So, you are saying that eroticism is a byproduct of sexual repression, as in the hidden body makes its unveiling an arousing rarity?
That is what Muriel Barbier and Shazia Boucher say in The Story of Lingerie [2004];
Barbier-Boucher wrote:
"Regardless, states of dress or semi-dress seem more appealing and comfortable than undress. Semi-dress in particular possesses “an erotic charge because it is the closest clothing to the private female form” (Barbier and Boucher 17) and the strongest moment of attraction because it unites the imagination required with full dress and the reality of imminent exposure. Once a person reaches nudity, their arousal and interest gradually dissipates. Underwear as outerwear has been a style largely confined to the feminine realm. This might be due to the fact that females live under the penetrating male gaze. Men have nothing to gain from wearing their undergarments; women can either manipulate them to empower themselves or allure the opposite sex.
Ultimately, women rule suggestive semi-undress as a source of reauthorization. This practice gives women a sense of empowerment without true power. A woman could, say, sport a bra sans shirt to reclaim jurisdiction over her own body, her choice in apparel is a theatrical proclamation of self, but her male audience, on the most simplistic level, could reduce the performance for instant sexual gratification. Everything is on show; displayed upfront. Furthermore, such garments are imbued with a flirtatious edge. Women like men to look, whether or not they have purposeful intent, and they enjoy the idea of controlling that gaze, whereas men just like to look. In reverse, this situation simply cannot function because the man would gain nothing, real or illusory. By dressing in this way, the male would abandon his stature of patriarchal dignity, stability and order in favor of the feminine. The reversal of the gaze alters gender roles dramatically." [The Story of Lingerie]
In I.E. antiquity, the colour of the body acted as a 'status' marker; the caste-system was originally formed on a skt. 'Varna', physiological colour. One reason the Aryan Invasion Theory is denounced by liberalists is because of the open war based on body-colour between the fair and golden skinned, and the dark-skinned on the other, in the Rig Veda. (They would like to interpret this as poetic metaphors and weather battles between sun and storm! ) Anyways. Within the caste itself, the men of the four castes were distinguished by the kind of sacred thread they wore - they were distinguished on the basis of specific trees from which these threads/fibres/fabrics were made out of. In Rome, clothing acted as a Rank-marker;
Quote :
"In his Institutio oratoria, Quintilian gives a strikingly thorough description of the way a Roman orator was supposed to wear his tunica. In the sixteenth century, Quintilian's book was a source commonly relied upon for the representation of antique heroes. The belt had to be put on in such a manner that ‘the hem of the tunica on the front [was] just under the knees and on the rear till the kneeholes’. This prescript is strictly followed in the representation of the Roman princes in Antwerp."
Then comes Xt. with its shame/guilt culture and eroticism develops as a function between clothing and nudity, as Perniola elaborates. And now, in postmodern times, with any sense of even 'shame' dying away, and all "inner/pvt. wear" of a woman having become outer wear, then there's [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. and even [url=%C2%A0http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe_fetishism]shoe fetish[/url]. I'm struck by the synopsis of Perniola's book 'Sex Appeal of the Inorganic';
Quote :
"We live in a world where the one-time opposition between things and humans has been transformed, where the centre of the contemporary sensibility is the encounter between philosophy and sexuality, where sex extends well beyond both the act and the body. We live in a world where to be sexy is to ignore the distinctions between animate and inanimate objects of desire, where the aesthetics of sex are being revolutionized. An organic sexuality, based on sex difference and driven by desire and pleasure, is being replaced by a neutral, inorganic and artifical sexuality, a sexuality always available but indifferent to beauty, ago or form, a sexuality freed by thought from nature."
I haven't read his book, and am skeptical of how he may conclude, but I think, he's right in so far as seeing the body becoming more inanimate. I personally see, the body today has become accessorized... not even a question of clothing or nudity anymore, but the body and being itself, like any pop. music video with a man and ten girls or a lady with ten men, etc. all over each other... the body and being itself behave like an "accessory" to the main character. Like one wears a chain or an earring, a fashion accessory, women wear men and vice-versa.
