Aesthetic surgery and the expressive body

Alsop, Rachel; Lennon, Kathleen

Abstract

In this paper we explore the relation between bodies and selves evident in the narratives surrounding aesthetic surgery. In much feminist work on aesthetic surgery such narratives have been discussed in terms of the normalising consequences of the objectifying, homogenising, cosmetic gaze. These discussions stress the ways in which we model our bodies, under the gaze of others, in order to conform to social norms. Such an objectified body is contrasted with the subjective body; the body –for –the self. In this paper, however, we wish to make sense of the narratives surrounding such surgery by invoking the expressive body, which fits on neither side of this binary. We wish to explore how the modification of the body’s anatomical features (physiology) are taken to be a modification of its expressive possibilities, and therefore as modifications of possibilities for inter-subjective relations with others. It is such expressive possibilities, which, we suggest, underlie decisions to undergo surgical procedures. The possibility of modification of the expressive possibilities of the body, by the modification of its anatomical features, rests on the social imaginaries attached to anatomical features. In the context of such imaginaries individual decisions to undergo or promote surgery can be both intelligible and potentially empowering. However, the social consequences of such acts are an increasing normalisation of the ‘body under the knife’ and an intolerance of bodily difference. This, we suggest, can only be changed by a re-visioning of bodily imaginaries so that expressive possibilities can be experienced across bodies with a range of physiological features.

Citation

Alsop, R., & Lennon, K. (2018). Aesthetic surgery and the expressive body. Feminist Theory, 19(1), 95-112. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464700117734736

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Aug 4, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Nov 8, 2017
• Publication Date: Apr 1, 2018
• Deposit Date: Aug 8, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 8, 2017
• Journal: Feminist theory
• Print ISSN: 1464-7001
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 19
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 95-112
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1464700117734736
• Keywords: Aesthetic (cosmetic) surgery, Objectification, Expressive body, Bodily imaginaries, Beauvoir, Simone de, 1908-1986, Sartre, Jean-Paul, 1905-1980
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/442055
• Publisher URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1464700117734736
• Additional Information: This is the authors' accepted manuscript of an article which has been accepted for future publication in: Feminist theory.
• Contract Date: Aug 8, 2016