Harmony or tension: intimacy, body, spirituality, sport in contemporary somatic society

Human corporeality remains a sphere of competing claims and demands. It links the intimacy of the individual with social, cultural, political and also religious pressures and intrusions. On the one hand, we are dealing with the domain of individual privacy, on the other with social expectations that formulate standards towards the body (its appearance, fitness, health), classifying it according to gender, aesthetic or moral roles (male/female, obese/slim, beautiful/ugly, good/bad). Added to this social framework are religious norms which, depending on tradition, shape attitudes towards the body. Society, in its broadest sense, therefore disciplines the body, sometimes by rewarding it and sometimes by punishing it, and holds varying degrees of claim to certain interventions and actions.

On the other hand, however, there is the question of setting boundaries and defending against the claims indicated. The argument ‘it’s my body!’ is raised, indicating the primacy of the individual’s right to regulate his or her corporeality. Support for this argument can be provided by invoking the right to intimacy and privacy.

This controversy features particularly strongly and in a particularly momentous way in sport. The pressure to label bodies (with national as well as racial and gender emblems), to study bodies for the purpose of this labelling (vide: sex testing in sports), to perceive and present bodies in a certain way (even if only the one desired by the media), and finally the sanctioning of bodily normativity, can be countered by an argument invoking the right of male and female athletes to privacy.

We believe that sport, in the words of Przemysław Nosal, can play the role of a kind of social laboratory, where various solutions are in fact tested, to be later applied in other spheres of social life. 

We would like the discussion within the framework of the semi-plenary session to focus on human corporeality and spirituality in a cultural and social context, with particular emphasis on the right to intimacy, treating the field of sport as one in which these issues become spectacularly visible, becoming the subject of discussion not only in academic or journalistic circles.

Contact persons: Jakub Ryszard Stempień PhD (UŁ) (j.r.stempien@wp.pl), Prof. Ewa Banaszak (UWr) (ewa.banaszak@uwr.edu.pl).