The Other’s gaze reveals one’s own nausea as fleshly object.

Evidence

With the appearance of the Other’s look I experience the revelation of my being-as-object; that is, of my transcendence as transcended. A me-as-object is revealed to me as an unknowable being, as the flight into an Other which I am with full responsibility. But while I can not know nor even conceive of this “Me” in its reality, at least I am not without apprehending certain of its formal structures. In particular I feel myself touched by the Other in my factual existence; it is my being-there-for-others for which I am responsible. This being-there is precisely the body. Thus the encounter with the Other does not only touch me in my transcendence: in and through the transcendence which the Other surpasses, the facticity which my transcendence nihilates and transcends exists for the Other; and to the extent that I am conscious of existing for the Other I apprehend my own facticity, not only in its non-thetic nihilation, not only in the existent, but in its flight towards a being-in-the-midst-of-the-world. The shock of the encounter with the Other is for me a revelation in emptiness of the existence of my body outside as an in-itself for the Other. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 913 (#expands, via linked claim)

We must note in addition that this appearance of the body does not give us the body as it acts and perceives but only as it is acted on and perceived. In short, as we remarked at the beginning of this chapter, it would be possible to conceive of a system of visual organs such that it would allow one eye to see the other. But the seen eye would be seen as a thing, not as a being of reference. Similarly the hand which I grasp with my other hand is not apprehended as a hand which is grasping but as an apprehensible object. Thus the nature of our body for us entirely escapes us to the extent that we can take upon it the Other’s point of view. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 923 (#expands, via linked claim)

Nevertheless the Other’s existence brings a factual limit to my freedom. This is because of the fact that by means of the upsurge of the Other there appear certain determinations which I am without having chosen them. Here I am—Jew, or Aryan, handsome or ugly, one-armed, etc. All this I am for the Other with no hope of apprehending this meaning which I have outside and, still more important, with no hope of changing it. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1229 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Nausea is the nonpositional apprehension of one’s own contingent facticity, not a metaphor — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 886; The Other’s gaze imposes unchosen determinations on my being — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1229; The other’s presence reduces one to a utensil, experienced precognitively as unease. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 506 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• The Other’s look reveals my body as an object-for-others #expands (0.92) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 913
• The body seen from another’s viewpoint is a thing, not lived #expands (0.90) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 923
• The Other’s gaze imposes unchosen determinations on my being #expands (0.82) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1229
• The other’s presence reduces one to a utensil, experienced precognitively as unease. #expands (0.80) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 506
• Shame first reveals one’s factical body because the Other’s look falls on embodiment #exemplifies (0.78) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 97
• Being visually seen and commented on makes the girl’s body an object to herself. #exemplifies (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 738