Long Live the Scientific Corset

The Scientific Corset Lives. Long Live the Scientific Corset!Outside Authority Conference, www.outsideauthority.orgVirginia Tech, October 15, 2011Crystal Allene Cook, doctoral student, Virginia Tech

Crystal Allene Cook, Outside Authority Conference, Oct. 2011

Why this presentation?

The focus of futurists is often on a Utopian future, especially one in which our

intelligence is increased and our bodies become less

important.

Crystal Allene Cook, Outside Authority Conference, Oct. 2011

Futurist Ray Kurzweil predicts that we become immortal and that the changes through technology to what it means to be human are desirable.

Crystal Allene Cook, Outside Authority Conference, Oct. 2011

Or someone like the futurist Ramez Naam predicts:

Most of all, descendents of ours will be fantastically diverse. Where we are all alike in the basic forms of our minds and bodies, they will exist in a plethora of forms. Humanity will have given birth not to one new species, not to a dozen new species, but to thousands, or millions….our descendents will still look back. They’ll look back at this moment in our history and marvel. To think that such primitive creatures as Homo sapiens could give birth to whole new kingdoms of life! They could not have understood what they were creating! Yet we’re lucky that they had such a strong urge to change and grow–this is why we’re here. (233)

Crystal Allene Cook, Outside Authority Conference, Oct. 2011

Thus, to these futurists, somewhere in a future soon....among computers, genetic engineering, biotech, surgery, and pharma.....at the very least...

Crystal Allene Cook, Outside Authority Conference, Oct. 2011

In the future, we're all gonna be geniuses (if we aren't already!)

Crystal Allene Cook, Outside Authority Conference, Oct. 2011

Hold on a minute, what about the body?

Will we really embrace new ideals?

Crystal Allene Cook, Outside Authority Conference, Oct. 2011

So, to counter this purported Utopian future, I can build on my own

experience and the experience of other women.

I can look to history and the now.I can grab the authority to be

just as wrong about the future asRay Kurzweil and Ramez Naam!

Crystal Allene Cook, Outside Authority Conference, Oct. 2011

Limited my scopeFemale body (though male body also worth

examining)Just the torso

History of scientific, pseudoscientific, or with the use of tech products for modification the last 100

yearsExamined a lot of stats worldwide on commerce, science, fashion, medicine currently in use (can

see these at www.modifyme.info)Predicted potential futures for the female

form/body and for the function of being female that are far less utopian

Crystal Allene Cook, Outside Authority Conference, Oct. 2011

Where to

start?

Crystal Allene Cook, Outside Authority Conference, Oct. 2011

An Anatomical Vindication of the Straight Front Corset, Science and Discovery, 1910,

Current Literature

It is because of the fall of the viscera in woman when she imitated man by standing erect that induced such profound physiological displacements…that the corset is morphologically essential…Contour and the factors in evolution have never

harmonized until the introduction of the “Princess” gown effect in female fashions. By flattening the abdomen, reducing the hips and emancipating the bust, the French corsetieres—who in reality originated the prevailing female

form—have shown themselves anthropological in a very scientific sense.

…. Theorists such as Naomi Wolf have long pointed out the move of corseting from an external technology to

an internal one vis a vis plastic surgery, dieting, etc. In the article above we have a pseudoscientific apology

for the need for women to be corseted.

Crystal Allene Cook, Outside Authority Conference, Oct. 2011

The “scientific corset” morphs, but is still with us. Left to right: straight front corset (1910-1920), girdle (1920s – now), gastric

band (1950s – now), lower body lift surgery (1990s – now), rebranding of girdle as empowering choice through Spanx (2000s

- now)

Crystal Allene Cook, Outside Authority Conference, Oct. 2011

Okay. So what about the female form of the future?

Crystal Allene Cook, Outside Authority Conference, Oct. 2011

If the past and the now are any indications, in the future we will be

using science, technology, commerce, medicine, etc. for

MORE OF THE SAMEbut just maybe worse.

Crystal Allene Cook, Outside Authority Conference, Oct. 2011

More of the same

Did a search online for ”female + future + form”

Glowing see-through eyes, blue stripes,

long tail, scarily long fingers, as long as

you're hot, who cares?

Our collective imagination for the form of the female in the future is relatively limited. The torso ideal often remains the same.

Crystal Allene Cook, Outside Authority Conference, Oct. 2011

Just maybe worse

All women who can afford it start to look about the same... age, shape, ethicity... compelled to do this for yourself, your children to ”get ahead”...

US Attorney General, Age 64

European Union Council Members, ages

43, 55, 70

Crystal Allene Cook, Outside Authority Conference, Oct. 2011

If we look to the now, we can imagine a future in which...

Female reproduction extends indefinitely

Reproduction is eliminated for certain females or relegated to other women

Women can birth litters of children

Females are pre-selected before birth for obedience, docility

Women are bio-engineered with their capacity for sexual pleasure eliminated

Women are relegated only to roles of sexual pleasure for males

Crystal Allene Cook, Outside Authority Conference, Oct. 2011

Lots more to think about....lots more to say....

