Under the Other’s gaze I become an instrumental complex ordered around the look

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 (#corroborates, 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: The Other’s look displaces my world’s center and objectifies me. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 92; The Other’s look makes one’s own possibilities into ambivalent instruments; The Other’s look reveals my body as an object-for-others — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 913 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• The Other’s look reveals my body as an object-for-others #corroborates (0.92) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 913
• The Other’s gaze imposes unchosen determinations on my being #expands (0.88) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1229
• The Other’s perspective reveals my own body as merely worldly #corroborates (0.85)