Deleuze and The Body Without Organs - Disreading The Fit Feminine Identity

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Deleuze and the Body Without Organs: Disreading the Fit Feminine Identity
Pirkko Markula
Journal of Sport and Social Issues 2006; 30; 29
DOI: 10.1177/0193723505282469
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Journal of Sport
Journal of/ Disreading
10.1177/0193723505282469
Markula Sport & Social
the Fit
Issues
Feminine Identity
& Social Issues
Volume 30 Number 1
February 2006 29-44
© 2006 Sage Publications
Deleuze and the Body 10.1177/0193723505282469
http://jss.sagepub.com
Without Organs hosted at
http://online.sagepub.com
Disreading the Fit

Feminine Identity
Pirkko Markula
University of Bath, Bath, UK
This article examines the possibilities for resistant feminine body identity through the
lens of Deleuzian feminism. To do this, the author relies on Deleuze’s critique of philo-
sophical thought that constructs identity as a series of dichotomous oppositions. Accord-
ing to Deleuze, this process takes place within three dominant strata—organism, signif-
icance, and subjectification—that limit the creative potential of theorizing bodily
identity. The author further examines Deleuze’s alternative, positive approach to dis-
reading bodily identity through such concepts as plane of consistency, assemblange, and
the Body without Organs. Finally, the author aims to illustrate the usefulness of
Deleuzian philosophy to researchers of sport and exercise through an application into
women’s fitness practices. More specifically, the author analyzes how Pilates, as a set of
exercise practices, might assist in a creation of a Body without Organs.
Keywords: Deleuze; femininity; fitness; identity
A s a feminist sport sociologist, I have examined a range of possibilities to trans-

form the dominant, narrowly defined, thin, toned, young-looking, feminine
body ideal through fitness practices. Instead of transformation, however, I have dis-
covered that although many exercisers feel empowered by their engagement in physi-
cal activity, they simultaneously long to obtain the ideal body. My conclusion has been
that exercising women live in a constant contradiction between wanting to obtain the
feminine body and appreciating the masculine characteristics of physical strength and
skill gained in their activity (Markula, 1995, 2003a). Several studies on women’s fit-
ness have reached similar conclusions (e.g., Dworkin, 2003; Haravon Collins, 2002;
Loland Waaler, 2000; Maguire & Mansfield, 1998; McDermott, 2000). I realize that
although women seem to negotiate the contradictory requirements of masculine and
feminine identities through physical activity, the feminine body ideal remains the
same. In a sense, then, I have been unable to find resistance that would abolish the fit
feminine body ideal and lead to a larger scale transformation of the women’s condition
in today’s society. How can this be possible? I have a couple of tentative explanations.
First, exercising women are unable to engage in resistance practices. Second, I am
29

30 Journal of Sport & Social Issues
unable to identify what resistance might mean and how it might be enacted through fit-
ness. Reluctant to succumb to my first option, I have begun to reexamine notions of
resistance, the feminine body, and, more generally, feminine identity in my feminist
theorizing. In this article, I problematize such concepts as gendered identity (feminine
vs. masculine) and feminist transformation (resistant agency overcoming domination)
through the lens of Deleuzian feminism. Furthermore, I aim to illustrate the usefulness
of Deleuzian philosophy for sport and exercise researchers through specific applica-
tion to fitness practices.
From Michel Foucault, I have already learned that no activity itself is oppressive or
liberating in terms of producing resistant practices, but what matters is how femininity
and the feminine body are defined in a contemporary cultural constellation of dis-
courses and how these definitions are used in relations of power to dominate women
(Markula, 2003b). Therefore, it is not my intention to assign any one physical activity
as particularly transformative but rather to demonstrate the possibilities for theorizing
feminist becoming through fitness. But what can we learn about the exercising body
through Deleuze who, with such concepts as a Body without Organs (BwO), does not
seem particularly interested in the benefits of physical fitness or the material body
itself? I will try to answer this question by first presenting Deleuze’s critique of mod-
ern philosophy and then mirroring that critique against the feminist assumptions,
grounding my research on exercise. I will then examine Deleuze’s alternative system
of philosophical thought by introducing his concepts of the plane of consistency,
assemblage, and BwO.
Deleuze’s Critique of Philosophy
I became interested in Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy of becoming through Foucault

