6 - Consumption, Consumerism, and Kink

Summary

In this chapter, we bring together a queer menagerie of LGBQTNB human lives, specifically in the form of a focus on veganism and animal rights, beauty influencers and ‘cruelty-free’ makeup, and the kink practice known as ‘pup play’. What unites this seemingly disparate group of topics is a focus on the consumption of animals as food for humans or as fodder for human fantasies, and the ways in which a consumerist logic provides a point of intersection between human and animal lives that is arguably oriented to the former, rather than the latter. Obviously, veganism, ‘cruelty-free’ makeup, and kink are not unique to LGBQTNB people. However, each of these three topics takes unique forms or play out in specific ways in the context of LGBQTNB people’s lives. In focusing on the specific forms that these three topics take in the context of LGBQTNB people’s lives, we are mindful in this chapter that whilst some of the practices that LGBQTNB people may engage in through their relationships with animals may take specific forms, they nonetheless sit in (and serve to reinforce) broader social contexts wherein anthropocentrism serves to centre human standpoints.