Introduction

Where the previous chapters of this book have mapped the implications of Deleuze's rejection of pleasure as a productive force, and the possibilities that emerge if we recuperate pleasure as part of his philosophy along a number of tracks, one central question remains. Throughout the present book I have worked through different ways in which traces of the Oedipal and distinctly male linger in Deleuze's understanding of the orgasm and suggested ways in which a rethinking of sexual pleasure along more Deleuzian terms can assist in strengthening a Deleuzian conception of bodies, desires and pleasure. But if the Oedipal thus remains as a problem in his understanding of pleasure and desire, then what are the implications and possibilities of this when it comes to his and Guattari's understanding of capitalism? The link between capitalism and the Oedipal is at its most obvious, of course, in Anti-Oedipus, but the way in which Deleuze and Guattari let their understanding of desire take off and differentiate itself from a post-Freudian model continues to inform their philosophy at large.