So from Race/rank-consciousness to inanimate materiality...
See p.207 [ i.e. scribd p.220] here: the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Lastly is the trend of cosmetic surgery. The unforgettable movie that comes to mind is Kim ki-duk's film 'Time', dealing with nihilism, love and anxiety in an age driven by physical appearances. Cosmetic surgeries and alterations become a way to "perk up" a relation when it seems like the 'fun' in it is dying out and one is scared the other might be bored with them for "having the same boring face everyday", and so renewing your body periodically = eroticizing and refreshing your relationship up... Not to mention, the growing relation bet. facial contouring and getting jobs in competitive markets; this is unbelievable and is happening for real:
Reviews on the Korean film 'Time':
Quote :
"Haunting and disturbing, Time is the kind of motion picture that gets under your skin and doesn't let go. It lingers long after the final credits have rolled and, for those who see it with friends, it will provoke endless post-movie discussions. A meditation on identity and how our physical appearance relates to who we are, Time is the product of the fertile creative mind of controversial (some love him, some despise him) South Korean director Kim Ki-duk. Like Kim's previously seen international efforts, this one takes a seemingly straightforward storyline and twists it to devastating effect during the final act. The result is a production of intellectual and emotional power. It's nowhere close to conventional and aptly fits the term "challenging." The plastic surgery craze has gripped the world for decades, but it has changed in recent years from a procedure for the rich and vain to something that crosses all socio-economic barriers. With Time, Kim postulates the next step in cosmetic surgery: what if it was possible, with a few cuts of a knife and pounds of a mallet, to completely reconfigure someone's face with no scarring or side effects? You could enter a clinic looking like one individual and six months later (the recovery period) appear to be someone else. Imagine the number of celebrity clones out there... But this possibility raises philosophical questions. When an individual changes his face, is he the same person? Does such a radical alteration to one's physiology result in a psychological shift? How will others react? Will they be able to accept the "new" person as an extension of the "old" one? This is the territory in which Time resides."
"It's been estimated that as many as 50 percent of South Korean women in their 20s — and an increasing number of men — have undergone cosmetic surgery in their quest for ul-jjang ("the perfect face"). If this suggests that South Koreans are suffering from an irrational plague of body-image insecurity, you might consider Kim Ki-duk's "Time" to be a pathological case study disguised as a romantic melodrama. From its cringe-inducing images of cosmetic surgery to the underlying notion that physical perfection is an illusion that breeds unhappiness, "Time" treats obsession with beauty as an emotional disease that rots our souls from the outside in. Factor in the idea that all relationships change with time (hence the title), and you've got yourself a twisted yet altogether fascinating film about an extreme solution to romantic familiarity."
..Ultimately, women rule suggestive semi-undress as a source of reauthorization. This practice gives women a sense of empowerment without true power. A woman could, say, sport a bra sans shirt to reclaim jurisdiction over her own body, her choice in apparel is a theatrical proclamation of self, but her male audience, on the most simplistic level, could reduce the performance for instant sexual gratification. Everything is on show; displayed upfront. Furthermore, such garments are imbued with a flirtatious edge. Women like men to look, whether or not they have purposeful intent, and they enjoy the idea of controlling that gaze, whereas men just like to look. In reverse, this situation simply cannot function because the man would gain nothing, real or illusory. By dressing in this way, the male would abandon his stature of patriarchal dignity, stability and order in favor of the feminine. The reversal of the gaze alters gender roles dramatically."
Who wrote this?
The body is a manifestation of time; it's spatial dimensions are expressions of possibility. The body has always been an object exposing potential to the observer. Not only its form but its grace, its harmony, symmetry, balance are all a form of order which attracts a mind in need of order. The physical is order determined by a past.
As the brains becomes more sophisticated it perceives order on a more immediate form: the mind. Intelligence, is a form of mental order; brain symmetry. A kind of emergent order, based on a disorder, as all ordering is a reaction to disordering, and so a yet to become manifest on a physical form kind of order.