who so greatly admired Deleuze’s work that he predicted the next generation to be
Deleuzian. I was curious to learn what Foucault, himself an influential social thinker,
found so impressive about Deleuze’s philosophy that, as I had heard, was a rather
impenetrable collection of incomprehensible poststructuralist texts.
The most defining characteristic of Deleuze’s conceptual creativity is his call for
positive understanding of the role of philosophy in today’s world. Deleuze criticizes
philosophy for “being a monumental, intimidating machine that makes us all feel
inadequate” (Braidotti, 2002, p. 66) and systematically attacks the dominant philo-
sophical traditions of Hegel, Husserl, and Heidegger who, he feels, promoted “nega-
tive, resentful, Oedipalized feelings” (Braidotti, 2002, p. 66). This ponderous aca-
demic apparatus can also be called the state philosophy, as the state has traditionally
employed philosophers (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). In his work with Felix Guattari,
Deleuze (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987) further describes this philosophy as the arbor-
escent model of thought and uses the image of a tree to illustrate this model. The tree is
grounded on one principle root that supports the entire tree. The root might divide, but
always from the main root, and thus all thought is just a derivation from the same root,
from the same truth or deeply rooted belief. Deleuze and Guattari also find that the

Markula / Disreading the Fit Feminine Identity 31
binary logic of dichotomy characterizes the arborescent model of thought: In this

logic, one becomes two in a sense that each phenomenon or representation is reflected
against the originary unity (the root).
In terms of identity, this logic has resulted in such clear-cut, yet unified, binary cat-
egories as masculine versus feminine, White versus Black, upper class versus working
class, or the self versus the other. Deleuze and Guattari (1987) title these binaries
molar categories. Such categories, then, are assigned to the individual from outside, by
the philosophical apparatus. An identity is an object “or form that we know from the
outside and recognize from experience, through science, or by habit” (Deleuze &
Guattari, 1987, p. 275). For example, Deleuze and Guattari maintain, “a molar identity
is . . . the woman as defined by her form, endowed with organs and functions and
assigned as a subject” (p. 275). In addition to binary logic, the arborescent model is
typically striated or divided into clear-cut segments. Deleuze and Guattari (1987)
argue that the philosophical thought of the root model is segmented by the lines of
thought: “The space it constitutes is one of striation; the countable multiplicity it con-
stitutes remains subordinated to the One in an always superior or supplementary
dimension. Lines of this type are molar, and form a segmentary, circular, binary,
arborescent system” (p. 505). This model consists of types of thought layers organized
hierarchically. These layers take a specific form based on organizing and developing
thought in a logical manner. Deleuze and Guattari (1987) label such logic as “the plane
of organization and development” (p. 507). On the plane of organization and develop-
ment, Deleuze and Guattari single out three great segments, or strata, that are types of
sedimentary beds made from “things and words, from seeing and speaking, from visi-
ble and the sayable, from bands of visibility and field of readability, from contents and
expressions” (Deleuze, 1986, p. 47). They title these strata as organism, signifiance,
and subjectification that, according to them, underline modern Western philosophy.
Organism refers to the organization of the natural life based on the logic of science.
Signifiance refers to the structuralist logic of sign: interpreting language, actions, and
life as an interplay of a signified and a signifier. Subjectification refers to the psycho-
analytic logic according to which an individual is turned into a singular subject or
is assigned a molar identity. Therefore, according to Deleuze and Guattari, science,
structuralism, and psychoanalysis are organized under the canopy of the philosophical
tree. This arborescent model of thought, for Deleuze and Guattari (1987), “is the most
classical and well reflected, oldest, and weariest kind of thought” (p. 5). For them,
nature itself does not work that way: “In nature, roots are taproots with a more multi-
ple, lateral, and circular system of ramification, rather than a dichotomous one” (p. 5).
The state philosophy and the strata of psychoanalysis, structuralism, and naturalistic
science lag behind nature. In addition, Deleuze and Guattari argue that these three
great strata bind us, limiting our thinking into following the binary logic that does not
get us very far as it has “never reached an understanding of multiplicities” (p. 5). As
noted earlier, according to the root-tree model, identity turns into a unity that exists in
the totality of social world, an identity that is realized or found in a negative reflection
to its binary opposition. This is the model of a universal, essential feminine identity
that feminism, with much effort, has aimed to eradicate from its plane of thought.

