On Visuals and Selling the Promise of Sexual Plaisir and Pleasure in Abidjan

Diabate examines images and news reports about rampant sexual permissiveness in Abidjan and its online environs. Attention to the visual dimension of this pleasure explosion highlights the presence of homines economici. Considering buyers of aphrodisiacs or butt/breast-enhancing products not as uninformed agents, but instead as rational actors who are sensitive to images leads makers and retailers to invest in branding and marketing. Thus, these images and products of pleasure have evolved in an economy of producing, promising, purchasing, and satisfying needs. Analyzing the entanglement of visuality and economic calculus enables a move beyond the moralizing tendency in discussions of pleasure.