_________________ γνῶθι σεαυτόν μηδέν άγαν
Lyssa Har Har Harr
Gender : Posts : 8965 Join date : 2012-03-01 Location : The Cockpit
The body is a manifestation of time; it's spatial dimensions are expressions of possibility. The body has always been an object exposing potential to the observer.
The excerpt you quoted was taken from the link given: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
I am used to experiencing the body as spirit-animated, alive, and with its own atmospheres... I'll think more on your remarks, thank you for the way you phrased them.
"In the Judeo-Christian world mythology, the need to wear clothing is a constant reminder of the weak-willed and self-serving nature of human beings. Having eaten of the Forbidden Fruit in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve are punished by God with feelings of shame over their nakedness and are thenceforth forced to wear clothing. In the corporate world, those who would advance their careers are told to "dress for success". In working their ways up the corporate ladder, potential management candidates are told to dress in a manner befitting the rank and level to which they aspire rather than that of their present jobs if they wish to see their ambitions realized.
Sales personnel are told that the more generic and conservative their attire, the less chance there is of off-putting potential customers. This mode of blending-into-the-background-dress (popularized by the blue suits of employees of "The Big Blue", IBM, during the 70s and 80s), sales personnel are told, translates into more bookings which, of course, translates into more commission dollars.
Uniforms are utilized by the military, private schools and certain private/public sector industries as an equalizer - meant to minimize the differences between individual members of the organization and aid in the homogenization of the entire body into one, functioning whole." [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Do Jeans serve as such a 'uniform'? Entries from the Marxist's dictionary: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
This brings us back to this uniformity (uniforms produce) or the fake uniformity one can produce with clothing.
See Mao's China...but also the army and WallStreet.
All institutions have their own uniforms expressing what they do and what they don't wish to accentuate. This is why usnisex is becoming so popular in the west.
Hugh B.Urban on sex, secrecy, and politics: observing how the erotic culture arose and spread by the Xt. distortion of the Indian Tantric Tradition, due to its Victorianism.
"[T]he science of the sexual magic is the key to the development and the underlying secret of all Masonic symbols.…[I]t is certain that the sexual question has become the most burning question of our time.
-- Theodor Reuss, "Mysteria Mystica Maxima" [43]
"Surely few terms in the vocabulary of Eastern religions hold such a tantalizing, titillating or controversial place in the contemporary American imagination as Tantra. A word that instantly conjures up images of exotic eroticism, mystical ecstasy and Oriental intrigue, Tantra has entered fully into both contemporary Western scholarship and popular discourse as a whole. Not only are popular entertainers like Sting practicing their own varieties of Tantric sex, (2) but Tantra has now become a major commercial enterprise, spawning entire lines of books, tapes, video, and erotic merchandise. Indeed, I was rather intrigued to discover recently that the phrase "American Tantra" is now a registered trademark, representing a whole line of books, videos and other "ceremonial sensual" merchandise (3).
For most American readers today, Tantra has come to be defined basically as "spiritual sex" or the use of sexuality as a religious experience; as the "exotic art of prolonging your passion play" to achieve "nooky nirvana," it is praised as much a needed liberation of sexuality for a repressive Western world (4). As it is commonly used in popular discourse, Tantra has come to be used almost interchangeably with the erotic techniques described in the Kama Sutra, and frequently identified with a range of Western esoteric practices, such as the erotic rituals of the Ordo Templi Orientis and the sex magic of Aleister Crowley. And yet, rather strikingly, any one who carefully reads any of the classic Sanskrit Tantras quickly realizes that sexual practices play a fairly minor and often very "unsexy" role.
In other words, the identification of Tantra with sex and particularly, with scandalous, transgressive and deviant sexuality is largely a modern American preoccupation, not a traditional Indian one. So the question is: how did Tantra come to be identified primarily as sacred sex in the American imagination...?
