Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language

Food and smell 179
bodies. In western societies, food is plentiful and no longer seasonally
dependent as it was before the twentieth century. Cultural context is crucial
here. After western society had broken away from the voluptuous ideal for the
female body, the ‘flappers’ of the 1920s bound their breasts and lost their
curves. As Wallis Simpson (Duchess of York) famously said: ‘No woman can
be too rich or too thin.’ Today’s values continue to associate thinness with
sexual attractiveness, and this goes some way to account for the dietary
restrictions of modern-day eaters; there is a lot of social pressure, particularly
on women, to be thin. However, current views about eating also stress the
central significance of control. 12 Comparing the significance of food to
women during the Middle Ages with the way modern people view food and
body, Bynum writes:
modern people see food and body as resources to be controlled. Thus food and body
signify that which threatens human mastery. They signify the untamed, the rebellious,
the excessive, the proliferating. (Bynum 1987: 300)
A fear of losing control lurks behind many of our current taboos, in
particular those surrounding the body and bodily urges. Technology has
intensified this anxiety. Products of modern science – deodorants, pain
relief, tranquillisers, the pill, fertility drugs, Viagra, hormone replacement
therapy, Botox, hair dyes – have made it possible to control some aspects
of bodily experience. Advances in cosmetic surgery – face lifts, tummy
tucks, breast enhancements, labial reduction, pectoral and calf implants,
penile reconstruction – have meant we can change the way we look and
function. Food and drink are just shit and piss waiting to happen. Yet, for
the most part, the so-called calls of nature are not things over which we
have a lot of sway. Because we are human, and our view of animals is
fairly negative, we tend to despise those body parts, bodily functions, acts
and actions which answer to the call of nature. When we restrict what we
eat and drink, there is a sense in which we are trying to take charge of our
bodies. Binge eating disorders are characterized by episodes of compulsive,
uncontrolled eating. People (overwhelmingly women) who practice binge
eating often have difficulties with impulse control in other areas of their
lives. Anorexics and bulimics pursue extreme regimens of body control; by
starving themselves they assert power over their vile bodies. 13 With
fasting, their sex drive diminishes and other bodily functions start shutting
down too – for females most notably ovulation and, hence, menstruation.
Be they modern-day dieters or the religious aesthetes of the Middle Ages
(who drank pus and ate lice and the scabs of lepers), those who deliberately
starve themselves are profoundly disparaging of their bodies and bodily
sensations.