Spartan Mirages: Fat, Masculinity, and “Softness"

Abstract

Building upon previous research on structural tensions between the male body and certain features of ‘modernity’ as well as more recent inquiries into fat and gender in the West, this cross-disciplinary ‘thought piece’ argues that fatness and certain ‘masculine’ ideals have existed in a state of tension since ancient times, and that recurring references to the therapeutic violence of ‘Spartan’ techniques reflect the extent to which such ideas continue to circulate in the present. The first section shows that this tension is most clearly illuminated when we consider how the qualities of fat - as well as the act of fattening - have related to classical ideals about masculinity. The second offers examples of how references to Spartan ‘hardness’ have been cited since the eighteenth century as methods of restoring otherwise ‘soft’ males to a more appropriately vigorous mental and bodily state. Without arguing for an unbroken or unproblematic continuity between ancient and modern culture, it suggests that classical references represent what Pierre Bourdieu sees as ‘the product of an incessant (and thus historical) work of reproduction’.