Many contemporary Western authors have celebrated Tantra as a kind of liberation from an oppressive social hierarchy and a glorification of the body, sexuality and femininity.4 The Tantric schools of Bengal, for example, have been hailed as a "spirit of protest and criticism" against the caste system, which "provided a refuge for antinomians of various types as well as a tradition...for those who, because of caste or sex, could not participate in the Brāhmaṇical system."5 One of the most popular examples of this positive revaluation of Tantra is Miranda Shaw's recent study of Tantric Buddhism; the Tantras, Shaw argues, offered women a new source of freedom and authority, with a sense of "mastery and spiritual power."
Part of the answer, I will argue here, lies in the mysterious life and works of Pierre Arnold Bernard one of the first and most important, yet also today strangely little known figures in the transmission of Tantrism to the West. Known in the popular American press as "Oom the Omnipotent," Bernard became notorious throughout newspapers and journals as a spiritual leader and philosopher as well as a philanderer, seducer of women and purveyor of scandalous indecencies. Not only did he found the first "Tantrik Order" in America (1906), but he was also the first in a long line of Tantric gurus who would come under intense criticism and suspicion for their alleged immoral, indecent and illegal sexual practices.
In my discussion of Dr. Bernard and the transmission of Tantra to America, I will borrow some insights from Michel Foucault and others who have examined the role of sexuality in modern Western culture. As Foucault suggests, the men and women of the Victorian era were really not the repressed, puritanical prudes that we commonly imagine them to be today; on the contrary, the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed an unprecedented new interest and proliferation of discourse about sexuality, which was not categorized, classified and described in endless detail. "What is peculiar to modern societies is not that they consigned sex to a shadow existence, but that they dedicated themselves to speaking of it ad infinitum, while exploiting it as the secret." (6) Above all, as we see in new medical and psychological texts like Psychopathologia Sexualis, there was a special interest in forms of non-reproductive sexuality that were now categorized as " deviant," transgressive and antisocial, now labeled with a whole new lexicon of terminology such as homosexuality, necrophilia, nymphomania, spermatorrhea, and so on. As I will argue, the new fascination with Tantra with its explicit use of non-reproductive sexuality, often in violation of laws of class and purity was a key part of this larger obsession with "deviant" forms of sexuality in the Victorian imagination.
Adrenalin sex, liquid sex, hard sex, flowing sex, expanded sex, Tantric sex, sacred sex, wet sex, slow sex, ecstatic sex,.. we want it ALL! In expressing sexual energy, we experience the human body's potential for awareness and feelings!...We channel the creative life force flowing through us. -Paul Ramana Das and Marilena Silbey, "American Tantra" (
Tantra, it would seem, lies at a pivotal intersection between Indian and American imaginations, at the nexus of a complex play of representations and misrepresentations between East and West taking place over the last two hundred years. Not only was it a crucial part of the Western "imagining of India," particularly during the colonial era; but it has been no less crucial a part of the "re-imagining of America," particularly during the eras of sexual liberation, feminism, gay rights and sexual politics at the turn of the new millennium.
In most contemporary American imaginations, both popular and scholarly, the word Tantra is almost always associated with the word sex. Defined as the oath of ecstasy, the yoga of sex, Tantra is usually identified as that religious path which combines the physical experience of sexual pleasure with the spiritual experience of liberation.
The task for the Tantric is to arouse and channel the flow of shakti or creative energy that circulates through out the universe, the human body and the social order. As Douglas Brooks argues in his study of South Indian Tantra, the primary concern for the Tantrika is how one might harness and actualize the power perceived to be inherent in all things, including social relations. The dichotomies of impure/pure, and auspicious/ inauspicious are...mechanisms for the expression of...episodic forms of power (13).
Sex may in some traditions be one means of awakening and harnessing power, or one form of its expression in the physical universe; but it is by no means the only or even the most important one. In fact, if one examines most popular vernacular texts on Tantra today, it would seem that by far the most attention is given not to matters of sexual pleasure, but rather to the acquisition of supernatural abilities and achieving all one's worldly desires (14).
