ABSTRACT
When I teach classes on the “body,” I always try to emphasize to my students that we are all body-builders. In other words, we all “build” the body on a daily basis. For example, we decide how we make-up our skin and we tan it, paint it or even modify its appearance with cosmetic procedures; we decide whether to shave or wax the hair on our bodies; we style and/or color the hair on our heads; we ornament the body with jewelry or piercings; we choose clothes which re-shape the body's silhouette, and nearly all of us, at some time or other, are involved in a process of dietary manipulation and exercise in order to lose fat and tone/shape the voluntary muscles of the body. In contemporary culture the “body” is now viewed as a project, rather than an essential or fixed attribute, and all of us, to some degree or other, are involved in the practice of body-building in that we are shaping or styling the tissues of our body.
