ABSTRACT
Breasts, thighs, lips, eyes, heart, belly, navel, hair, penis, nipples, anus, brain, guts and balls. Body parts: but also much more. We have imposed layers of ideas, images, meanings and associations on these biological systems which together operate and maintain our physical bodies. Our bodies and body parts are loaded with cultural symbolism, public and private, positive and negative, political and economic, sexual, moral and often controversial; and so are the attributes, functions and states of the body, and the senses. Height and weight, eating and drinking, making love, gestures and body language, even various diseases, colds or AIDS, are not simply physical phenomena; they are also social.
