Paper Short Abstract:

How does one grapple with and theorize illicit fun? This paper explores the world of liberal gun ownership and the politics of pleasure in the United States, arguing that identifying and comprehending pleasure are products of subjectivities, social contexts, resources, and politics.

Paper Abstract:

How does one grapple with and theorize illicit fun? When a sex worker orgasms on the job, when an addict delights in an injection, when a liberal gun owner gleefully shoots a World War II era machine gun and mugs in front of a camera, draped in ammunition, while carrying on a side conversation with an anthropologist about structural inequality as a root source of gun violence, how does one recognize pleasure in a taboo zones engagement? How does one recognize the ways in identifying and comprehending pleasure are products of subjectivities, social contexts, resources, and politics? This paper explores the world of liberal gun ownership and the politics of pleasure in the United States. While liberal gun owners are a growing group, there remains a considerable stigma against gun ownership in broader progressive political circles, one that is even more pronounced when the parameters for ownership move beyond that of self-defense into the realm of fun. And despite this numerical growth, while right-leaning gun owners have powerful advocacy organizations, such as the NRA, to validate their interests, for liberal gun owners, the venues for camaraderie, validation, and mutual enjoyment of firearms remain sparse. At the same time, how does one methodologically study a taboo subject, particularly when its participants are representationally and substantively excluded from dominant spaces of engagement? How does one study the practice of pleasure when hegemonic moral discourses disallow expressions of joy that are articulated through a material object capable of abhorrent levels of violence?