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Embodying Japan: Cultures of Sport, Beauty, and Medicine 2017Main MenuEugenics: Creating a Japanese RaceA discussion of the "Japanese Race" and Japan's Eugenics MovementGenderless Beauty? Shiseido's "High School Girl?" AdvertisementA Sign of Progress in a Traditional CountryAre You Considered Beautiful In Japan?Exploring Some East-Asian Beauty Standards & Their MeaningsHope for the Future: Beauty is in the Eye of the BeholderThe Future of Beauty in Japan100 Years of Japanese BeautyExploring The Truth, Meaning and Evolution Behind The '100 Years of Japanese Beauty" videoNot Beautiful Enough To Live in Korea?Dismembering over-broad arguments and assumptions against and about Koreans - and Asians in generalQ&A Session With Dr. Kim Soo Shin: A Renowned Korean Plastic Surgeon's PerspectiveI asked Dr. Kim Soo Shin, a South Korean plastic surgeon, for his thoughts on beauty and the popularity of cosmetic surgery in South Korea and East Asian in general.The Salaryman, Hikikomori, and HostessesJapan's capitalist driven gender identities and the consquences that resultHafus: Mixed Race People in Japan (Part 1)Bodies and Hygiene in JapanSalaryman Culture and Masculine IdentityAnalysis of salaryman culture and how changes lead to development of other masculinities, mainly "herbivore" masculinityGender and Identity in Modern JapanGlobalization, nationalized pressures, and how Japanese youth are responding to a history of genderJapanese Beauty Standards in Music and FashionHow are Japanese beauty standards conveyed through alternative youth street fashions and pop music in Japan?Beauty RegimeThe main page for the Beauty in Japan GroupSex & SexualityDwayne Dixon5129acc1d78d02bed532993adeb2cc39f7be6920
Commodification of Desire
1media/commodification of desire xx.jpg2017-04-24T09:17:51-07:00marisa davise34b89a15ec01be763bc376325f35993f6ef4c7f174823An exploration of the relationship between capitalist interests and constructed sexualityplain2017-04-26T08:30:11-07:00marisa davise34b89a15ec01be763bc376325f35993f6ef4c7f
As abstracted forces continually work to structure social reality, bodies are constantly pulled into conscribed systems of relation. Sexuality has played a crucial role in developing systems of power, as social and institutional messages seek to fundamentally align individuals with their sexual desire. To serve these ends, sexuality has been constructed as an inseparable part of the human essence, and sanctioned behaviors are encouraged in the interest of healthy sexual expression.This powerful device has served as an avenue through which larger entities manipulate society in accordance with choice ideologies. Capitalist entities are currently one of the most powerful institutions that harness the construct of sexuality to encourage compliance with exploitation. In modern society, discourses on sexuality have been relegated to the institution of marriage. Consequently, marriage as a contractual agreement in the service of the state is the only socially sanctioned way of performing sexuality. All other manifestations are seen as morally divergent, to varying extents. According to Foucault, this phenomenon is inextricably linked to a broader history of class struggle. The bourgeois class has a vested interest in confining sexuality to the marital sphere because marriage has been culturally constructed as a reproductive institution. In this way, the work ethic capitalism necessitates isn’t challenged or negated by purely pleasure-seeking activities. Instead, sexuality becomes a vessel through which both workers and capitalist ideology can be incubated and reproduced (1976).
Capitalist control over the construct of sexuality also allows for the intense patriarchal commodification of desire and sexualized bodies themselves. Modern Western notions of sexuality have become increasingly physical and intense, as erotic power has been displaced and redirected in accordance with hegemonic sociality. Intimate touch and erotic relation have been sexualized and socially relegated solely to the realm of the heteromonogamous relationship. As a result, bodies that desire physical closeness with others have to engage in these sanctioned expressions, or face being labeled deviant performers. Capitalist entities use this construction as a site to exact exploitation. Women’s bodies are constructed as objects through which to release sexual energies, and are further associated with pleasure and control. This trend enables capitalist institutions to associate their products with the commodified feminine body as a symbol of desirability. Since sexual conquests are positioned as some of the most desirable human experiences, purchasing a product associated with sexualized women signals to consumers that this transaction is a means of exerting power and maximizing co-opted pleasure.
Foucault, Michel. 1976. History of Sexuality. Paris, France: Éditions Gallimard.