Thinking Wildly with Chihuahuas

Abstract

In Wild Things: The Disorder of Desire (2020), Jack Halberstam claims that in the post-natural zombie economy, the pet, as opposed to cattle, for example, occupies a high position in the hierarchy of liveliness. Since the pet is also somatically present in human homes and heavily emotionally invested in by humans, it appears to be potentially productive to focus on this category in a discussion about intimacy and sexuality between human and non-human bodies. The topic is addressed with reference to depictions of eroticized women–dog relationships in Swedish cultural representations from the late nineteenth century onwards, primarily in literature but also with some examples from film and art. Against the historical background of legislation concerning ‘unnatural fornication’, gay rights, and animal rights, the dog–woman relationship comes across as a trope which to a large extent corresponds to the concept of “wildness” presented by Halberstam in Wild Things but with some important differences. These observations suggest that it makes sense to refrain from valuing specific relationships and species and, rather than working with pre-set categories of the domesticated, the tame, and the wild, we should acknowledge their varying potential at different times and in different places to provide insights about the relationship between the human, the non-human, sex, and death.