Video interview by the Goethe-Institut China with Beata on "Pornography & Society"

Written by Beata Absalon

What materials can be used to trace the elusive nature of sexuality? How are our bodies and their desires entangled in power relations - how to deal with them? Alone or with others? Publicly or privately? By emphasizing the beautiful or the difficult sides? With play or seriousness? Being sweet or being angry? Do you have to decide at all - and why is it always so much about deciding "This is good and this is bad!" when it comes to sexual matters?

Silvan Hagenbrock, online editor of the Goethe-Institut China, spoke to Beata about her work and vision for the issue of the online magazine "yi" focusing on "Pornography and Society".

You can watch the video here:

 
Beata Absalon

As a cultural scientist, Beata researches "other states", such as childbirth, mourning, hysteria, sleep, radical happiness & collective (kill-)joy or sadomasochistic practices. After initially investigating how ropes can induce active passivity - through bondage, but also in puppetry or political activism - she is currently doing her doctorate on inventive forms of sexual education. Her theoretical interest stems from practice, as she likes to put herself and others into ecstatic states - preferably undogmatically: flogging with a leather whip or a bunch of dewy mint, holding with rope or a hug, playing with aggressive cuddling or loving humiliation, letting words or spit flow. Doing things that are out of the norm and out of the ordinary can be frightening and incredibly pleasurable at the same time. Beata designs workshops and sessions as experiential spaces for border crossings, where boundaries are crossed and found, vague and daring fantasies are explored together and a personal style is allowed to emerge.

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