Subversion, Sexuality and the Virtual Self

J. Elund

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781349500215, 9781137468338
• eBook ISBN: 9781137468345
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Art General

The text analyses identities within virtual on-screen environments. Investigating regions in Second Life, it explores topical issues of the body in virtual space, nature and mythology in virtual environments, and the key arguments surrounding normative and subversive representations of gender, sexuality and subversion in screen-based environments.

1

Embodiment, Virtual Experience and the Body: Possibilities for Subversion?

Introduction

The focus of this chapter is to contextualise notions of the body as well as the space it inhabits. The body, seen from the discipline/s of cultural studies, is a political object that has inscribed onto it history, culture, society, sexuality, violence and power. It is our central point of understanding of both ourselves and the outside world, and so carries with it both history and the present, as well as the future. It is also through this field of enquiry that both feminism and queer theory are situated vis-à-vis each other, often in uneasy acknowledgement of the politics and usefulness of the other (whilst the fields of theory often disagree about the scope of fluidity of the gendered and sexed self). Whilst cyberspace and virtual worlds may seem initially to be very different forms of space from those experienced in the corporeal, they operate in much the same way, using the same foundational codes and conventions of the real. This is an extension of Lefebvre’s, and other spatial theorists’, contentions that space is produced through ideological investments, and thus reinforces discursive power structures. In addition to embodiment, gender and sexuality are considered as having spatial dimensions, which produces tensions within a world built on fantasy that looks to offer alternative notions of equality and engagement. The SL platform itself, being user-generated, appears as a promising platform for alternative spatial construction, and therefore spatial discourse, by permitting different forms of embodiment as well as having no established rules for building, constructing and articulating space. However, and as noted by Joseph Clark (2011, p. 145), this potential is largely unfulfilled:

Even though the resulting spaces often represent entirely fantastic or fictional worlds, cities, and landscapes, at their most fanciful they still tend to contain at least a modicum of the world as we know it. Buildings, highways, parks, seacoasts, and forests in these virtual worlds may be utopian or not physically possible in real life, but they are still, like any other creative endeavour, reflective of the hopes and dreams – and the bias and ignorance – of their designers. They perform ideologies just as sculptures, movies, monuments, and buildings do in real life, and are thus rhetorical constructions.

Corporeal life proves to be inescapable in imagining alternative realities. Apollo, Zeus, Eden and Greek Gold offer less transgression than what is initially imagined in visiting subversive spaces. Although some of the features of the four regions defy physical constraints, such as occasional buildings, sculptures and monuments, the layout, architecture and design of each region largely mimics those either in existence in CL, or that from an imagined past. In re-presenting the ancient world, the four regions signify a cybertopia that exists beyond the established parameters of contemporary existence, yet simultaneously evokes the collective imagination of a utopian past. However, this imagined space is inextricably linked to the corporeal and so is unable to depart from it in any significant political or cultural sense. What is meaningful, however, is the engagement with space for the individual, whereby some form of authenticity can be achieved (this notion of authenticity, particularly applied to tourism, is taken as a subjective phenomenon that is based on the experience of the individual, rather than any objective claim to a truth or reality as authentic).

The body (embodiment)

The term ‘embodiment’ can have varied and sometimes conflicting meanings depending on the field of enquiry and the background that is drawn upon. It is often a term that is taken for granted; we all have a body, therefore our embodiment is implicit. However, when exploring the ideas of alternative embodiment, and bodies that extend beyond those of the traditional/normative, it is a term that necessitates an explicit definition. For the purposes of this analysis, the more useful definitions are drawn from the social sciences. Ziemke identifies the notion of ‘social embodiment’, initially developed by Barsalou, Niedenthal, Barbey and Ruppert, which ‘addresses the role of embodiment in social interactions rather than the question of what type of body is required for what type of cognition’ (Ziemke 2003, p. 1305). This account of embodiment differs from others in its focus on social interaction rather than biological processes. That embodiment is commonly defined within the boundaries of physical existence is not surprising; it has only been recently that the body, or a body or bodies, in relation to the mind or self, has been re-examined in light of anthropological, psychological and technological advances. This shift in scholarly thinking suggests that ‘the body is passing through a critical historical moment … [that] offers a critical methodological opportunity to reformulate theories of culture, self, and experience, with the body at the centre of analysis’ (Csordas 1994, p. 4). Principally, there has been a rejection of brain-bound notions of identity and self-formation and a shift to analysing the brain, the body and the world, wherein the body’s interactions within the world, and perceived by the mind, are the essential features of embodiment and cognition.