An Arborescent Model of Feminism?
The concept of identity has always been at the center of feminist theorizing and
therefore in a constant process of redefinition. In my work, for example, I have always
acknowledged that feminine bodies become articulated and understood through the
particular social context into which they are inserted, or as Dianne Currier (2003) puts
it, “Bodies as social constructions are understood to be the interpolation of the bio-
logical body into a matrix of meaning that overcodes it and produces a particular
understanding and experience of it for the subject” (p. 327). Currier further points out
that consequently, “a particular understanding of the body contributes to the con-
struction of a gendered identity and the acquisition of that gendered identity reiterates
the particular understanding of the body” (p. 327). This model assumes a presocial,
prediscursive body that is relatively stable. This body is then an object for overcoding
by social inscription. I recognize in my work Currier’s definition of a socially con-
structed body: The thin and toned body is socially constructed as the ideal feminine
body to oppress women. The researcher, then, needs to reveal, resist, and then discard
this social construction to liberate women and empower them to appreciate their real
identities. I still wonder what is possibly wrong with this logic? Through Deleuzian
philosophy, I have begun to understand that my theoretical interpretation of the social
construction of feminine identity might resemble the arborescent model of philo-
sophical thought and limit my understanding of the narrowly defined feminine body
shape.
Although it is generally acknowledged that Deleuze was no feminist (e.g., Braidotti,
2002), there is also a consensus that “references to Deleuze have grown enormously in
feminist theory” (Braidotti, 2002, p. 68). Those advocating Deleuzian philosophy
argue that these increasingly positive citations are because of the pragmatics of
Deleuze’s transgressive philosophy that clearly matches the goals of feminist theoriz-
ing. They add that Deleuze offers a theory that can create new imaginary ways of look-
ing at bodily identity.
From a Deleuzian perspective, however, a new concept of femininity divorced from
the feminine-masculine dichotomy is required. Although many feminists might point
out that this has been the exact goal for several decades, Deleuzian feminists indicate
fundamental shortcomings in previous attempts to discard the masculine-feminine
dualism. In terms of my project, I must ask how a dualistic understanding of feminine
identity might limit my definition of resistant physical activity. To answer this ques-
tion, I need to look deeper at the premise of my past theorizing and trace the polarities
that have underpinned my concept of feminine identity. One manifestation of this
dichotomous thought, according to feminists who incorporate Deleuzian thought into
their work, is the dualistic assumption of a preexisting organic body versus a socially
constructed body. Currier’s (2003) discussion of Donna Haraway’s work illustrates
this point.
According to Currier (2003), Haraway seeks to reformulate the feminist conceptu-
alization of the body beyond the binary notion of a natural-technological (constructed)

