Jean Claude Kaufmann: Microsociology of the Naked Breast

Jean-Claude Kaufmann is a French sociologist born on April 12, 1948, in Le Mans. A specialist in the study of couples' relationships and everyday life, and a pioneer of microsociology, he later replaced his early analyses with the broader theme of identity, which he thus helped to revitalize. He also studies socialization and subjectivity within the broader scope of his research at the CNRS.

Among his major works translated into Italian are: First Morning. How a Love Story Was Born (Paris 2002); Italian translation: When Love Begins (Bologna 2005); Agacements. The Couple's Little Wars (Paris 2007); Italian translation: Baruffe d'amore. The Couple's Little Wars (Bologna 2008).

In this article, we will focus on a specific work with very interesting premises: Corps de femmes, regards d'hommes. Sociologie des seins nus (Paris 1995), translated into Italian as Corpi di donna, sguardi d'uomo. Sociologia del seno nudo.

Doing sociology for Jean Claude Kaufmann

For the author, the figure of the sociologist has become part of the public's daily routine in recent years. A roundtable discussion, a TV show, or even a newspaper article: it's increasingly common to encounter a sociologist who offers his opinion and informs. Therefore, if the sociologist finally becomes an expert to be consulted more and more frequently, discussions will necessarily become simpler due to media timeframes and audiences.

In this vein, the allure of fame can cause the sociologist to lose his or her essence as a researcher. The healthy question "what is a society and how does it work?" cannot and must not be confined to academic circles and the production of texts, but must be free from political stakes and constraints of any kind . It must be the leitmotif of the sociologist and all researchers who wish to call themselves such: curiosity, field research, and original and stimulating theoretical depth.

Jean Claude Kaufmann: why the beach and the bare breasts?

For the research described in Women's Bodies, Men's Gazes: Sociology of the Naked Breast , Kaufmann employed a team of five interviewers to interview 300 people on French beaches. For the author, who seeks a radical approach to the study of everyday phenomena, it was interesting to investigate the practice of the naked breast on the beach because the latter is a particular place, where barriers are removed. While door-to-door interviews can have a high rate of rejection, since the home falls within the sphere of the intimate family, the beach allows for different openings. First of all, the classic territory of intimacy, typical of a home, is not infringed upon, and time is perceived differently.

If the beach is one of the quintessential places of relaxation and superficiality, interview time can be likened to a pastime, the harmless chatter that can be had among beachgoers. Moreover, the interviewer—who is immediately identifiable if he or she has a tape recorder or similar—is almost never rejected: beachgoers often feel "honored" to be considered for their opinion, regardless of the topic of the survey. Except that the practice of bare breasts has revealed surprises, contradictions, stigmas, and underlying rules that we wouldn't expect from those who frequent the beach for relaxation.

Because yes, the beach has rules. It can be paradoxical in some ways: it allows nudity unless children are present, and proximity if between family members, but it imposes modesty and distance unless one reaches a certain level of self-awareness and awareness of the types of gazes one might receive on the beach. Taking off one's swimsuit top is therefore not a simple, natural, and unproblematic gesture. It is part of a highly sophisticated set of rules and a historical process that defines who has the right to do what and how. With this, Kaufmann begins to explain how everyday banality is not a trivial issue at all and that every object of social investigation can reveal underlying practices.

The historical-social construction of the beach

How did the modern idea of ​​the beach arise? When did it become the place of relaxation we know today? Jean Claude Kaufmann helps us unravel this seemingly arcane question. Ancient peoples—the Greeks and Romans first and foremost—viewed the sea as a place of perdition, with its purplish hues (like wine!), a fluid casket of inhumanity and unknown aberrations. Consequently, the beach, as a place of transition separating the unknown and civilization, was perceived as something to be avoided, accepted only as a destination of return, a welcoming embrace for sailors on commercial and military routes.