Poststructuralism views the body, or our conceptions of the body, as having a history. According to Csordas (1994, p. 4), the body ‘is as much a cultural phenomenon as it is a biological entity’, and the value of signification is central to defining bodies. He suggests that ‘culture is grounded in the human body’ and this is ultimately the site of meaning in terms of our selves and how we make sense of each other and our environment. Mind, body and environment constantly interact, being inseparable from social interaction and culture, so that ‘the full explanation of our knowledge of self arises from the participatory interaction with our embodied existence’ (Gibbs 2006, p. 17). We gain meaning, and a sense of self, not from looking inward, but from looking outward in projected reflection of others, what Sartre describes as ‘being-for-others’ (1943, p. 305), suggesting that ‘I must apprehend the Other first as the one for whom I exist as object’ (p. 339). If the idea of body and self are dependent on reflection of and interaction with others, then they are constructions of interaction and thus constructions of culture (Gibbs 2006, p. 13):

Bodies are not culture-free objects, because all aspects of embodied experience are shaped by cultural processes. Theories of human conceptual systems should be inherently cultural in that the cognition that occurs when the body meets the world is inextricably culturally based.

Embodiment is therefore subject to cultural influence, categorisation and construction, as the body-in-world is shaped socially and ultimately politically. Vygotsky articulates this premise by contending that social processes ‘operate according to sociological and economic principles, particularly the principles of exchange value and commodification’ (cited in Wertsch 1985, p. 60). These principles of exchange and commodification have a profound influence in consideration of body-as-object and the body as performative.

The way the body (a body) is lived and viewed is central to experience, and embodied experience has crucial effects on the individual in terms of identity and the formation of self. Often in the consumerist, capitalist society in which we live, the body is experienced as an object; it is displayed and performed, consumed by others. Consequently, this objectification has an experiential effect on the mind and the perception of the self, as one’s experiences of the body-on-display impacts significantly on one’s sense of worth in society. Csordas suggests that the modern world’s emphasis on the body as object has had the effect of ‘the individuation of the psychological self and the instantiation of dualism in the conceptualisation of the human being’, brought about by ‘reflective, ideological knowledge’ (1994, p. 7). This objectification contrasts with viewing the body as subject, where the mind and self are aware of a bodily occupancy in the world. The political body is centred around body as performance: that which has a history of performing and being performed upon. The performative body is indelibly linked to the enculturated historical body, which is ultimately linked to the political and struggles of power. The historical body, as is true for any cultural artefact, contrasts ‘the important and the subordinate, the essential and the accidental, plans and accomplishments, preparations and declines. These vectors which are traced through the dense whole of facts have already distorted the original reality in which everything is equally real’ (Merleau-Ponty 1964, pp. 193–194). Body-as-object is the body as constructed through the contestations of history and cultural exchange, often violently forged. Such violence is particularly apparent in bodies of difference, what Leder refers to as ‘the threatening body’, where ‘the body, forgotten in its seamless functioning, comes to thematic attention particularly at times of breakdown or problematic operation’ (1990, p. 127). Dysfunction and difference in this description characterise a body at odds with the norm prescribed by the dominant political, social, economic and historic order, and include ‘divergent’ forms of gender and sexuality.

The cultural regulation of body-as-object produces normative performance. Corporeal displays outside of this normative order are labelled immoral or divergent: ‘a problematic body’ (Leder 1990, p. 135). Thus, controls placed on the gendered and sexed body are integral to embodiment, as both body-as-object and body-in-world. The body that interacts with, and is viewed by, others is imperative to an individual’s consciousness and concept of self, so that bodily performance outside the norm has profound effects on embodied experience of both the ‘divergent’ body and the bodies of those who it interacts with. This is because the self understands itself through the reflection of others, those whom the self interacts with: ‘the Other accomplishes for us a function of which we are incapable and which nevertheless is incumbent on us: to see ourselves as we are’ (Sartre 1943, p. 354).

