**fear of death and desire to be closer to God. https://twitter.com/sarah_ogun/status/1275208908957798400

Beauty is religious. Western interpretations of the body are partly mirrored after (European understanding of) the body of Christ.

Medieval people used to purposely engage in forms of self-flagellation, in an attempt to be in union w/ the body of Jesus. Control & discipline of the body, and the breaking of flesh was good, and seen as a way to get closer to the divine (Bynum)

Christianity / Catholicism has set the foundations for a body politic where the body of man is fragmented in relation to the body of Christ which is not only “whole”, but free from temporality, discontinuity, variance (Covino).

Covino uses Lacan’s Mirror Stage as a framework to describe the fragmented self’s identification with an other who is “whole” in the context of cosmetic surgery. I think the body of Christ sometimes serves as an object petit a, as the perfect body.

*****I don’t think it’s too far off to suggest that, the cultural imaginary surrounding cosmetic surgery mirrors the crucifixion of Christ. Especially, if we now start to see beautification as purification / an attempt at a clean and proper body (Kristeva)******