Body colonization
*mic check, mic check 1, 2* Mine is just a question.
Bodies are our physical representation. Not of who we are but merely just a physical representation of our existence. There is no correlation between what we look like and who we are. Yet, because we are physically perceived before we are known for who we are, the body has become the primary medium of who are judged to be and who we judge ourselves to be too.
Given that we are first perceived before we can perceive ourselves, how others perceive us becomes the template for how we perceive ourselves. How we are perceived especially at the beginning of our self-consciousness is detrimental to our identity. We reject that which is rejected by others and overcompensate using that which is reinforced. Our being grows to only exist within the confines of those two aspects. Working hard to minimize and reject what has been rejected while working even harder to maintain what has been reinforced.
Physical consciousness develops before soul and minds consciousness i.e. identity formation. In an ideal setting, this would mean nothing more than that you are aware of your gender and that of others, physical needs, and sensations, etc. Unfortunately in a society that is hyper attuned to looks, it means that physical awareness develops within the filters and projections of socio-cultural standards whether toxic or not.
Essentially, you know whether you are beautiful or not, fat or not, desirable or not, tall enough or not, etc; before you even have a solid foundation on who you are.
What is on the line if bodies are “colonized” before identity formation?
Are you beautiful? Are you attractive? Are you desirable? What if you are not?
What does it mean to not be beautiful in today’s society?
It means that you could get a longer jail term. Yes, it has been shown that the less beautiful you are the more likely you are to get a longer jail term and even be assumed to be a criminal in the first place. Within our child-conscious based perception, beautiful people are good people and therefore not a threat to society. Somehow it’s hard to apply our adult consciousness where beauty is involved.
It could also mean never getting a romantic partner. Does that mean that love and loving are reserved for the beautiful?
It could also come between you and your money. Certainly, looks do play into employability and marketability. Ask Instagram. Ask the media industry. Ask the sports industry. Ask the music industry. Heck, even ask the mjengo industry.
Even mere common courtesy is on the line. Where you fall on the beautiful to ugly spectrum does determine the amount of humanness and gentleness you receive from society.
Pretty privilege is not a myth.
Gender, skin tone stratification and beauty politics
Why is it that light-skinned women are the standard of beauty for women but light-skinned men are not the same for men?
What about being light-skinned is feminine in women but emasculating in men?
What about being dark-skinned is masculine in men but unfeminine in women?
How does this interact with the fact that the black perception of the self is within the white male gaze?
Disability and desirability
How have beauty and body politics impacted disability policies?
How have they impacted the human rights of the disabled?
Fatness, body politics, and desirability
Do we honestly want people to lose weight because we are concern about their blood pressure, blood glucose levels, mortality, etc, or is it because they do not fit into the idealized standards of beauty and therefore not desirable?
Is sexual desirability the underlying factor of body and beauty politics?
For lack of a better word, does it all come down to fuckability?
How dehumanizing is it to reduce people to whether they are fuckable or not? And then accord them humanness based on where they fall on that scale.
Is fuckability the new measure of fitness in Darwin’s survival of the fittest theory?
Why do we need everyone to be fuckable? Do people exist for our sexual consumption?
When and how can we get past this fixation on the body?
As I said, mine was just a question. *Sanitizes and hands the mic* Over to you.
Great read