body through her concept of the cyborg that, as a high-tech body, renders unusable the
notion of a stable, natural body. By challenging the notions of human or animal,
organic or inorganic, human or machine, culture or nature, and mind or body, the cy-
borg posits a challenge to Western thought: “The cyborg body is at once organic and
inorganic, machine and flesh and, as such, destabilizes both the categories and the very
logic itself” (p. 322). Despite this promise, Currier argues that Haraway’s theory of
cyborg bodies, while seeking to break away from an organic essential femininity
grounded on the body, only provides an intent. Currier explains that fundamental to
Haraway’s formulation of the cyborg is a body that “pre-exists as a singular entity, to
which a range of technological artefacts and/or processes are appended” (p. 324). The
prosthetics then reformulate the essential body and its associated identity. Therefore,
to fabricate a cyborg, Haraway must first begin with discrete components of entities—
the nontechnological, essential female body and the technological body. As Currier
concludes,
The original demarcation of the components of the hybrid functionally reinstates the
human, grounded in an non-technological organic body as a stable site that cannot be ret-
rospectively conjured away by a subsequent seamless interface of shared coding. In pro-
posing the cyborg as hybrid, Haraway reiterates precisely the categorical demarcation of
human and machine she is attempting to dissolve. And the logic through which those cat-
egories are articulated in a relation of binary opposition to each other remains. (pp. 323-
324)
Although lacking the complexity of Haraway’s theoretical stance, my assumption

of a socially constructed body waiting to be stripped away to reveal the liberated, natu-
ral feminine body bears similar binary logic. Abigail Bray and Claire Colebrook’s
(1998) Deleuze-inspired critique of the representational feminine body carries further
relevance to my analysis of the limitations of my own feminist assumptions.
Bray and Colebrook (1998) begin by acknowledging that to dismantle the mean-
ings attached to the feminine, feminist theorizing has lifted issues of the body to the
center of their inquiry, because “only an articulation of the body . . . would provide
feminism with an autonomous liberation from the primarily repressive and negative
masculine reason” (p. 37). Therefore, representations have become an important tar-
get for feminist re-readings of the female body with an underlying assumption that
“images, stereotypes, and representations of women’s bodies have imposed in-
authentic forms of gender identity and thus robbed women of their autonomy” (p. 38).
This assumption, however, duplicates the body into a representational body that then
opposes the natural body. The representational body becomes to signify, becomes to
mean either feminine or masculine, oppressed or liberated. We assign certain qualities
such as weakness, subservience, concern of appearance, or care taking to the feminine
and other qualities such as strength, leadership, achievement orientation, or decisive-
ness to its opposite, the masculine identity. Such representation is, of course, what
feminism has opposed as it assigns women and the feminine body into a category of

lack and inferiority. From a Deleuzian point of view, however, this model subsumes to
a dualistic logic as this theoretical argument still assumes a strict division between the
natural, material body and the representational body. This leads Bray and Colebrook
to conclude that
representation would always remain, in some sense, a negation of matter—a break with a
prior materiality, even where that materiality is an effect of representation . . . as long as
representation is seen as a negation of corporeality, dualism can only ever be complicated
and never overcome. (pp. 44-45)
Therefore, any focus on the representational body as a site for gender constitution
does not itself free feminism from the philosophical assumptions of the masculine-
feminine dualism that still defines the feminine as a devalued negation of masculine
logic that, although currently repressive, becomes the only option for inclusion and
thus a positive liberation.
In my studies of fitness, I have focused on discovering practices that can resist the
thin, toned body—the representation that signifies oppressive femininity. But I have,
for the most part, left untheorized into what I imagine the feminine body to be trans-
formed—into its opposite, I suppose, the large, strong, sporty body. Obviously, I have
still assumed that the characteristics signifying the representation of the feminine
body are inferior to the masculine body. This dualism leaves me no other options but to
assign the masculine body as the desirable body, even for women. With its assumption
of a masculine-feminine dichotomy, my feminist attempt, as Bray and Colebrook
(1998) would argue, is still firmly located within the masculine representational econ-
omy. My theoretical unsophistication has definitely left me to oscillate between the
oppressive feminine body ideal to be discarded and its opposite, the masculine body
ideal that signifies the potential to liberate women from male dominance. Do I want to
promote either ideal? Furthermore, in critical feminist thought, agency refers to the
resistance that individual women can use to consciously liberate themselves from
under the ideologically constructed notion of femininity: the representation of the
feminine body. I have definitely examined fitness as a practice of resistance where an
individual woman’s agency has the potential to liberate her from the bindings of op-
pressive patriarchal definitions of the feminine body. I have not, however, problema-
tized my assumption of the liberated woman that is supposed to emerge as a result.
Who is that woman? Where does she come from? What does a liberated woman do dif-
ferently from men? How does she act when no longer defined by social construction?
Thus far, I have discovered a strong resemblance between my feminist assumptions
and the arborescent model of philosophy that was criticized by Deleuze and Guattari
(1987). To break free from such a framework, it is not enough to simply reverse the
terms of the dualisms but to move beyond the dialectics of binary oppositions. But
what theoretical tools do I have left? What can Deleuze and Guattari possibly suggest
to counter the limitations of the arborescent model of philosophical thought?

