BODY AS AN OBJECT OF DISCIPLINE AND CONSUMERIZATION IN THE MODERN ERA

Abstract

Stages of physicality discourse forming in European modern culture are analyzed in the article. The purpose of the study is to outline the relationship between medical-anatomical, power-disciplinary, and economic-consumer contexts of the public display of private manifestations of the human body. In the modern period of the history of European culture, several approaches to the explanation of human nature were formed. They differed by focusing on various abilities of the body. In particular, intensive industrialization contributed to drawing attention to manifestations of the physical nature of the body, and its production capabilities, as opposed to rationality and spirituality which were emphasized in previous centuries. On the one hand, the medical-anatomical view of the body as a functional organism was important. On the other hand, art, especially literature, develops its secular vocabulary to express sensory manifestations of human nature, that are not limited only by perseverance and manufacturing suitability, but also include irrational aspects of a person’s self-expression, for instance in private life. It’s from this second narrative the powerful modern discourse of sexuality unfolded. It wasn’t interpreted as a trait of the human body’s nature but as a social practice formed by public communication on intimacy. Sexuality is a socially constructed concept of intimacy, that is expressed through such notions as pleasure, desire, and craving. The discourse of sexuality destroyed previously unpenetrable measures between private and public spheres of life. It provoked feather erotization of social communication practices, for instance, advertising of goods and services that promised to endow a person with attractive features from the outside. That’s why the body started to be influenced by medicalization, aestheticization by cosmetology, fitness, intensive sports, etc. that required more and more financial, physical, and psychological resources. In contrast to the asexual proletarian body that was under the influence of outer observation and control, the sexual, hedonistic body formed in modern times is shaped by seductive ideals generated by social communication tools and inner self-discipline.