654 MICHIGAN QUARTERLY REVIEW
FIG. 1 FIG. 2
materiality, we now have what I will call "cultural plastic." In place
of God the watchmaker, we now have ourselves, the master sculptors of that plastic. This disdain for material limits, and intoxication
with freedom, change, and self-determination, is enacted not only
on the level of the contemporary technology of the body but in a
wide range of contexts, including much of contemporary discourse
on the body, both casual and theoretical, popular and academic. In
this essay, looking at a variety of these discursive contexts, I will
attempt to describe key elements of this paradigm of plasticity, and
expose some of its effacements - the material and social realities that
it denies or renders invisible.
2. Plastic Bodies
(Fig. 1)
"Create a masterpiece, sculpt your body into a work of art," urges
Fit magazine. "You visualize what you want to look like, and then
you create that form." "The challenge presents itself: to rearrange
things." "It's up to you to do the chiseling. You become the master
sculptress."' The precision technology of body-sculpting, once the
secret of the Arnold Schwarzeneggers and Rachel McLishes of the
professional body-building world, has now become available to anyone who can afford the price of membership in a gym. "I now look