The current period of late capitalism and commoditisation has seen a new emphasis placed on the body, and while the era has seen a greater importance placed on individualisation, commercialisation often sees the paradoxical effect of homogeneity and the implicit regulation on appearance and bodily performance (Csordas 1994, p. 2):

In the milieu of ‘late capitalism’ and ‘consumer culture’, with its multiplicity of images that stimulate needs and desires and the corresponding changes in material arrangements of social space, the body/self has become primarily a performing self of appearance, display and impression management.

Where, historically, individuals were controlled explicitly through the methods of the state apparatuses of the health, school, political and judicial systems, in late capitalism individuals regulate themselves through the implicit standardisation of norms, where the body has ‘acquired new importance as tokens of class and status distinctions’ (Turner 1994, p. 28). Alongside the pressure to maintain a performative body marked by the new class and status order, the body is strictly regulated in performance of gender and sexuality where strict codes remain for the expression of acceptable embodiment, a phenomenon explained by Butler (1993, p. 12):

Performativity is thus not a singular ‘act’, for it is always a reiteration of a norm or set of norms, and to the extent that it requires an actlike-status in the present, it conceals or dissimulates the conventions of which it is a repetition.

Embodiment, therefore, in both virtual and corporeal spaces is a cultural expression of societal norms placed on the body and regulated through accepted modes of interaction and display. In the virtual environment, this interaction occurs through modes of representation, so that identity is performed through the body, as it does in CL.

Capitalist objectification has ramifications on bodily performance, codifying displays of body-as-object and body-in-world regulating gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity and various forms of bodily ‘error’ such as disability, deformity and illness. Much work in feminist and queer theory has focused on the forms and apparatuses of the regulation of gender and sexuality, whilst others seek to explain demarcation as historical and cultural constructions that exist only in subjective interaction. Butler asks (2004, p. 41):

Is there a gender that pre-exists its regulation, or is it the case that, in being subject to regulation, the gendered subject emerges, produced in and through that particular form of subjection? Is subjection not the process by which regulations produce gender?

Butler questions the history and supposedly natural properties of sex and gender, undermining biological determinism and the objective truth of scientific discourse. This closely aligns with the work in psychology regarding the cultural grounding of embodiment: that of the body-as-object and the performative aspects of the body as central to cognition, consciousness and the formation of self. The ‘self’ is as much a product of culture as the body since there is no self that is not immersed in some form of experience or situation: ‘To be human, indeed to be living, is always to be in a situation, a context, a world’ (Varela, Thompson & Rosch 1991, p. 59). Embodiment, as the principal condition of interaction with the world, is key to defining the self and identity. It is the feature that reveals the self to the world and is central to self-reflection, a constant arena for self-improvement, and is the feature that creates the most meaning in cultural exchange.

Embodiment and the self reflected through lived experience produce affective states that have consequences for behaviour and interaction. Moore and Isen (1990, p. 18) contend that ‘the effects of feeling states on self are mediated through perception and memory’, which ‘affects reactions to self and others’ where perception is intrinsically linked to an individual’s embodied state. Gibbs explains that ‘rather than being a biological given, embodiment is a category of sociocultural analysis, often revealing complex dimensions of the interactions between bodies and personhood’ (2006, p. 37). Experience, grounded in culture, has profound effects on both emotion and body modality where both act and react reciprocally. Embodiment is a dynamic process: it is dynamic because it is subject to internal and external reflection, and re-construction, and it is a process because it involves continuous boundary negotiations. The body can extend past itself, either by incorporating tools, or by utilising the virtual to have several bodies, realising the multiplicity of identity. The possibilities of virtual embodiment may be infinite, but what is certain is that a body, in whatever form it may take, is an essential prerequisite. While we may extend the boundaries of corporeal possibility, such bodily potentials must have a reference point, a point grounded in history and culture, to work from. For this reason embodiment, even in the virtual realm, is subject to the same history, culture and politics of the corporeal.

