True domination requires performed enjoyment masking detectable traces of resistance

Evidence

To understand work now, consider the pornographic practice of bukkake. Here, men ejaculate in women’s faces, and the women are required to act as if they enjoy it, to lasciviously lick the semen from their lips as if it is the most delicious honey. What’s being elicited from the women is an act of simulation. The humiliation is not adequate unless they are seen to be performing an enjoyment they don’t actually feel. Paradoxically, however, the subjugation is only complete if there are some traces of resistance. A happy smile, ritualised submission; this is nothing unless signs of misery can also be detected in the eyes. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1709

Categorization

• SEED: Opposite angle of article ‘On Sacrifice’: how systems extract not just compliance but a performed consent that reads as sincere yet still lets misery leak through — compare to workplace presenteeism and emotional labor.
• ADDENDUM: Connects to ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ logic — moral/ritual performance as a classed, political signal — but inverted: here performative enjoyment is extracted under subjugation.