Self-identity Renewing: Body-writing and Desire-reading on the Internet

• Main Authors: Shu-Xuin Zhao, 趙書珣
• Other Authors: Wei-An Chang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2004
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/66888765435111462638

碩士 === 國立交通大學 === 傳播所 === 92 === The self-identity in a modern society with diverse and heteroglossia voice is an extreme complicated issue which intermingling complex, fluid discourses. The body as the fundamental carrier of human souls and minds, bearing desires, figures, and emotions, is the most transparent way to construct our essential identity. The narratives and practices of body and desire form a base-stone for establishing our self-identity; apparently these narratives and practices could be enlarged or intensified in the Internet age. The intra-personal conversation thus could be made. The literatures I utilize in this paper include the gender construction perspective of psychoanalytical feminism, the body-writing argumentation of post-modernism feminism, the elaboration of sex-discourse and subjective-formation from M. Foucault, and the articulation of self-identity and modernity from A. Giddens. By reviewing these literatures, I realize that the forging identity of sex, desire, and body is a constructed and a never-ended process. The writings and discourses are by the mean time involved to arouse the process. My literature review also reveals that the Internet is potential to form the writing communities, to create non-biased new metaphors, and to reverse the exited, rooted thoughts. Conflicts of genders, sexes, and desires do happen in cyberspace, but we also see a new chance to take conversation between different groups. I observed 3 discussion boards of a BBS, the Sex-KKcity（花魁藝色館）. I retrieved hundreds related posts from archive zones to conduct a textual analysis. 3 main themes are derived: the body and desire are the core element of self-identity in a modern society; the phallus-centric view is just one of the plural, competitive discourse but no longer the dominant one; and the cyberspace is certainly can be a great field where counter-writing and self-proclamation of different groups are encouraged. From these findings, we can also understand that the self-identity is not a given one as it used to be, but an open-ended, reflexive process goes through our whole lives. The result of my textual analysis also echoes the new moral standard proposed by Giddens. From the beginning to the end, the persistent emphasis in my paper is, you should never hurt yourself and other people, regardless your sexual preference(s), identity(-ies), and sexuality(-ies). You can choose anyway, by any means to construct your own identity, but “care for others” is always the necessary moral concern everyone should keep in minds.