Unpacking Sexual Embodiment and Embodied Resistance

The body and its relationship to the social world has provoked, fascinated, and perplexed social scientists, natural scientists, feminist theorists, and historians alike. This chapter examines the notion of embodiment, or how the body operates both as a corporeal or physical subject and as a social and psychological subject. Specifically, we trace key conflicts and debates around defining and measuring embodiment, followed by a review of embodiment over the lifespan (childhood, adolescence, adulthood, old age) and an examination of sexual performance and embodiment. We conclude with a discussion of embodiment as it relates to social identities like LGBT identity, race, gender, and class, followed by a discussion of embodied resistance or how people with stigmatized bodies fight back, imagine bodies outside the norm, transform the idea of a “freak,” or map on political philosophies onto the body.