Popular culture, of course, is not the factor in the way we experience our bodies. From the beginning of life, there is a sense of ambivalence about the body. On the one hand, it is a center of gratification. The baby is hungry - it gets fed. It's cold - t is covered. But we also experience the most frightening and intense frustrations, when those basic needs don't get met. Much of our lives are spent negotiating between these two poles of the body as a place of delight and the body as harboring unmet need, frustration, illness, and ultimately death.

In many ways, Western culture has been in flight from the body. We have whole religious and philosophical traditions that centered on acheiving control over the body, denying the bodies needs and repressing it's desires - especially sexuality.

Jumping way ahead to contemporary popular culture, that control idea remains central. Except now it is appearance and age rather than sexuality that is the focus of control. We must have no unsightly bulges and no bouncing flab, no wrinkles, so sagging, loose flesh.

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To inquire about this project
in video, and printed formats,
send an email to project creator Dan Habib.

All photos ©2010, Dan Habib