Discreetly called “Imaging Technology” by the English—*no sex please, we’re British!*—the technique of “body scanners” questions the somewhat ambiguous relationship of human beings with their bodies, nudity, and how others perceive this nudity. A nudity, nevertheless, unrestrainedly displayed in public places: advertisements and promotional clips, films, and magazines liberally undress both women and men, praising rounded shapes and muscular contours without the slightest chiaroscuro filter.
To bypass the purpose of clothing, which conceals a flesh deplored by original sin, attire now seeks to show off and highlight a stripped-down anatomy that resists being named: tight-fitting outfits or plunging necklines for women, visible seams of boxer shorts for men, all these “missed calls” physically soliciting the mirror of others’ eyes. Not to mention feminine tattoos placed in all these playfully “borderline” areas between the visible and the hidden: the edge of the neck, ankles, inner wrists, lower back. Far from exhibiting, they leave room for suggestion: seductive passivity finds confirmation in its many artifices.
Thus, there isn’t much left to camouflage… except what resides in the psyche. Indeed, what would the body be without this primitive unconscious that constitutes it, this infantile period of “polymorphous perversity” that fragments it and progressively takes ownership of it, this pubescent cataclysm that reshapes and fantasizes it, this genital sexuality that projects it and binds its desire to that of another?
The embarrassed reaction of the authorities, as well as that of travelers, engages, without clearly stating it, the defense of this psychic intimacy: it is the only one we still freely have if we consider the possibilities offered by sophisticated means of electronic surveillance of our actions online and in our daily activities. Therefore, the essential must not be confused with the accessory.
What remains is the enigmatic presence of the security agent who orders the “mandatory passage” through the gateway: a Sadistic imperative of hierarchical submission in a perverted relationship coupling the naked body of one with the—possible—voyeuristic pleasure of the other: quite a program!
Let those very people either be reassured or disappointed: among the millions of daily passengers, it is to be feared that the majority of them do not leave behind an unforgettable eroticized memory.
