Introduction
Over the last two decades, there has been a surge in body modifications especially piercing and tattooing in the West. While most body modifications are acceptable in society and are popular amongst the youth, other body modifications fall outside the category of mainstream body modifiers.
Young people not only exercise social rebellion through the non-mainstream body modification but also they cause controversy by modifying their bodies in ways that contravene the mainstream beliefs. Such body modifiers communicate contentious issues of cultural identity, sexuality, and gender equality.
For instance, some gays brand and scar their bodies as a way of rejecting or standing out from the mainstream gay rights activists. In addition, distinctive body art used by some women is meant to show rebellion against men dominance and control of one’s body (Gagne & McGaughey 2002). Sometimes women use piercings, scars, and tattoos to reject the social norms associated with beauty and femininity.
On the other hand, ‘modern primitives’ use nonmainstream body modifiers as a means of proclaiming self-identity and a way of rescuing the self from the modern day problems. All of the above cases show how people project the body as a medium of social significance rather than as a matter of personal choice.
These non-mainstream body art practices are closely tied to people’s conceptualizations of the self and society, social control, and gender relations thus making it impossible to modify one’s body limitlessly. This paper analyzes Featherstone’s claim that self-invention “is an ideology that informs body projects as much as it is a practice that constitutes them.
No body projects limitlessly expand the range of possibilities for human subjectivity, nor do they ‘invent’ the self as a matter of personal choice” (Pitts 2003, p.34), with reference to nonmainstream body modification.
The Emergence of the Body Modification Movement
In the early 1990s, people, especially the youth and women, developed an unprecedented interest in tattoos, thus resulting in a surge in tattoo parlors across the US. The shift to body piercing and tattoos was for not only aesthetic reasons but also a portrayal of a tribal-style that is distinct from the mainstream tattoos in Europe and the US (Jordan 2006). Such body art was popular amongst people outside the mainstream tattooing communities.
Besides tattoos, the body modifiers employed adornments of certain cultural groups. They borrowed scarification, which is a body modification that involves cutting of the skin to produce scars of various shapes, from African communities.
In addition, branding of the skin often with hot metal to create a scar with a specific shape, body piercings, earlobe expansion, as seen in indigenous African communities, skin implants, and sub-dermal implants were all borrowed from indigenous Native American, African, and Hindu cultures (Jordan 2006). All these forms of body art were used for ritualistic or tribal purposes, political, or personal communication, or performance.
Later, technological inventions transformed body art into a celebrated art. Cyberpunks, using biomedical devices, developed new body art styles including laser-mediated implants (Jordan 2006). The rise of many art styles and body modifiers, the increase in tattoo parlors dealing in non-mainstream art, and the emergence of websites, books, and magazines containing body art practices led to the rise of the body modification movement.
The non-mainstream body art movement borrows from various cultures including punk, performance art, pro-feminism movements, Western tattooing, and spiritualism movements (Braun 2009). Of all these forms, tattooing is the most developed type of non-mainstream modification.
Braun (2009) states that Western tattooing, which was initially practiced by European aristocrats and sailors, would later be embraced by the middle-class, and was associated with marginality and social deviance. The kind of tattoos they used had masculine and patriotic symbols of flags or lions.
As Gagne and McGaughey (2002) put it, the new age of tattooing in the West in the twentieth century was predominantly common amongst the working class men to display their sense of belonging or community. However, towards the end of the twentieth century, tattoos became associated with marginalized and stigmatized social groups such as convicts and organized gangs. Gagne and McGaughey (2002) note that at this time, the “tattooing was viewed as a deviant practice in the public mind” (p.815).
Thus, tattoos were used as a sign of disaffection or rebellion amongst the stigmatized groups, thus eventually creating a sub-culture that is symbolized by rebellion. In Gagne and McGaughey’s (2002) terms, people who embraced body art were perceived as “rootless, unconventional, and marginal” (p.821), which is a kind of rebellion towards the mainstream society.
Defining the Self and Society
The body modifications, which have been borrowed from indigenous cultures, are used as rebellious practices towards mainstream society. For instance, in the 1970s, the British punks used facial piercings, tattoos, and hairstyles borrowed from the Native American society (Jordan 2006). Besides these body modifications, the punks wore torn t-shirts, torn jeans, leather jackets and boots, and others even wore the swastika to show open aberration to the norms of the American society.
As Frank (2004) points out, the punk body modifications were both offensive and shocking to the authorities. Its state-level creativity and offensive symbols sent a message of resistance and rebellion to the authorities. Frank (2004) adds that the present body modifiers developed from punk culture represent a transformative movement that uses the body to express anger and social resistance. The movement raises serious issues related to deviance towards mainstream society.
In modern society, issues such as gay rights and feminist rights have led to movements that use the body as a medium of deviance against existing social norms. The body also serves as a medium of social regulation and a way of expressing liberation with regard to sexuality, faith/spirituality, health, and power (Frank 2004). For instance, the ‘pro-sex’ feminism has not only emerged as a movement that opposes the perceived oppression under patriarchy and social control but also serves as a way of empowering and liberating women sexually.
In contrast, the New Age movements object the religious traditions of the West and Western medicine (Jordan 2006). They turn into other cultures as sources of new practices on bodily care.
Gay liberation movements encourage the use of deviant body art including tattooing and piercings, transgender adornments, and nonconventional body modifications such as corsetry to alter and feminize their body shapes. Others use more radical practices and pleasures that not only go against mainstream gay practices but also contravene societal gender norms.
The issues related to sexuality and gender politics primarily involve the body as a site for expressing self-identity. Non-mainstream body modifications combine various traditions and interests associated with the body, thus culminating in sub-cultural groups with shared values. For body modifiers, the body is a medium for self-exploration, which should be reclaimed from the mainstream culture.
