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THE CUSTOMIZED BODY |
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SECOND SKINS Fur, scales, bark, cellulose, skin ... all organisms must have some sort of outer covering to serve as a barrier between themselves and the environment; a division between inside and outside. Only we human beings, however, have been able to devise additional membranes -- second skins -- of our own choosing. Of course not all humans wear such additional outer coverings. At least until waves of missionaries convinced them otherwise, a great many of the world's tribal peoples (perhaps a majority in the warmer regions of the planet) saw no need to cover those parts of their bodies which Western culture requires to be hidden. This is not, however, to suggest that such peoples possess no sense of modesty. The definition of modesty varies from culture to culture and fluctuates markedly from one historical period to the next. When worlds collide -- that is to say, when markedly different cultures come into contact and conflict -- a focal point of this collision is inevitably different definitions of modest concealment. Inevitably too, it is the victor's definition which prevails. This is, of course, what happened in the great 'Age of Discovery' when Europeans first came into contact with vast numbers of previously unknown 'naked savages.' We won -- and century by century, year in year out, it is our Judeo-Christian-European definition of modesty which has prevailed -0- with once proudly adorned, tattooed, scarified peoples now almost universally hiding their bodies behind hand-me-down, tattered T-shirts and shorts. Aesthetic considerations aside, there are two distinct reasons why the current near-ubiquity of Western dress is profoundly disturbing. Firstly, the missionaries' disdain for the native body arts (all those techniques of customizing the body celebrated elsewhere in this book) has deprived traditional peoples of crucial symbols of their ancient heritage through which their way of life took sustenance. Secondly, despite our own ancestors' unquestioned assumptions, these were never 'naked saves' in the first place. While the definition of modesty is part of one's culture, a sense of modesty -- of shame and, alternatively, of propriety -i is an inherent part of human nature. For example, in societies where lip plugs are traditionally worn, to be without one's lip plugs can be a source of embarrassment precisely equivalent to our own sense of shame should we discover that our fly is undone or our skirt has ridden up beyond what we intended. The same is true of the other adornments worn in traditional societies -- even a thin coating of animal fat (barely perceptible to our eyes) may be the difference between proper and improper attire. We in the West have never had a monopoly on modesty. (And by the way, what might be termed 'the politics of modesty' has also been subject to dispute within the West: the kilt traditionally and proudly worn by Scottish men was labelled as scandalously immodest by the English who, after their conquest, tried to ban it but succeeded only in making it a symbolic focus of Scottish identity.) While our clothing has inevitably developed an association with modesty its original function no doubt derived from the more immediately practical need of keeping warm. Indeed, it was the technical advances of clothing which allowed our ancestors to inhabit practically all geographic regions and, crucially, to withstand the rigours of the Ice Age. In this regard it is interesting to consider the garments of the recently discovered 'Iceman.' Especially so, as this individual's outfit constitutes the earliest surviving example of a 'second skin.' This 5000-year-old Neolithic man's dress consisted of (1) a pair of fur stockings, (2) a leather 'suspender belt' (so to speak) which went around his waist and, as well as serving to hold various objects, held up his fur stockings by means of thin 'suspenders,' (3) a leather loin cloth which wrapped under and flared over his belt, (4) a sleeveless fur cape or cloak (its fur sewn in decorative horizontal stripes), (5) an outer cloak made of plaited grass which was also textured in horizontal stripes, (6) a fur cap and (7) leather sandals which were stuffed with grass for added warmth. A more recent use of the phrase 'second skin' derives from the 'fetish fashions' which have become so popular in recent years. Here the association is with materials like rubber, PVC, Lycra or leather designed to cling tightly to the body and thereby expose its every curve and crevice. The clubs where such garments are worn in their most exotic forms always have strict dress codes to keep out those in casual (non-fetishistic) clothing. The Iceman would have little problem getting in: his fur and leather garments a 'second skin' in both senses of the term. While clothing has become the cornerstone of modest concealment it has also, in the same process, become a key component of fetishistic allure. That which covers the 'naughty bits' inevitably acquires the erotic power of that which it conceals. The power isn't eradicated, simply transferred and externalized. Furthermore, our own history would seem to suggest that the more rigorously and extensively the body is concealed, the greater the extent of fetishistic obsession. (Consider, for example, the Victoria era in Britain or the fin de siecle era of Freud's Vienna which were characterized by both a hyper concern for modesty and, at the same time, endemic fetishistic fixation. A fetish is an object which possesses an unexpected, intangible power which is beyond rational explanation. In the West we usually define this in erotic terms. While certain garments (high heeled shoes, corsets, stockings and suspenders) or materials (leather, PVC, rubber, fur, silk) are popularly categorized as 'fetishistic,' in actual fact any object can acquire such erotic power for a particular individual. It is simply a matter of personal associations -- in particular, the specific circumstances of our early sexual experiences seem to be important. We are all fetishists -- it is simply that some of us are more finely or, conversely, broadly focused than others. In the former case -- where one fetishistic association predominates above all others to an exclusive degree, sexual arousal may become totally dependent upon the presence of the fetish object. Most of us, on the other hand, are more polymorphous -- finding a wide range of objects and materials sexually exciting (or not) depending upon our own personal backgrounds. Our culture as a whole goes in and out of periods of fetishistic preoccupation. In the early '60s, for example, the 'kinky' imagery of The Avengers, 'Swinging London,' the Psychedelics and sci-fi visions of a sexy future focused erotic attention on certain garments (boots, catsuits, tight mini skirts) and materials (plastics, leather) to the point where these almost eclipsed the erotic power of the naked body itself. By the late '60s, however, the Hippies' pursuit of 'The Natural' brought attention back to the 'liberated' naked body. The '80s and '90s, with their renewed emphasis on 'fetish fashion,' have seen another swing of the pendulum. Conceivably the advent of the next millennium will see the erotic appeal of the naked body once again triumph over that of its 'second skins.' But despite what the Hippies (or their predecessor Rousseau) may have thought, there is actually no such thing as a purely 'natural' human body. Whether it be with garments or with tattoos, piercings, make-up or hair styling, the human body is always a product of culture and personality as much as a product of biology and it is the former rather than the latter which, ultimately, sparks our desires. Even if it were possible to completely decustomize our bodies to revert to a truly 'natural' state, we would be left with a physicality which was an unenticing as it was meaningless. While the male baboon may be excited by a female baboon's pink, fleshy bottom -- a trigger which is purely biological in origin -- our sexual arousal is stimulated by a vision of the human form which is defined by our particular cultural and historical circumstances. Our eroticism, inevitably, focused on that supremely unnatural object, the customized body.
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