Stop Making Sense? The Problem of the Body in Youth/Sub/Counter-Culture

Abstract

Much of the existing writing on youth, sub, or counter-culture has adopted a predominantly textual or semiotic approach, focusing on subcultural style, in particular, and the resistant or confrontational meanings that such styles are said to convey. In so doing, however, this literature has tended to neglect the lived experiences of those involved, or, as Ken Gelder puts it, ‘what they actually do’ (Gelder 1997b: 145). This point has been frequently noted elsewhere (see, for example: Cohen 1997 [1980]; Gelder 1997b; Muggleton 1997). What this chapter seeks to address is a more specific aspect of this overall neglect: the tendency to overlook, or accord insufficient attention to, the way in which subcultural practices are articulated through or on the bodies of the actors concerned.

People think it’s all about misery and desperation and death and all that shite. Which is not to be ignored. But what they forget is, is the pleasure of it. Otherwise we wouldn’t do it. After all, we’re not fucking stupid. Or at least we’re not that fucking stupid. Take the best orgasm you ever had, multiply it by a thousand and you’re still nowhere near it.

‘Renton’, in Trainspotting, Boyle 1996