A key element of feeling both connected to an environment and others is feeling connected to one’s own body. In virtual worlds, the extent to which a person feels present, attentive and capable of action in an environment is referred to as presence. It is a concept that is closely linked to immersion, ‘a sense that sensory experience of the actual world [is] sufficiently muted, and sensory experience of a virtual world sufficiently heightened’ to the point where an individual no longer feels a part of the corporeal world (Boellstorff 2008, p. 112). By heightening the active senses and dampening the others to the degree that they diminish into the background, virtual programs can increase the level of presence that the user feels. Biocca describes the sense of presence as oscillating, whereby the user’s experience ‘can be interrupted by sensory cues from the physical environment and imperfections in the interface’ (2006, p. 9). However, as noted by Boellstorff, immersion is not necessarily the goal for three-dimensional virtual environments (3DVEs), nor is it essential for interaction or participation. The world of SL is predominantly social, and so the environment can take on a similar scope to those of other social media, whereby a user may flit between active and passive online states as they move between their corporeal and virtual existences. Denise Doyle, in discussing avatar bodies in SL, refers to this experience as a mixture of presence and absence, or ‘a mix of objective “looking” and a subjective sense of “being”’ (Doyle 2011, p. 105). However, whilst individuals may use some SL spaces purely for social interaction, there are certainly regions that are visited for their spatial features and ability to facilitate escapism, as is the case with the four regions studied. Within environments that rely on the visible as the key function for presence, it is the spatial aspects of the SL spaces, including layout and features, in addition to the ability to move one’s avatar – effectively being in control of one’s embodied state – that affect how immersed and present an individual feels.

Feminism and queer theory: Positioning the body in cyberspace

Cyberspace, of which CVEs are a part, can be defined as the social networks of interactions rather than just the technical means of the network itself. This definition leads to conceptualising cyberspace as a cultural medium, which is something that is primarily visual in how it is experienced. Refuting the notion of technological determinism, culture is posited as the driving force behind the various uses and appropriations of the internet specifically, and technology generally. In discussing the culture of cyberspace, Robins (1996, p. 137) asserts that the ‘institutions developing and promoting the new technologies exist solidly in this world’ and so we cannot discuss technology and virtual worlds as if they have no reference to the lived world, with its politics, culture and structures of power. It is not possible to fully analyse virtual worlds as if they were somehow detached from our day-to-day existence. Whilst the possibilities may be endless in virtual worlds, we must view the technology ‘not as outside society, as technological determinism would have it, but as inextricably part of society’ (Wajcman 1994, p. 6). Technology and cyberspace are bounded by the politics, conventions and male-dominated ideology from which they were formed.

Gender has long been thought of as something natural and distinctive. Through science and philosophy, areas of study dominated by white, heterosexual men, this position has been reinforced: ‘an essentialism that assumes that there is universal and underlying order that can be explained through “biology” and “natural” characteristics’ (Grosz 1995, p. 47). Recent work by feminist theorists in science and philosophy has overturned preconceived ideas, and with varying degrees of certainty, shown that much, if not all, of what is thought of as a natural in terms of masculinity and femininity is constructed by society and culture. Physical codes of appearance, movement and behaviour are central to the construction and perception of gender and sexuality in society. The body ‘is a powerful symbolic form, a surface on which the central rules, hierarchies, and even metaphysical commitments of a culture are inscribed and thus reinforced through the concrete language of the body’ (Bordo 1997, p. 90). The notion that gender codification ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Embodiment, Virtual Experience and the Body: Possibilities for Subversion?
• 2 Tourism: Island Utopias in the Virtual Sun
• 3 Intersections in Space, Nature and Mythology
• 4 Masculinity, Mass Consumerism and Subversive Sex
• 5 The Female Body in Virtual Space
• 6 Subverting Gender
• Conclusion
• Notes
• References
• Index