Deleuze’s Philosophy: Becoming Positive
Deleuze and Guattari (1987) have developed a different image of philosophical

thought from the tree-root model of the state philosophy—a model based on an image
of a rhizome. For this quest, Deleuze found support from such philosophers as
Spinoza, Nietzsche, and Bergson whose thinking, according to Deleuze, critiqued the
negativity of philosophical thought to promote a cultivation of joy. The philosophical
thought of Deleuze and Guattari, rather than grounded on a unifying deep root, is
imagined as a rhizome: a type of root that grows horizontally, not vertically like a tree
root. A rhizome looks more like a bulb, where the roots do not grow only by division
from the main root but are multiple and can take off from any point of the root. There-
fore, “there is no unity to serve as a pivot in the object, or to dive in the subject”
(Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 8). Although rhizomes, like other types of roots, contain
lines of segmentation “which it is stratified, territorialized, organized, signified, attrib-
uted” (p. 9), they can, unlike a tree root, be broken or shattered in spots but will start up
again following their old line or forming a new line. In sum, the rhizomatic model of
thinking is based on the ideas of heterogeneous thought (rather than unified thought),
multiplicities (rather than singularities), and asignifying ruptures (rather than signifi-
cation of meaning that is ready to be interpreted based on the unifying logic). Deleuze
and Guattari place further concepts such as the plane of consistency, assemblage, and
BwO in their model of philosophical thought. I am particularly interested in how
incorporating these concepts in my discussion of feminine identity can help me move
my thinking of women’s exercise out of the boundaries of the tree-root model of phi-
losophy. I will therefore discuss each of these concepts with more detail to illuminate
how they can guide my discussion of fitness as a form of resistance. Although they are
all interlinked, it is probably the clearest to begin with the idea of the plane of consis-
tency and then, by mirroring the concepts of assemblage and a BwO against that, make
sense of the complexities of Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizomatic philosophy.
The Plane of Consistency

The plane of consistency opposes the plane of organization and planning that char-
acterizes the tree-root model of philosophy. If the plane of organization and planning
is striated with horizontal lines of thought, the plane of consistency is characteristi-
cally a smooth space: Here the line of thought breaks or twists without forming a con-
tour. Because there is no clear unifying shape or organized contour, thoughts in this
plane can form multiple shapes. They pass between several things and between several
points instead of deriving from one unifying thought root. As a result, this plane forms
its own consistency. When the plane of organization and development unifies its con-
tents, the plane of consistency contains rather unformed elements that it ties together,
not in a homogenous manner but in multiple ways: “It assures the consolidation of
fuzzy aggregates” but never holds “unifications, never totalizations, but rather consis-
tencies or consolidations” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 507). Therefore, there is still
a certain consistency of thought formed in this plane, but the idea is to give space to

