The Potential Overlapping Between the Manifest and the Latent Function of Public Nudity
Gender Roles and Functional Nudity
“Traditionally the feminine is symbolically associated with immanence, body sensitivity,
emotion weakness, dependence, impurity and the masculine with spirit, transcendence,
rationality, purity. In the same traditional way the male is considered superior to female.
In the patriarchal culture it’s expected that the female
will pursue its symbols .”1
(Mihaela Miroiu, Priceless woman )
The argumentation of this thesis advances the following hypothesis: contemporaneously the
hypostasis of corporeality is achieved through collective proximity of female body forcing
equivalence between the body and public good. In other words the female body becomes, de
facto, a collective property. Mainly there are two consequences of this dispossession. The
first one is the transformation of female existence in a corporeality derivate in a upper
signification of female body within the society, by making it
profitable, J.Baudrillard
describes this as transformation in capital and its manipulation through everyday social
practice2. The second consequence, situated on antithetical pole is the abstraction of the
female from her own body, leading to a paroxysmal form a sort of „fear of the body3.
Fundamentally different, the two consequences corporeality communization place the female
body in a phallocentric speech invested with historical constant value. Thus, whether we
consider a upper significance of feminine corporeality by means of the cult of the body and its
institutionalization at the community level or we associate the corporeality communization
with obstinacy to forget about one own corporeality -trend visible in modern history until
modern times – we operate with a patriarchal definition of the female body. In other words,we
1
Own comment
Body Technologies concept belonging to M.Foucault and will be detailed in the second part of the thesis.
3
Shusterman, R , 1997: Somaesthetics and the Body/Media Issue, Sage ,pp.23
2
reiterate an epistemological paradox pointed out by E. Grosz: although the scientific
approaches aim the male body4, the female body is further defined phallocentric.
In sum, this thesis proposes a critical reading of corporeality communization by articulating
some historical, sociological and anthropological reflections upon the relationship between
body and patriarchal socio-cultural perspectives in the writings of feminist theorists: M.
Douglas, L.Irigary, J. Kristeva, A.M. Jagger, E.Grosz, S.R.Bordo.
The body, as a “fictional partner” of the soul, the female as a “fictional partner” of man
Assimilation of the women mainly as a bearer of the body and secondary a reason bearer
holds to a common place of patriarchate with historical value. Moreover, as the dichotomy of
nature and culture in its all binary pairs
5
the body becomes a metonymy of female and the
reason a metonymy of male, it is clear that all negative categories traditionally associated to
the body in will be transplanted and associated to the female. Consequently we might
formulate following i,) the body is placed in the categories of necessity, irrelevance and
particularly being a limitation of the individual, ii.) Corporeality becomes a metonymy of
femininity and reason of a metonymy of masculinity, then the corollary -iii.) the woman is
associated with all negative categories that the body is traditionally associated with, such as:
fear, weakness, dependency.
Assimilation of corporeality to some negative categories and lack of equity between bodysoul/reason relationship advanced by Christianism and
potentiated by Cartesianism 6,
translated in terms of S. Willimason in alienation of a woman to its own body. The body
becomes "a fictional partner" of the soul\reason, and the guarantee of psychosomatic
coexistence is permanently undetermined of lack of awareness of the body.
Thus, Christianity transforms the body into an adjuvant of the soul, into an obstacle to
salvation. In Christianity, the soul and body are both divine creation, but with the death of the
4
Always Caucasian, heterosexual, young, middle-class. All these attributes configure an ideal-type of
corporeality, all other variations (given by gender, race, age) are qualified as deviations from the ideal type of
body
5
E.Groszt lists the following binary pairs: reason-passion, interior and exterior (metonymy for public-private
space for space), self and other, reality and appearance, mechanism and vitalism, transcendence and immanence,
temporality and spatiality, psychology and physiology form and matter
6
R.Descartes separates the material substance from mental substance
body, dissociation takes place under the form of expulsion from the body: floating above the
body metaphor 7. What is shocking by an hermeneutical analysis of the Bible, is the total
denial of the body, which leads until the complete identification with the man with soul. Thus,
"Jehovah God
made man from the dust of the earth, breathing into him the breath of life: and man became a
living soul "(Genesis 2:7).8 Christianity requires a coincidence of the soul with man himself,
turning the body adjuvant of salvation, this means in phenomenology absence of body.
Consequently, if the body is fictional partner of the soul, then the woman will be perceived as
a fictional partner of the man, as its alterity ( otherness) for what the man is not. From an
anthropological perspective, the psychogenesis attitude of individuals towards their own body
cannot be thought in absence of its civilized sociogenesis.9 Thus the individual over his brief
historical journey cresses the society processes along its great history.” 10 By these it must be
understand that „there is no human being coming civilized into the world and the individual
civilizing process , which we are inherently subject for is a function of the social process of
civilization”. In other words, any „civilized” society controls the „civilization” of its members
from birth up to full „maturity” .Moreover, as the civilizing process is inextricably linked to
the control of the body; any society controls the bodies of individuals who compose it11.
Emphasizing it, I will prove that the thesis of social/ collective control over the body is
fallible, the type of collective control over individual body manifests itself in case of male
through self-control and in case of female through the control of environment carried out by
the man.