From a religious perspective, according to Corbin (1988), for centuries the sea was an "abyssal receptacle for the remains of the flood", a source of anguish and disgust. Only in the eighteenth century did a different perspective on nature and the body begin to develop. Body and nature are in fact linked: the search for an achievable Eden, a destination to escape from urban society and its rhythms, materializes in a place reminiscent of paradise but also free of normative constraints, which creates the illusion of the body's solitude before the elements (Urban, 1994). However, only with the advent of the social invention of the sun and tanning did the idea of ​​the beach as a place of relaxation as we know it today take hold.

Microsociology of the naked breast

Before the advent of the "age of the sun," however, it was the active bodies of bathers that made swimsuits the coverings we know today. Women, previously wrapped in woolen garments, began to lighten their clothing around 1840, and the tight-fitting swimsuit only became fashionable in the 20s. After the Second World War, the trend toward the monokini of the 900s was driven not only by the pursuit of mobility in the water but also by the need for a tan.

In an era when bourgeois society imposed the ideal of whiteness, tanning was frowned upon. Yet, over time, its management has elevated the practice. Beyond competition (who has the darkest, most even, and most beautiful tan), there's fashion (everyone does it, I just follow suit) but also health (too much is bad for you, so I only tan in the morning because there's less UV light, etc.). It's a practice that requires a certain degree of technical knowledge.

This knowledge is reflected in the practice of bare breasts, introduced in 1964 in Saint-Tropez, where it quickly became a mass practice: not just competition, fashion, and health, but a gesture of rebellion and self-appropriation. The beautiful female body is a sign of pride, scandal, and sexual liberation. It can be all of these things, but also more: it is the immanence over which we can have a considerable degree of control and through which we can reinforce the impression of a symbiosis between the individual and the world.

The Three Bodies of Woman by Jean Claude Kaufmann

We've said that the beach is paradoxical, that it has rules. We believe we're free, but the slightest gesture, the slightest glance, is controlled and codified. This system of rules hinges on three ideas of beach governance that intersect with three visions of the woman's body:

• The banality. The exposure of nudity makes nudity less visible. This is the process of trivialization that already occurs in everyday processes, as well as the invisible body of the woman on the beach;
• SexualityWherever the gaze rests, it attributes meanings. This is the erotic body of the woman, avatar of ease, but also of provocation and exhibitionism;
• The beautyThe government intervenes when banality fails to satisfy the instincts of the gaze on the erotic body. The third body of the woman is the aesthetic body: it guarantees seaside tranquility, diverting the impulse of instinct, inserting itself into a more social, and in some ways classist, discourse. We move on to a taste for beauty, to the pleasure of admiring an ideal type of the imposed/widespread canon.

Constructing Reality: The Example of the Naked Breast

Jean-Claude Kaufmann draws heavily on authors such as Goffman and Mauss. It's therefore not surprising that for the author, the social construction of reality is rooted in small gestures, in the roles we play. Reality is constructed by acquiring intensity and solidity through repetition. Habit and ritual trap meanings, and through the process of trivialization, they penetrate deeply. Yet it is precisely through imitation that innovation is possible: habit is transformed, as those who imitate choose what to imitate and integrate it into their behavioral heritage. From these premises, it's also possible to reason about the practice of bare breasts: in a context where it's not only accepted but also the norm, bare breasts become normal because respecting the norm implies the acquisition of a sense of tranquility on the beach. A similar (and perhaps more well-known and structured) case is nudist beaches.

In other contexts (and times), the bare breast has been (and still can be) a revolution. On the beach, aesthetic and moral codes come into play (e.g., a young breast is more attractive than an older, sagging one, which is considered inappropriate). They appeal to different sensibilities (e.g., a child can see his mother's bare breasts, but not those of other women, or the gaze of young men is not perceived the same way as that of older men, who are considered narrow-minded). But above all, it creates the system of ambiguity that sociology must pursue in seeking its own research objects.

References

• Corbin A., The territories you saw. The West and the desire of the river. 1750-1840, Flammarion, Paris, 1988;
• Kaufmann JC, Women's Bodies, Men's Gazes: Sociology of the Naked Breast, Raffaello Cortina Editore, Milan, 2007;
• Urbain JD, Sur la plage. Moeurs et bathing habits, Payot&Rivage, Paris, 1994;