Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era

In this first English translation of her book, which was published in Spanish and then French in 2008, Preciado (political history of the body, gender theory, & history of performance, Université Paris VIII; Manifesto Contrasexual) deconstructs what it means to be masculine or feminine in today's society, given the wide availability of drugs and treatments for birth control, sexual dysfunction, low hormone levels, and gender dysphoria. She then analyzes the methods that the pharmaceutical and pornography industries use to market their products, playing to peoples' insecurities and feelings of inadequacy. Preciado does all this while documenting her own self-regulated daily treatments of testosterone, in a "kids, don't do this at home!"-type experiment as she seeks to measure the hormone's effects on her body and psyche. Part history, part sociological analysis, part commentary, and part diary, Preciado's book, ably translated by Benderson, is comprehensive and timely.