Abstract

The notion of 'laboratory of life' used by Foucault to describe consensual 'SM' practices, encapsulates 'experiential situations' in which the depoliticising and claimed 'naturalness' of concepts that are inscribing 'bodies' are challenged via experiential games. These allow fo development and extention/modification of 'skin knowledges'(Howes, 2005) on the level of inter-relational subjective 'bodily' experiences. As consumerist capitalist societies offer few reminders of our 'bodies' materiality beyon increasing simulation and 'plastification' and 'pornofication', the actual consensual 'bodily practices' in their very enactment could therefore also be seen to represent counter-experiences to existentially more alienating technologically mediated or simulated consumption encounters and allow for reflexive explorations, inventions and modifications of subject-formation that illustrate Foucault's ethical sensibility.