Therefore, instead of serving as a site of social regulation and domination by spirituality, medicine, and patriarchy, the body is a site for examining one’s identity, pleasure, and bonding with others (Jordan 2006). Self-identity in the modern era highlights factors that influenced the notion that the body is “a self-reflexive project for modern people” (Sullivan 2009, p.130).
The ideas such as the “lifestyle and practices” that people choose to portray self-identity and the dominant ideologies on family and religion are diminishing as modern people try to establish a new sense of the ‘self’ based on their physical bodies (Braun 2009). In this regard, the rise in body modification practices among the youth is influenced by the pre-occupations of dominant discourses in the mainstream society.
From a sociological perspective, the rise in tattooing and piercing practices particularly in Western societies is associated with reduced stigma and appeal of the practice among the youth and women.
Some sociologists have attempted to describe the impact of body art on one’s self-identity and group identity. Sullivan (2009) argues that tattoos have important “social cues” among people, as they act as symbols of group identity. The body art including piercings and tattoos besides being part of the modern fashion system also allow one to explore the self.
Body Modification Projects
Tattoos, scars, and piercings have much in common with mainstream body practices. However, modern bodies are viewed as limitlessly transformable based on race, gender, or class. If there were no power relations, then identity construction through body modification would be possible for all people (Sullivan 2009).
However, since power relations, gender, and social aberration influence body modifications, it can be argued that self-invention body projects do not create the ‘self’ based on one’s personal choice. Body projects are indeed conceptions of the self; however, they are limited in time and space such that the symbols inherent in tattoos and piercings can be construed in only one social context or within one social system.
According to Frank (2004), capitalistic societies encourage self-transformation of bodies and personal consumption. This ideology encourages people to exercise their personal freedoms, create private worlds, and expand personal consumption. Body projects fall into various categories based on economic status and individuals’ ability to handle social pressures.
Most Western body projects have different origins, are perceived differently, and they have distinct implications on society. In other words, while some body projects may be celebrated in a particular culture, others stir feelings of hatred and stigma. In Western culture, projects such as cosmetic surgery, where wrinkles are removed surgically, is socially accepted, especially for middle-class women.
In contrast, brandings and scarification are not only repulsive but also disliked in Western culture (Jordan 2006). Besides cosmetic surgery, other body art projects such as spa and weight check projects have either direct or indirect links to the economy. Also, body projects categorize people into different groupings, such as race/ethnicity, sexuality, and gender.
The spread of Western culture has had less impact on the social norms or classes of sexuality, ethnicity/race, and gender, which continue to define body modifications in the West. According to Sullivan (2009), body projects have close associations with power relations and social exclusion giving rise to differentiated groupings within the society. Thus, in modern body projects, the concept of self-invention is largely influenced by societal forces.
Even when body modification is subject to the prevailing political and social forces, non-mainstream body modifications are not perceived as pathological or unnatural (Sullivan 2009).
Moreover, such body projects do not indicate that people can limitlessly or freely tattoo or pierce their bodies as a way of defining self-identity. Instead, most body projects are influenced by a combination of culture, self-identity, and body-subjects (Braun 2009). Thus, the body is a construct of a social process that is defined by the existing power relations within society.
From a sociological perspective, social power influences the body modifications and thus the body is beyond one’s control. In this regard, as individuals, it is possible to perceive the body projects as being symbolic of social deviance, and thus the body modifications are not entirely the making of one’s choosing; rather, they are constructs of the society. Braun (2009) notes that instead of viewing the body as a medium of social expression and self-identity development, feminists describe the body as a formation of social relations.
In the West, moral and political regulation associated with power relations especially the social categories of sexuality, race/ethnicity, and gender influence the nature of body projects. Braun (2009) further argues that modern power has close links to individual subjectivity observed in the twentieth century. Thus, technologies to control the body such as confinement and surveillance developed as primary ways of regulating the body.
Modern approaches use skills and behavior alteration to modify the body to suit industrial needs. In this regard, these developments deny the body self-regulation as it is often the target of power relations in society. The concepts of self-identity are creations of sociological disciplines, which have become internalized over time as socially acceptable or deviant identities.
Conclusion
The relationship between non-mainstream body modifications and society is indirect. While in most traditional societies body modifications such as tattoos and piercings served to socialize the body, in the Western societies, non-mainstream body modifications aim at isolating the self from the mainstream society.
However, the body projects have close links with social constructs of gender, sexuality, and ethnicity, thus making it impossible for one to modify his or her body limitlessly.
Reference List
Braun, V 2009, ‘The Women are Doing it for themselves: The Rhetoric of Choice and Agency around Female Genital ‘Cosmetic Surgery’, Australian Feminist Studies, vol. 24 no. 60, pp. 234-239.
Frank, A 2004, ‘Source Emily’s Scars: Surgical Shapings, Technoluxe, and Bioethics’, The Hastings Center Report, vol. 34 no. 2, pp. 18-29.
Gagne, P & McGaughey, D 2002, ‘Designing Women: Cultural Hegemony and the Exercise of Power among Women Who Have Undergone Elective Mammoplasty’, Gender and Society, vol. 16 no. 6, pp. 814-838.
Jordan, J 2006, ‘The rhetorical limits of the plastic body’, Quarterly Journal of Speech, vol. 90 no. 3, pp. 327-358.
Pitts, V 2003, In the Flesh: The Cultural Politics of Body Modification, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke
Sullivan, N 2009, ‘The Somatechnics of Bodily Inscription: Tattooing’, Studies in Gender and Sexuality, vol. 10 no.2, pp. 129–141.