Product Description
The 1990s saw the dramatic rise of spectacular forms of body modification, which included the tattoo renaissance and the rise in body piercing, the emergence of neo-tribal practices like scarification and flesh hanging, and the invention of new, high-tech forms of body art like subdermal implants. This book, based on years of interviews with body modifiers throughout the United States, is both sympathetic and critical and provides the most comprehensive look at this phenomenon. From punk rock to "modern primitives," from queer sadomasochism to cyberpunks, sociologist Victoria Pitts provides insight into the full range of body modification subcultures. Whether by turning themselves into female punks, neo-tribal "primitives" or science fiction cyborgs, body modifiers are engaged in the project of "reclaiming" their bodies from the machine of modern life. Pitts explores the connections between body modification and contemporary struggles over sex and gender, and widespread attitudes about identity, consumption, and the body.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.5 based on 9 reviews)

Boring by Harry N. Tormey (San Francisco, CA, USA)

1 Stars
January 04, 2008
The general tone of this book is very much like a second rate graduate thesis. It manages to be blandly academic in terms of style yet with none of the rigor one would associate with a decent sociology text. For example the author appears to have interviewed a grand total of about five people. Also none of the people interviewed are particularly interesting characters; the focus seems to be people recovering from sexual abuse or people affirming their sexuality by getting branded. Now I don't have a problem with this phenomenon, I think its pretty interesting but If you want to read that kind of thing you can find tons of it free on Bmezine. Bmezine, has tones of experience stories like this, actual pictures and a means to contact people actually involved. If you scrape away the interviews all you have left are the authors opinions about modification and a few cheap sudo cyberpunk photo's. If you want a good read about body modification read the modern primitives re search title and the industrial culture handbook. I don't really have any good academic recommendations but I bet with a bit of research you can find something a lot better than this.

save your money by Aussie Battler (Melbourne, Australia)

1 Stars
June 28, 2007
poor quality printing with very few photo's and what they were was not up to today's standards

Body modification-let the truth be told!

4 Stars
June 11, 2004
The book deals with a myriad of social issues pertaning to the body and its modification to show both resistance and conformaty to mainstreem and subculture respectively. And indeed the book was interesting to read once and maybe twice if one is writing their masters thesis or doctoral dissertaion. However, I felt that the book would someteimes just drag on and on. What was however interesting was the course that included the book in its uses. The work is very academic, professional and worth the time to read.

Superbly intelligent rendering of postmodern culture

5 Stars
May 11, 2004
Victoria Pitts's book "In the Flesh" is the most brilliant analysis of postmodern culture I have ever read. Through the lens of recent phenomena in body modification--from the beautifying to the erotic and grotesque--she shows how issues of subjectivity are complexly intertwined with body strategies--performances in which the actors at once gain and lose themselves. With exquisite analysis of fascinating subjects and clear-minded use of postmodern theory, her book is the epitome of rigorous scholarship, both theoretical and empirical. It is, in a word, a theory of flesh and its agencies; but beyond the body, it offers us a scaffolding from which to view the painfully complex issues of contemporary culture at large.

bodies and culture

5 Stars
April 07, 2004
This is a fascinating book that is theoretically sophisticated and guides us through the body in modern and postmodern theory. Her insight into the range of body modification practices and how they are linked to broader cultural shifts in late modernity is sharp and convincing.

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