Experience of queer detachment: when the body becomes architecture

Abstract

This article analyzes the conformations of architecture as a device aimed at sexual pleasures in cruising areas of Berlin, based on the relationship of queer detachment. Through cartographic methodology and phenomenological method, the intention is to understand how male bodies and homosexual desires are induced by spatial devices, objects and light/image effects, at the same time that such bodies and their performativities also modify the ways in which spatiality can be conceived and adapted. Thus, by breaking with architectural conventions in the face of dissident experiences of heteronormativity, the ambience of detachment for the performance of unauthorized sexual practices in public space or even by architectural convention stands out, in exchange for the consented exploitation of these bodies and desires by commercial establishments. This interaction of confinement in dark rooms (and hidden truths) reinforces the attraction factor of other consumer bodies, subjected to the supposed control and discipline of sexual behaviours and desires associated with the gay subculture and the pharmacopornographic regime, using as a subterfuge the disruptive aesthetics of the body when associated with architecture.