The Politicization of the Anus – Exploring the Body's Hidden Potential

In this session, Aleksandar and Slavco playfully invite us to contemplate the possibilities and implications of reevaluating the integrity of the body through the lens of the anus. The objective of their joint project, "anal body and politics," is to activate the potentiality and political implications of the body from a morphologically rearticulated perspective that undermines the established, hegemonic norms. This includes challenging prevailing notions such as the Phallic body, the frontal body, the heteronormative body, the reproductive body, the (liberal) individual body, among others. Instead, the concept of the anal body proposes something that is more intrinsic to the body itself, devoid of reinforcing a hetero-capitalistic logic centered on reproduction, self-possessiveness, verticality, and property/propriety. Anal politics posits that the body can find meaning and assume an active role in society without being primarily focused on reproduction. Rather, it emphasizes the body's capacity to maintain balance, offer comfort, and willingly embrace passivity and vulnerability. It aims to transcend any specific identity, be it male, female, non-binary, trans, etc., and seeks to legitimize and emancipate pleasure as a critical aspect, one that has been problematically suppressed in our heteronormative and religiously influenced sociopolitical environments.