multiple ways of thinking that are never solidified but rather in a constant process of
development or becoming. To enter this philosophical thought plane, one will think
through haecceities (i.e., events without form or substance and that therefore assume
flexible ways of individualization), through nomadic essences that are continually
moving essences, and through continuums of intensities or continuous variations
rather than constants and variables.
In terms of my project of the fit feminine body identity, this means refocusing the
premise of my theoretical thinking. If the tree-root model has exhausted its cause by
not allowing me to continue understanding the transformation of the feminine body
through fitness, to step into the plane of consistency can provide an opportunity to pro-
ceed by counting for multiplicities rather than unities. This means rethinking the way I
have understood the feminine identity: identity as a unified, universal concept, a root
that has divided into masculinity and femininity, a constant, fixed dialectic that gov-
erns my theoretical attempts to understand the reality. This fixed dichotomy locks my
thinking of the transformation of the narrowly defined feminine body into sameness
and constancy. To give space for difference and multiplicity, I need to reconceptualize
my plane. This means assuming not an identity that is constant (e.g., femininity
defined through such characteristics as subservient, attractive, weak, nurturing, etc.)
but rather an identity that is a phenomenon in continual change or becoming. Feminin-
ity as haecceity has no predefined substance or form but it takes certain shape, it
consolidifies, in the process of thinking and theorizing. It is no longer necessary to link
femininity negatively or at all with masculinity; it is no longer necessary to think of
identity as segmented into predefined molar categories. From a feminist perspec-
tive, then, a new, more positive concept of femininity detached from the feminine-
masculine dichotomy is required.
Such theorists as Rosi Braidotti (2002), Elizabeth Grosz (1994), and Dorothea
Olkowski (2000) see Deleuze’s theory as an avenue for a positive, empowering future
for women and feminism. As Grosz reiterates, “It seems to me that it is a clear require-
ment of feminist theory to seek alternatives, to provide explanatory frameworks and
models which enable femininity, female subjectivity and corporeality, to be under-
stood as a positivity” (p. 182). It is thus important to reconceptualize femininity from a
symptom, effect, or product of patriarchal culture into an intensity exerting its own
force. Femininity therefore should be understood as positive and enabling, not some-
thing to get rid of. It is thus important to understand fitness as a positive force to pro-
mote the enabling aspects of its practice. For me, this translates into an elimination of
the molar binaries from my theoretical grounding. For example, to challenge the
molar category woman, I need to replace the social constructionist assumption of a sta-
ble, prediscursive body that I could uncover from the layers of the oppressive, social
construction of femininity in exercise. I can no longer ground my research on the
binary opposition of oppressive (socially constructed) femininity and resistant (true,
stable, masculine?) femininity waiting to be recovered through certain fitness prac-
tices. Instead, I must ask how I can think beyond these predetermined categories. I
have found that Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987) concept of assemblage provides me
with a space to consider positive femininity.

Assemblages
In an attempt to understand the use of an assemblage, it is necessary to return to the
earlier concept of a stratum. According to Deleuze and Guattari (1994), mental land-
scapes such as philosophy consist of certain layers of thought, and such strata are
extremely movable. The meaning of strata is a creation of a world (of thought) from a
chaos of disparate things and events by coding different milieus and forming sub-
stances. In the tree-root model of philosophy, Deleuze and Guattari (1987) identified
the three great strata—organism, signifiance, and subjectification—that code differ-
ent milieus such as nature, language, or the human self into consisting of certain sub-
stances (e.g., the development of species, creation of meaning, or formation of the
subject). Assemblages exist within these different strata and are produced within the
strata, yet they are also different from them. They operate where the milieus of the
strata become decoded. This way assemblages extract territory from these milieus.
They are able to do this by rearticulating the expression and content of each stratum.
Deleuze and Guattari (1987) carefully distinguish between content and expression:
Each stratum articulates a content (what the stratum is about; e.g., feminism is a stra-
tum that concerns gender) and its expression (e.g., women’s position in society).
Although assemblages retain the same distinction, they differ from strata in a sense
that they develop a new relationship, absent in strata, between these two. In assem-
blages, the expression turns into a semiotic system and the content into a pragmatic
system of actions and passions. In between these systems, what is said and what is
done develops into a zone of incorporeal transformations. The strata lack this zone and
do not allow a similar possibility for transformation. When the assemblage is able to
obtain territory from the strata, it opens itself up to lines of deterritorialization that fur-
ther connect the assemblage to other assemblages or other abstract systems of thought.
An assemblage can then be a way of thinking differently yet staying within a stratum.
For example, one can remain within feminism and use its concepts but create an
assemblage of thought that gains territory from the existing stratum of feminism to
then open it up to deterritorialization. Similarly, one can think of fitness as a milieu
coded by the strata. These strata, however, can produce different assemblages with
their own expressions of what it means to be fit and practices following these ideas.
Different fitness forms such as aerobics, resistance training, or running or mindful fit-
ness forms of yoga, Pilates, or Tai Chi can be understood as possible assemblages that
exist within the milieu of fitness and that are thus striated by the strata yet might be
able to create a zone of incorporeal transformations by articulating a particular system
of meaning with a particular pragmatic system. This way they might open new lines of
deterritorialization and offer chances for transformation of the existing milieu of
fitness. They can, however, also be reterritorialized by the strata.
To summarize, an assemblage can be visioned to exist in between the existing strata
and the creation of something new. As Deleuze and Guattari (1987) state,
One side of a machinic assemblage faces the strata, which doubtless make it a kind of
organism, or signifying totality, or determination attributable to a subject; it also has a
side facing a body without organs, which is continually dismantling the organism, caus-

