Breaking Boundaries: The Quest for Body Liberation in an Ever-Tightening World
Reading "Everybody" by Olivia Laing
In "Everybody" Olivia Laing explores the concept of bodily freedom by tracing the history of the struggles over the human body, the limits placed on it, and what freedom means from a physical and emotional perspective. Laing’s argument is centred on the body as a fluid, ever-becoming thing, highlighting the ever-changing nature of our identities, emotions, desires, and experiences. By exploring the limits placed on the body, she analyses how cultural norms and expectations confine and govern the body by looking at the boundaries imposed on it. She emphasises the body as a vehicle for personal expression and identity.
Olivia Laing draws upon various figures and voices to explore the theme of freedom, with the influential and controversial psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich as the central character. Reich believed that repressed emotions and conflicts were stored in the body, leading to physical and mental health problems. He also believed that societal repression, including sexual repression, was linked to political oppression. Reich saw sexual liberation as a means to achieve political liberation and advocated for a more sexually open and egalitarian society. Other figures Laing draws upon in her exploration of bodily freedom, are Andrea Dowkin, the civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, the artist Agnes Martin, Susan Sontag, Sigmund Freud, Nina Simone, and others.
Laing does not define freedom in “Everybody”. Instead, she explores the multidimensional nature of freedom, excavating insights from her subjects' lives and how their different experiences, roles and dynamics contribute to personal growth, self-discovery and a deeper understanding of one’s own desires, including hers. She emphasises that freedom is for everybody, all bodies. Whatever kind they may be. Ultimately, "Everybody" is a study of the forces against freedom and a celebration of how ordinary human bodies can resist oppression and reshape the world.
"Everybody" is an intellectually vigorous and emotionally stirring book, where the reader can find moments of reflection and insight into the beauty and importance of the free body and the bond between the body and personhood.