Friday, February 29, 2008
Prompt 7
The normal body has to live up to its own expectations in society. To look the part of the thin, beautiful stereotype, people believe there are many things that have to be done in order to get to that status. People have to watch what they eat, excercise, get enough sleep, and lots more. Some people go as far as getting some sort of surgery to help them get their perfect body. The pressures of how society enforces this look can consume a person's life. They don't want anything else but to be thin and pretty, and will not stop until they reach their goal. The radical body's goal is similar to that. People who get really radical body modifications have a goal in mind of what they want to look like, almost like a certain stereotype. They will willingly go through the pain to reach their goal. They want nothing else than to look like what they envision, no matter how long it takes. A difference between the two is that there are not many pressures from outside forces driving a person striving for the radical body. It's usually the person themself putting the pressure on them and their body to endure the pain to acheive the perfect look.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I agree, except that I think, especially after having done our ethnographies, that while non-normative body modifiers strive for a certain look, this look is a unique one. While most mainstream body modifications strive to make people look the same, non-normative body modifications strive for originality. I believe that while they may compare and connect with each other through their modifications, most people see an act such as copying a tatoo from someone else not right, because tatoos are supposed to be personal and unique. So they are striving for different goals. Non-normative body modifiers strive to create their own identity through the mutual act of modification.
I completely agree with you. People go to the extremes in order to have a "normal" body. You hear about so many girls making themselves sick so that they can be skinny. The people who want to have radical bodies do the same thing. From what I have heard, tattoos are not the most pleasurable thing to have done to your body, but people go through the pain in order to obtain the body that they desire. I agree with Katie that these different people are striving for different things, but I feel like it ends up being closely related, because they go through all sorts of pain in order to get the body they want. No matter how much it could hurt them, they'll do it because they want their body to say a certain thing.
Post a Comment