[2] It chronicles Preciado's multifaceted and liminal experience taking a topical testosterone called Testogel as a political and performative act, while working in Paris, France, as well as intertwining perspectives on pharmaceuticals and pornography.
[4] Preciado declares that Testo Junkie is a "body-essay", and writes of his use of testosterone as a way of undoing gender inscribed on the body by the capitalistic commodification and mobilization of sexuality and reproduction, a process transcendent from the social norm expected with transitioning.
[5] Testo Junkie is a homage to French writer Guillaume Dustan, a close gay friend of Preciado's who contracted AIDS and died of an accidental overdose of a medication he was taking.
In the book Preciado also processes the changes in his body due to testosterone through the lens of a romantic affair with his then lover, French writer Virginie Despentes, referred to as "VD.
[8] Preciado coins the term pharmacopornographic era in the book, a term based on his idea that the pharmaceutical industry, pornography industry, and late capitalism are integrated in their responsibility to the cycles of reproductive and social control through the regulation of bodies: it is framed into the micro-biological scale of design, and its place within a global political, social and economic context and strategies.