Unnatural affairs make thinking a threat again: opposed to the predominant force of the identification of all differences, they shatter identity with difference1. Instead of representing and recognizing this or that, instead of trying to include every minority into the majority, instead of normalizing the deviant, Unnatural affairs embark on processes of becoming2: the affirmation of self-difference destabilizes the very order of representation, the dialectics of recognition3, the logic of respect and exposes their inherent apoliticality.
Unnatural affairs commit to an ethics of breaking up with forms that don’t work, that cause unnecessary harm, that have failed4. instead of identifying with predominant values and norms, they disidentify with the power structures that determine our life, which so often are internalized unconsciously and manifest in even the most mundane aspects of our living5.
Staying with the trouble6:Unnatural affairs are ways of coming together that are temporary and situational: fleeting zones of autonomy7 that disintegrate, are broken up with after they have served their purpose, before power solidifies. These plateaus are intensities, multiplicities that synthesize their elements without effacing their heterogeneity8. An unholy, joyful mess.
An unshakable love for this one world, but this world differently9: forgoing politics of representation and visibility for promiscuous, contagious, joyous, potentially insecure and artificial modes of communing, Unnatural affairs desire to break up with institutions once they’ve fulfilled their role. above all, they seek to abolish identity; to leave their peers behind in favor of a selfless desire for and of the ensemble10.
Everything is a pack: instead of communities of an identitarian logic, Unnatural affairs happen in machinic assemblages11; they follow a politics of the ensemble that emerges beyond political organization, that overturns the logic of recognition and advancement, that cuts through ideology and pamphleteering.
Everything for everyone12: Unnatural affairs have a deep love for this world, here and now, instead of waiting for a better future13. rather than seeking for happiness, they shamelessly14 thrive in the abundant joy of actual, excessive life; rather than trying to escape from suffering, they fearlessly look into the eyes of the edges and abysses of an alien, incommensurable and wondrous present15. Unnatural affairs want it all, uncompromisingly, relentlessly, unapologetically, instead of waiting for someone else to fulfill our needs, instead of having someone else representing us. ni dieu, ni maître.
expectations down, surprises up: rather than imagining what could be, unnatural affairs open up for actual sparks of freedom in the already existing ruptures; the countless flashing fractures gaping in this mess of a present out of bounds, a present as ugly as it is beautiful16. hope and fear are two sides of the same coin: anticipations of how things could be, not how they are, they distract from the responsibility to take care of our needs17 in the here and now. there is no need for either hope or fear, only to forge new weapons.18
no name strikes us in the heart19: wholeheartedly anti-essentialist, radically compassionate, chronically queer, weirdly fluid and joyfully militant, unnatural affairs affirms a radical and strong concept of difference; difference not merely as the opposite of identity, conceived as its by-product, but self-difference; the monstrous difference at the core of every identity20. Nothing stays the same - not only can things be otherwise; they already are, and it is a matter of tuning, tending, activating, connecting, and defending these processes of change that are already in the making21.