of gendered debates on objectification and empowerment. Central to these discussions is the theory of the gaze, rooted in psychoanalytic traditions, which frames power dynamics in terms of a subject-object dichotomy. This paper offers a media-practice-oriented perspective on queer nudes, revealing more nuanced dimensions. Drawing on interviews with adult individuals from the LGBTQI+ community, I analyze queer nudes within frameworks of affect theory. In doing so, queer nudes are an affective media practice shaped by relations with and within technology—smartphones, platforms— as well as inter- and intrapersonal connections. The findings illuminate diverse affective arrangements that arise in the practices of queer nudes, interweaving technology, subjects, and objects. “Contesting the Gaze” assumes a dual role in this analysis: on one hand, challenging the conceptual boundaries of the gaze by foregrounding the role of affect in digital visual culture; and on the other, showcasing how queer media practices disrupt binary logics of the gaze. This perspective reconfigures understandings of power, intimacy, and agency within contemporary digital visual cultures.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Gender Media Studies, Queer Studies, Media Practice, Affect Theory, Ethnography