ing asignifying particles or pure intensities to pass or circulate, and attributing to itself
subjects that it leaves with nothing more than a name as the trace of an intensity. (p. 4)
Moreover, Deleuze and Guattari (1987) urge every researcher to “write, form a rhi-
zome, increase your territory by deterritorialization, extend the line of flight to the
point where it becomes an abstract machine covering the entire plane of consistency”
(p. 11). To link an assemblage with the new and enable the researcher to increase his or
her territory, they introduce a new concept, a BwO.
The BwO
“Find your body without organs. Find out how to make it. It’s a question of life and
death, youth and old age, sadness and joy. It is where everything is played out”
(Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 151).
A BwO is a type of medium for smoothing out the existing strata. Constructing a
BwO allows for a gradual transformation of the strata toward the plane of consistency.
At the same time, BwOs are inscribed on the plane of consistency. Deleuze and
Guattari (1987) describe the role of a BwO as an individuation of haeccaities, the
events of incorporeal transformations. The BwOs produce the intensities needed in
smoothing the plane, and they act as the mediums of becoming or transformation. A
BwO is “a powerful nonorganic life that escapes the strata, cuts across assemblages,
and draws an abstract line without contour” (p. 507). This way a BwO enables a grad-
ual unhinging of the strata: “The BwO is that glacial reality where the alluvions,
sedimentations, coagulations, foldings, and recoilings that compose an organism—
and also a signification and a subject—occur” (p. 159). In this sense, a BwO is not a
concrete body. Neither is it a concept such as agency or resistance through which we
have theorized the liberation of the feminine self but rather a practice or a set of prac-
tices. Unlike liberation, “you never reach the Body without Organs, you can’t reach it,
you are forever attaining it, it is a limit” (p. 150). The examples that Deleuze and
Guattari provide are, however, very real bodies: a masochist, a drug addict, a schizo, a
hypochondriac, a paranoid body. They do not, however, advocate that we all turn into
the “sucked-dry, catatonicized, vitrified, sewn-up” (p. 150) bodies of their examples.
These bodies, however, are bodies all completely empty from anything else except
intensities (e.g., they only sense pain or cold), yet becoming empty this way is danger-
ous and risky and can go wrong very easily. There are more joyous and positive ways
of working toward a BwO, and according to Deleuze and Guattari, everyone has the
capacity to make himself or herself a BwO. As a matter of fact, we already, to a certain
extent, use such practices every day:
We are a social formation; first see how it is stratified for us and in us and at the place
where we are; then decent from the strata to the deeper assemblage which we are held;
gently tip the assemblage, making it pass over to the side of the plane of consistency. It is
only there that the BwO reveals itself for what it is: connection of desires, conjunction of
flows, continuum of intensities. You have constructed your own little machine, ready
when needed to be plugged into other collective machines. (p. 161)

