In a fanatically economic and competitive society the body must be
at work around the clock. The constant mobilization of energies pro-
duces a kind of paralysis of the erotic body. Eroticism is represented
either as gymnastics or as perversion, but in both cases the perception
of the other’s body is increasingly sterile. In the course of the 1980s,
AIDS produced a convergent de-eroticizing effect.
The other’s body tends to be redefined on the level of psychic percep-
tion as a danger and as a potential factor of contagion. Social relations
then cool down, are de-eroticized, and are increasingly transformed into
functional relations.
Are we not determining the conditions of a psychic catastrophe?
Are we perhaps cancelling pleasure on this earth?28 Thought, Friendship and Visionary Cartography9780230_221192_05_cha04.pdf 10/3/08 11:33 AM Page 28