The obscene is revealed facticity stripped of its acts and situation

Evidence

Nevertheless if the body is wholly within the act, the facticity is not yet flesh. The obscene appears when the body adopts postures which entirely strip it of its acts and which reveal the inertia of its flesh. The sight of a naked body from behind is not obscene. But certain involuntary waddlings of the rump are obscene. This is because then it is only the legs which are acting for the walker, and the rump is like an isolated cushion which is carried by the legs and the balancing of which is a pure obedience to the laws of weight. It can not be justified by the situation; on the contrary, it is entirely destructive of any situation since it has the passivity of a thing and since it is made to rest like a thing upon the legs. Suddenly it is revealed as an unjustifiable facticity; it is de trop like every contingent. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 993

Categorization

• XREF: This is Sartre’s ontological account of the obscene as revealed facticity — a definitional anchor useful when later reading Beauvoir’s account of female bodies and objectification in The Second Sex. — connects to: Ungraceful movement exposes the performer’s raw unadapted facticity to others; Grace disguises facticity by clothing the naked flesh in an invisible garment.; The more obscene a crime, the less visible it becomes — Michael A. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and…, 77 (+2 more)
• DEFINE: Defines the obscene precisely: flesh revealed as inert, unjustifiable facticity, specifically to a non-desiring observer.

Broader Connections

• Stripping a people’s sacred historical claims reduces them to disposable naked life #expands (0.85)
• Ascribing static attributes to subjects strips them of history and agency. #complicates (0.80) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 631
• The more obscene a crime, the less visible it becomes #expands (0.75) — Michael A. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed, 77