So how, then, did "Tantrism" come to be defined primarily as "spiritual sex?" This shift begins, I think, during the early colonial era, with the first discovery of Indian religions by Christian missionaries and Orientalist scholars in the early nineteenth century. It was really not until the early nineteenth century, with the arrival of Christian missionaries like the Baptist William Ward and the Scotsman, Alexander Duff, that Tantras became objects of intense interest and morbid fascination. Above all, the missionaries singled out the sexual element particularly transgressive and illicit sexuality as the most horrific aspect of the Tantras and the clearest evidence of their complete depravity. The Tantras, as Ward put it, involve "a most shocking mode of worship" centered around the worship of a naked woman (preferably a prostitute or outcast) and rites "too abominable to enter the ears of man and impossible to be revealed to a Christian public".
For later British authors like H.H. Wilson, Sir Monier Williams and many others, the Tantras were then quickly adapted to the larger Orientalist narrative of Indo-European history and the decadence of modern India. According to most Orientalist accounts, the history of Indian culture was a long steady decline from a golden age comparable to ancient Greece and Rome, embodied in the texts of the Vedas, down to a modern era of licentiousness and superstition, embodied in the perverse secret rituals of the Tantras (17). Repeatedly throughout nineteenth century Orientalist literature, we find the Tantras described in the most vivid language as "lust mummery and black magic" (Brian Hodgson), "nonsensical extravagance and absurd gesticulation" (H.H. Wilson), and "black art of the crudest and filthiest kind" in which " a veritable devil's mass is purveyed in various forms" (D.L. Barnett) (18).
Bernard's Tantric teachings were, however, also surrounded with a certain aura of secrecy and elitism, teachings so profound and potentially dangerous they had to be reserved for the initiated few. Thus the International Journal, Tantrik Order quotes the words of Arthur Schopenhauer: "Philosophy should be like the Eleusinian mysteries; for the few, the elite," (35) and it also warns the disciple that "whoever has been initiated, no matter what may be the degree to which he may belong, and shall reveal the sacred formulae, shall be put to death" (36).
According to Randolph... The power of sex, then, can be deployed for a wide range of both spiritual and material ends. If one can harness the creative energy aroused by sexual contact, he can realize virtually any worldly or otherworldly goal. One can not only achieve the spiritual aims of divine insight, but also attain the mundane goals of physical health, financial success or regaining the passions of a straying lover.
"Through... the principles of Tantra Yoga, man can achieve the sexual potency which enables him to extend the ecstasy crowning sexual union for an hour or more, rather than for the brief seconds he now knows (96).
At the same time, Tantra began to enter into the Western popular imagination in a huge way, as popular entertainers, musicians and poets began to take an active interest in this exotic erotic brand of Eastern spirituality. This had already begun with the beat poets like Allen Ginsberg – one of the first Western hippies to begin to flood into India in the 60s who saw Tantra as one of many ways of breaking through the repressive morality of middle class American society (97). And in 1968, even Mick Jagger would make a film called "Tantra," as a psychedelic journey through the five M's. By the 1970s, Tantra had come to be more or less synonymous with liberation and freedom on every level spiritual, social and political alike.
According to a common narrative, repeated ad nauseam by advocates of alternative spirituality, our natural sexual instincts have long been repressed by the distorted morality of Western society and the Church. "For centuries organized religions have used guilt about sex as a way of exploiting people and the recent liberalization of sexuality has not yet succeeded in erasing this cruel legacy;" therefore, Tantra is the most needed spiritual path for our age, the path which will help to liberate our repressed sexuality and re-reintegrate our bodies and spirits: "Sexual liberation implies the liberation of the whole being: body, mind and spirit" (98). Thus from the 1970s on, we see the rise of a whole series of "Neo-Tantric" Gurus, such as Swami Muktananda, Chogyam Trungpa, Da Free John and others, who explicitly wedded Indian sexual practices with Western spiritual ideals. Perhaps the most famous of these was Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, the notorious sex Guru and Guru of the Rich, who marketed an extremely lucrative brand of Neo-Tantrism through his ranch in Antelope, Oregon (99).
