Appetite and Control: Thick Desire, Crimino-legal Settings, and Sex-Positive Criminological Theory

• In Event: Stigma, Desire, and Social Control

Abstract

This paper uses a sex-positive queer/ed criminological perspective to explore the very specific ways that crimino-legal institutions use their power to manage desire on the individual and population level. It also investigates the ways that individuals and populations push back against the regulation of desire in a variety of settings. Because desire encompasses an entire spectrum of human wants, this paper will explore a number of desires that bring people into contact with the crimino-legal system (e.g., desires related to sex, safety, economic security, education, health care, palatable and healthful food), as well as desires that go unrealized once institutionalized within the system. For many individuals, the question of desire can only be answered by transformations at the institutional level, such as within schools or carceral settings.

Author

• Aimee Wodda, University of Illinois at Chicago