Many more pages to this project at

www.modifyme.info

Happy for comments there, too...

Crystal Allene Cook, Outside Authority Conference, Oct. 2011

Encourage folks

Lots of work out there to be done on:

Science and fashion

Technology and fashion

Medicine and body modification

Medicine and fashion and commerce

Theorizing of public and private body in technology

Just at a loss on some of this.... very hard to get my mind around...leave you with April Dawn

Crystal Allene Cook, Outside Authority Conference, Oct. 2011

A whole culture exists online of people documenting their modification through medicine-- this is April Dawn's lower body lift. She has 70 videos up about this... Yet, she claims she would be mortified to walk on a beach in a bikini.

A new space for inquiry seems to exists among what is hidden, what is medicine, what is modification, what is..... the extreme modification that may be the future for all of us... that can afford it....

April Dawn 77′s YouTube channel

Crystal Allene Cook, Outside Authority Conference, Oct. 2011

Thanks!

Crystal Allene Cook, Outside Authority Conference, Oct. 2011

References, text-based

“A Safe Procedure for Healthy Weight Loss | LAP-BAND®.” The Preferred Weight Loss Surgery | LAP-BAND®. Web. 01 May 2011. <http://www.lapband.com/en/learn_about_lapband/the_procedure_safety/>.

Burns-Ardolino, Wendy A. Jiggle: (re)shaping American Women. Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2007. Print.

Cohen, Patricia. “Technology Advances; Humans Supersize—NYTimes.com.” The New York Times – Books. Web. 26 April 2011. < http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/books/robert-w-fogel-investigates-human-evolution.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha28>

Elliott, Carl. Better than Well: American Medicine Meets the American Dream. New York: W.W. Norton, 2004. Print.

Hurwitz, Dennis J. Total Body Lift Surgery: Reshaping the Breasts, Chest, Arms, Thighs, Hips, Back, Waist, Abdomen & Knees after Weight Loss, Aging & Pregnancies. New York: MD Publish.com, 2005. Print.

Jones, Geoffrey. Beauty Imagined: a History of the Global Beauty Industry. New York: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.

Kay, Lily E. Who Wrote the Book of Life?: a History of the Genetic Code. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 2000. Print.

Kolata, Gina. “For the Overweight, Bad Advice by the Spoonful – NYTimes.com.” The New York Times – Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. 29 Aug. 2007. Web. 01 May 2011. <http://www.nytimes.com/ref/health/healthguide/esn-obesity-ess.html>.

Kolata, Gina. “Overweight – Symptoms, Causes, Tests – NY Times Health Information.” Health News – The New York Times. Web. 01 May 2011. <http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/symptoms/obesity/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier>.

“Lap-Band Surgery Houston | Laparoscopic | Lap-band Surgery Doctor Texas.” Weight Loss Surgery Houston | Bariatric Surgery Treatment | Gastric Bypass Surgery | Lap Band Surgery Houston, Texas | Sleeve Gastrectomy Texas. Web. Apr.-May 2011. <http://www.drbrianmirza.com/lap-band-system-houston.php>.

Lower Body Lift, Aesthetic Surgery Journal, Ted E. Lockwood MD, Volume 21, Issue 4, July 2001, Pages 355-370

Munsch, Simone, and C. Beglinger. Obesity and Binge Eating Disorder. Basel: Karger, 2005. Print.

Naam, Ramez. More than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement. New York: Broadway, 2005. Print.

“Plastic Surgery Rebounds Along with Recovering Economy.” The American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Web. 01 May 2011. <http://www.plasticsurgery.org/news-and-resources/press-release-archives/2011-press-release-archives/plastic-surgery-rebounds-along-with-recovering-economy.html>.

Wheeler, Edward J. Ed. Science and Discovery, January – June 1910, Current Literature, Vol XLVIII, The Current Literature Publishing.

Welcome to Spanx.com the Official Site of Spanx by Sara Blakely. Web. Apr. 2011. <http://www.spanx.com/home/index.jsp>.

World Outlook Report 2006-2011: Women’s & Girls’ Corsets, Girdles & Combinations Made from Purchased Fabrics Excluding Surgical Corsets , 2005.

Crystal Allene Cook, Outside Authority Conference, Oct. 2011

Image Collage References

CorsetImage from 'Fighting The Corsetless Evil': Shaping Corsets And Culture, 1900-1930 by Jill Fields, Journal of Social History / Winter, 1999

Spirella 1950sImage from: http://www.corsetiere.net/Spirella/Girdles/Girdles.htm

Gastric Band IllustrationImage from: http://www.drbrianmirza.com/lap-band-system-houston.php

Lower Body LiftImage from: Lower Body Lift, Aesthetic Surgery Journal, Ted E. Lockwood MD, Volume 21, Issue 4, July 2001, Pages 355-370

Spanx logoPart of the Spanx logo: http://www.spanx.com/home/index.jsp