One is thus tempted to agree with Peter Koenig that what we are witnessing is a kind of "McDonaldisation of occultism," transmitting a form of "McGnosis" based on Crowleyian "illumination through sex-magic." "It is only a matter of time before we see the 'Caliphate' not only selling T-shirts with the O.T.O.-lamen and [at one time via [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] pornography but also frozen 'Amrita' (a sexual-secretion cocktail) over the Internet (102). TantraWorks offers membership in the "New Tantric Order", which will offer participants the opportunity to advance through personalized Tantra initiations and allow access to all the Tantra database, on this Web Site (103).
In this sense, Tantra would seem to play much the same role in the modern imagination as did "sexuality" itself during the Victorian era, as Foucault has so insightfully described it. Far from simply prudish and repressive, the Victorian era was in fact pervaded by a deeper interest in and endless discourse about sexuality, which was exploited as "the secret." Conversely, our own generation the generation of we "other Victorians" is seemingly obsessed with the rhetoric of "liberation," coming out of the closet and freeing ourselves from the prudish bonds of the Victorian era. Foucault wrote:
If sex is repressed, that is, condemned to prohibition...then the mere fact that one is speaking about it has the appearance of a deliberate transgression. A person who holds forth in such language places himself...outside the reach of power...We are conscious of defying established power...We know we are being subversive.What stimulates our eagerness to speak of sex in terms of repression is doubtless this opportunity to speak out against the powers that be, to utter truths and promise bliss, to link together enlightenment, liberation and manifold pleasures (104).
However, as Peter Gay points out, discussions of sexuality had to take place in the proper contexts, either privately, in the closed realms of secrecy or, publicly, through scientific discourse. [36] The Victorian era, in fact, witnessed a tremendous proliferation of medical treatises on sexuality, in both its proper and perverse forms. Viewing any deviation from "normal" sex as morally suspect, the Victorian imagination was obsessed with the identification, enumeration and scientific classifica-tion of every imaginable sexual aberration. Among the most popular works in late nineteenth century England was Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis (1886) which became the most influential catalogue of deviations. Under the protective cover of "medical nomenclature" and with the "posture of moral outrage," Victorian readers "could indulge in this 'medicoforensic' peep-show of sexual hyperaesthesia, paresthesia, aspermia, polyspermia, spermatorrhea, sadism, masochism, festishism, exhibitionism, psychic hermaphroditism, satyriasis and nymphomania." [37]
Unfortunately, it would seem that in our enthusiasm for "liberation," we have not only increasingly confused Indian Tantra with Western magical practices, but probably also grossly misunderstood both traditions in the process. Our American fascination with sex magic seems to have less to do with any actual Eastern tradition than it does with our own uniquely American fantasies, obsessions and repressed desires. Sex, so far as I can tell, is really not a central pre-occupation in most Tantric texts, where secrecy and the acquisition of power are typically far more important. 'Tantric' sex and its like is largely a twentieth century American preoccupation, and one that continues to drive us in our own "primitive passion" for the elusive ideal of bodily and spiritual ecstasy." [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
"… By long habit we do not judge it as a living organism, but as a design; and we discover that the transitions are inconclusive, the outline is faltering. We are bothered because the various parts of the body cannot be perceived as simple units and have no clear relationship to one another. In almost every detail the body is not the shape that art had led us to believe it should be.
Greek confidence in the body can be understood only in relation to their philosophy. It expressed above all their sense of human wholeness. Nothing that related to the whole man could be isolated or evaded; and this serious awareness of how much was implied in physical beauty saved them from the two evils of sensuality and aestheticism.
