Abstract
The Argentinian film director Marco Berger’s (b. 1977) films are arguably more erotic than current mainstream queer cinema. The director composes intense mise-en-scène homoaffective potentialities that build in intensity but are never consummated. This technique perpetually engages both protagonists and viewers in homoerotic potential, visually akin to “edging” or “Venus Butterflying” sexual practices that control orgasm. Berger signals homoerotic potentiality through visual and auditory signs, inverting their referents, and transforming scenes into perceived safe zones in which spectators experience homoerotic fantasy without a normalizing heterosexual gaze. Within this queered continuum, in which any spectator can employ a homoaffective gaze, jouissance is postponed and intensified through coitus reservatus, creating ongoing potential homoerotic fantasy by what is not yet present in the scene. Building upon works by Tim Dean and Todd McGowan that link queer theory with Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytical theory of l’objet petit a, this chapter reveals how Berger edges the viewer into a queered gaze through what is yet to come.
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Notes
- 1.
Homoaffectivity refers to an intense and sometimes intimate bond between members of the same sex that may or may not be homoerotic. It builds upon homosociality as a “natural” and common relationship. It is most significant here because it represents a non-binary and non-homonormative response to heteronormativity, often carrying social implications far beyond sexuality. See Kaplan (pp. 28, 348).
- 2.
Edging is a sexual technique, within the general category of coitus reservatus, which prolongs sexual excitement before allowing climax. It is commonly associated with male jouissance, but not exclusively. See Schwarz and Schwarz.
- 3.
The queered continuum reinterprets Rich’s essentialist “lesbian continuum,” in which all women can share a lesbian experience without self-identifying as lesbians (pp. 649–650). The lesbian continuum is essentialist because it excludes men. The concept of a gay male continuum would also be essentialist because it would exclude women. Queered continuums, however, are not essentialist because spectators of all sexes, sexualities, and genders can engage in a queered experience without self-identifying as queer.
- 4.
Coitus reservatus involves the prolongation of sexual arousal in order to extend orgasm for both men and women, and is commonly known in the vernacular as edging, surfing, and blue-balling for men and the Venus Butterfly for women. In all sexes, physical release through orgasm is delayed or even denied, increasing sexual tension that results in more intense jouissance and at times even multiple orgasms. Blue-balling is a physical reaction to prolonged sexual excitement that can result in testicular pain. See Steintrager for analyses on Lacan and male and female jouissance (p. 45). See White for an explanation of present-day concepts regarding the negation of orgasm as “New Age Tantra,” including coitus reservatus (pp. xii-xiii).
- 5.
Heteronormativity normalizes heterosexuality by defining itself against its binary otherness, homonormativity, or that which normalizes homosexuality. Homoaffectivity therefore severs this binary relationship by allowing viable alternatives to explore homoerotic impulses without supporting the social binary.
- 6.
Compare with Laura Mulvey’s male/female binary analyses of the active patriarchal male gaze (pp. 14–26).
- 7.
See Penney (p. 5).
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Filmography
Ausente. Director: Marco Berger. Performers: Carlos Echevarría and Javier De Pietro. Buenos Aires: Instituto Nacional de Cine and Artes Audiovisuales (INCAA)/Oh My Gómez! 2011.
Tensión sexual: volátil. Directors: Marco Berger and Marcelo Mónaco. Performers: Lucas Lagré, Mario Verón, and Javier De Pietro. TLA Releasing. 2012.
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Holcombe, W.D. (2017). Marco Berger: Homoaffectivity through Cinematic Queered Continuums. In: Padva, G., Buchweitz, N. (eds) Intimate Relationships in Cinema, Literature and Visual Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55281-1_9
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