State- legitimate monopoly upon the citizens body; the citizens legitimate monopoly
upon the female body
In an attempt of deconstruction of social control thesis, formulated by M. Foucault, quoted
and in context of M.Merleu-Ponty and criticized by Susan R. Bordo12 I will try to distinguish
between two classes of claimed legitimate monopoly claimed. The first type of monopoly is
7
JAnkelevitch, V., Pur si Impur (Pure and Impure) Nemira Publishing , Bucharest, 2001, page.60
Other passages suggest the complete denial of body: It is even written : «The first man Adam became a living
soul ». The last Adam became a life giving spirit un spirit “.(Cor, Cor. 15:45),
„In Noah days , ... few, that is eight souls were saved from the water“.(Pet. 3:20)
And surely your blood with your souls will I require (Gen. 9:5),
they smote all the with the edge of the sword “.(Ios. 11:11)
9
Elias Norbert, Procesul civilizării ( Process of civilization) , Polirom Publishing , Iasi, 2002, 1st volume, page.162
10
idem
11
M.Foucault, 1997. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. page 135
8
exercised by the state as a civilizing agent and owner of the citizen in quality of receiver of
those practices. Thus, the state disposes of the first form of control over body through the
practices of civilization, the first forms of civilization occurred simultaneous with the
appearance of the state. Thus, we can guess that the social practice of blowing the nose
13
goes back to Peace of Westphalia, marking the history with the moment of the creation of the
state in its modern acceptation. The incipient form of civilization is, however, courtesy,
integrating the rules of conduct of chivalric society in the late Middle Ages. From the
perspective of N. Elias, this stage is identified with a relative „natural promiscuity” of nonseparation
of
bodies14.
Next
phase,
corresponding
to
humanism,
requires
the
institutionalization of state courtesy and crossing of the body from the absolute
communization
to partial communization.
The control over the body becomes
institutionalized with the appearance of the first humanist treaty of good manners. Erasmus of
Rotterdam writes civilitas morum puerilium , the first humanitarian „treaty”, respective civic
education and good manners with a whole chapter dedicated to decorum externum corporis
(good manners of external body conduit)15. It should be, however, mentioned: that this treaty
was addressed only to boys as they were the relevant public for a set of rules of civic
behavior. The work is transformed into a school manual and catechism. The appearance of
this treaty has a visible relevance: on one hand, civic norms and rules of conduct are
addressed exclusively to men, only them considered citizens, on the other hand, for the first
time the social control over the body is manifested for the first time through self-control
respectively through the way the body learns to use the fork, dress codes and in general by the
way positions and attitudes of external corporeality are managed.
Thus, if the control form over public bodies was, de facto, self-control in case of noncitizens, the control form was mediated by the citizens. Taking the explanatory model of R.
Dahl's definition of political power, we have: A (state) is the only legitimate owner of the
bodies of citizens, except the citizens themselves. B (citizens) are the legitimate owners of
their bodies, accepting by the establishment of state, rules and norms of civic self-control. C.
(non-citizens) have no ownership over their bodies, and B (citizens) exercise control over
12
The article “The Body and the Reproduction of Feminity;A Feminist Appropiation of Foucault „în A.M.Jagger
și S.S.Bordo(ed)- Gender\Body\Knowledge\ Feminist Reconstructions of Being and Knowing, Rutgers University
Press, New Jersey, 1989.
13
I chose the example of the social practice of blowing the nose because Norbert Elias delivers one set of
interesting information regarding evolution of this practice, comparing use of a Kleenex tissue using with a robe.
14
Manifested through an excessive liberation: eating from the same bowl, drinking from the same
glass, reduced public exposure of the body and its needs. Accordingly was used a language that today
may seem vulgar or even abject: it deals for example about spit and mucus.
15
In Pitts-Taylor, Victoria, Cultural Encycolpedia of the Body, Greenwood Press, 1st volume .1, page. 136
them through common practice not only in the later Middle Ages: restraint at home, forced
marriage, rape, total dependence16.
Social control thesis is appropriated in the feminist approach upon the corporeality formulated
by S.R.Bordo. From her perspective, following the theoretical theory of M. Foucault
M.M.Ponty and M. Douglas, the body is „an area on which: rules, hierarchies, cultural norms
are (in) written specifically evidenced by body language”17.
The body becomes what M.
Douglas called a metaphor of culture. Thus, the body becomes an essential part of the
organization and regulation of life by the way how social practices are associated with
categories of: individuality, masculinity, femininity. From the perspective of M. Foucault,
through daily practice and disciplinary improvement body, through beauty ideals imposed ad
hoc, changing, a woman's body tends to become obedient, a docile body not to resist to these
changes. This is why the control over own body is replaced with a social control, I have called
a community control not to associate him with the categories of locus of control referred to
by Foucault18. Bordo notes, for example, that the discipline of diets, physical exercise,
makeup, fashion or even invasive practices such as plastic surgery and starvation, became
organizing principles of a women’s life, they are less socially involved and less oriented
towards itself. Moreover, all these ritual practices, culturally constructed, are crucial
indicators for building of self -image and ab extensor of self-esteem. In other words, all
these forms of discipline of the body build the perception of lack, failure of what could be, but
it is absent19.
Deification of female body by anchoring the self in corporeality .
The conclusions of the body cult and its institutionalization at a community level. In an
asymmetric a report to the obstinacy to forget one owns corporeality, the trend coming way
back from history and present until modern times, place a continual propaganda that is
transforming the feminine existence in a derivative of corporeality. However, the body,
epitomized as an object of worship, does not belong to the women as in of the body
16
Women and slaves are perfect candidates to statute of non-citizens
M.Douglas apud S.Bordo, op.cit, page.24 own translation
18
Muriel Dimen found that anorexia is a form of resistance through defiance of locus of control. The author's
explanation is that anorexia must be explained by the desire of women to be desexualized, by taking an
androgynous model of corporeality.
19
Idem, pp.15.
17
neutralized from the non-existent soul20. The body is close, and in this aspect, it becomes the
main object of collective exploitation.
20
J.Loenhoff considers the transition from body related to negative themes such as impurity , fear, weakness ,
ephemeral- discourse legitimated in theological systems of what the author redefines as "the body as object of
worship”.