A queer(er) temporality : a posthumanist analysis of the performative agencies of time with/in gay men's anal fisting

Abstract

Gay men’s anal fisting has been rendered in sharply divided terms through cautionary-toned medico-forensic studies or more affirmative queer commentary. Despite these paradigmatic and tonal differences, both have tended to share an analytically narrow humanocentric lens. Drawing data from a project with South African gay men who incorporate fisting into their sexual relations, a posthumanist performative account of temporality is put to work in exploring how anal fisting entails the co-participation of the often unacknowledged agency/ies of time. What emerges through this analysis is a peculiar and queer(er) temporality of slowtime which actively co-produces the corpo-erotics of gay men’s fisting.