Corpos grotescos, redes perversas: um estudo psicanalítico sobre o gore

Abstract

The main objective of this dissertation is to critically examine the expressions of hatred, abjection, and sexuality produced within online networks, especially in gore networks, which have become notable for the production and dissemination of images depicting the abrupt violence inflicted upon the human body. Gore is an English term that has been incorporated into the common language of digital platforms to refer to spilled blood. These are images that portray the body in scenes of excess: traffic accidents, sexual acts, invasive medical surgeries, street fights, and so on. This work proposes a psychoanalytic overview of such expressions, focusing on their circulation within the digital platform WhatsApp and exploring the shared dimensions of jouissance, taking the fascination with dethroned corporeal matter as an element within the framework of contemporary perverse subjectivities. It seeks to address the question of what kind of social bond is woven among the participants of these communities, considering the libidinal economy at play, whose manifestations of jouissance revolve around the chosen object — gore — produced from images of the suffering human body. Three main hypotheses guide this research: (a) the modes of jouissance in electronic gore consumption — shock, masturbatory sexuality, and the pleasure derived from prejudice; (b) the connections between perverse jouissance and the challenge to the law; (c) observations on the banalization of violence in cyber communities. To undertake this analysis, the study articulates perspectives from communication studies, psychoanalysis, and philosophy. The methodology involves a qualitative exploratory analysis of thirty audiovisual materials extracted from the WhatsApp platform. From this selection, three groups of jouissance were identified: the sexual dimension; jouissance through the drive to shock; and jouissance that arises against difference. Above all, this research seeks to investigate the modes of perverse subjectivation implicated in this networked sociability, particularly concerning the narratives of excess that place the spectacle of the humiliated body at the center