This feeling that the spirit and body are one, which is the most familiar of all Greek characteristics, manifests itself in their gift of giving to abstract ideas a sensuous, tangible, and, for the most part, human form. Their logic is conducted in the form of dialogues between real men. Their gods take visible shape, and on their appearance are usually mistaken for half-familiar human beings — a maidservant, a shepherd, or a distant cousin. Woods, rivers, even echoes are shown in painting as bodily presences, solid as the living protagonists, and often more prominent. Here we reach what I take to be the central point of our subject: “Greek statues,” said Blake, in his Descriptive Catalogue, “are all of them representations of spiritual existences, of gods immortal, to the mortal, perishing organ of sight; and yet they are embodied and organised in solid marble.” The bodies were there, the belief in the gods was there, the love of rational proportion was there. It was the unifying grasp of the Greek imagination that brought them together. And the nude gains its enduring value from the fact that it reconciles several contrary states. It takes the most sensual and immediately interesting object, the human body, and puts it out of reach of time and desire; it takes the most purely rational concept of which mankind is capable, mathematical order, and makes it a delight to the senses; and it takes the vague fears of the unknown and sweetens them by showing that the gods are like men and may be worshiped for their life-giving beauty rather than their death-dealing powers." [Kenneth Clarke, The Nude: Study of an Ideal Form]
Quote :
"To be naked is to be oneself. To be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognized for oneself. A naked body has to be seen as an object in order to become a nude. (The sight of it as an object stimulates the use of it as an object.) Nakedness reveals itself. Nudity is placed on display. To be naked is to be without disguise. To be on display is to have the surface of one's skin, the hairs of one's own body, turned into a disguise which, in that situation, can never be discarded. The nude is condemned to never being naked. Nudity is a form of dress." [Berger, Ways of Seeing]
Lastly is the trend of cosmetic surgery. The unforgettable movie that comes to mind is Kim ki-duk's film 'Time', dealing with nihilism, love and anxiety in an age driven by physical appearances. Cosmetic surgeries and alterations become a way to "perk up" a relation when it seems like the 'fun' in it is dying out and one is scared the other might be bored with them for "having the same boring face everyday", and so renewing your body periodically = eroticizing and refreshing your relationship up... Not to mention, the growing relation bet. facial contouring and getting jobs in competitive markets; this is unbelievable and is happening for real:
Reviews on the Korean film 'Time':
Quote :
"Haunting and disturbing, Time is the kind of motion picture that gets under your skin and doesn't let go. It lingers long after the final credits have rolled and, for those who see it with friends, it will provoke endless post-movie discussions. A meditation on identity and how our physical appearance relates to who we are, Time is the product of the fertile creative mind of controversial (some love him, some despise him) South Korean director Kim Ki-duk. Like Kim's previously seen international efforts, this one takes a seemingly straightforward storyline and twists it to devastating effect during the final act. The result is a production of intellectual and emotional power. It's nowhere close to conventional and aptly fits the term "challenging." The plastic surgery craze has gripped the world for decades, but it has changed in recent years from a procedure for the rich and vain to something that crosses all socio-economic barriers. With Time, Kim postulates the next step in cosmetic surgery: what if it was possible, with a few cuts of a knife and pounds of a mallet, to completely reconfigure someone's face with no scarring or side effects? You could enter a clinic looking like one individual and six months later (the recovery period) appear to be someone else. Imagine the number of celebrity clones out there... But this possibility raises philosophical questions. When an individual changes his face, is he the same person? Does such a radical alteration to one's physiology result in a psychological shift? How will others react? Will they be able to accept the "new" person as an extension of the "old" one? This is the territory in which Time resides."
"It's been estimated that as many as 50 percent of South Korean women in their 20s — and an increasing number of men — have undergone cosmetic surgery in their quest for ul-jjang ("the perfect face"). If this suggests that South Koreans are suffering from an irrational plague of body-image insecurity, you might consider Kim Ki-duk's "Time" to be a pathological case study disguised as a romantic melodrama. From its cringe-inducing images of cosmetic surgery to the underlying notion that physical perfection is an illusion that breeds unhappiness, "Time" treats obsession with beauty as an emotional disease that rots our souls from the outside in. Factor in the idea that all relationships change with time (hence the title), and you've got yourself a twisted yet altogether fascinating film about an extreme solution to romantic familiarity."