I could think of fitness as a social formation. To create a BwO that allows me to

transform this formation, I first need to assess how it is stratified. The layers of think-
ing behind fitness are very much influenced by the three great strata. Fitness is impor-
tant for physical health, and the definition of health derives from the bioscientific
research embedded in the stratum of organism. Fitness is linked to other meanings
such as the representation of a body that signifies an ideal in our society. In addition, by
determinately and deliberately following a fitness program, one can discover one’s
self: the thin, happy, balanced, capable, true feminine self. After identifying some of
the strata, I then need to descend deeper into the fitness world to locate an assemblage,
a particular fitness practice. Although there are numerous contemporary fitness prac-
tices, I will consider Pilates as a possible assemblage to open itself up for lines of
deterritorialization of a fit feminine body. My aim is not to advocate Pilates as a resis-
tant exercise practice but to identify an assemblage that refocuses my previous theoret-
ical thinking of the fit feminine body. To do this, I need to detect the expression (the
semiotic system) and content (the pragmatic system) that characterize Pilates as an
exercise form.
Pilates exercise technique was developed by Joseph Pilates, who arrived in New
York City from Germany just before World War II. When Pilates died at age 87 in
1967, his legacy was continued by the students who had studied directly with him and
by his wife Clara (Gallagher & Kryzanowska, 1999). Today, there are multiple exer-
cise classes, styles, and texts titled Pilates, and even the trainees in the original Pilates
technique point out that Pilates modified his technique based on individual clients’
needs (King & Green, 2003). Although there is no absolutely correct Pilates tech-
nique, most of its leading practitioners agree on the basic principles of Pilates (e.g.,
King & Green, 2003). These principles—concentration, breathing, centering, control,
precision, flowing movements, and isolation—could then be considered the expres-
sion of Pilates, its semiotic system, and the actual practices—the 34 original exercises
created by Pilates—following these principles, the pragmatic system that articulates
into an assemblage. In between these systems, there is a possible zone of incorporeal
transformations. After identifying this zone, my task would then be to tip Pilates
toward the plane of consistency, to somehow divorce it, unhinge it from the bio-
scientific notion of health, the construction of the body beautiful, and the liberation of
the true self. Then a BwO should reveal itself, and I should see conjunctions of flows,
continuums of intensities, ready to be connected with other collective machines such
as feminism. I have come this far with my theoretical reconceptualization, yet I don’t
see the BwO.
Deleuze and Guattari (1987) remind that one should not expect to simply find a
BwO, but it has to be made:
It’s not so much that it preexists or comes ready-made, although in certain respects it is
pre-existent. At any rate, you make one, you can’t desire without making one. And it
awaits you; it is an inevitable exercise or experimentation, already accomplished that
moment you undertake it, unaccomplished as long as you don’t. (p. 149)

They do, then, exhibit a certain urgency for working toward a BwO. We just have to
work toward making one. They also offer more specific instructions for how to experi-
ment with making oneself a BwO.
According to Deleuze and Guattari (1987), the process of turning into a BwO involves
two basic processes. The body first needs to become empty of the influence of the strata
and then be filled again with intensities. They note that their example bodies—the
masochist, the drug addict, the schizophrenic, the hypochondriac, and the paranoid
body—have managed to take the first step and have emptied their bodies but have
failed to take the second step, remaining forever empty: “They had emptied them-
selves of their organs instead of looking for the point at which they could patiently and
momentarily dismantle the organization of the organs we call the organism” (p. 161).
One needs, therefore, to embark on this process with particular care as it can easily go
wrong and just lead to an empty body or a body that is quickly reterritorialized by the
strata. This is because
the BwO is always swinging between the surfaces that stratify it and the plane that sets it
free. If you free it with too violent an action, if you blow apart the strata without taking
precautions, then instead of drawing the plane you will be killed . . . . Staying stratified—
organized, signified, subjected—is not the worst that can happen; the worst that can hap-
pen is if you throw the strata into demented or suicidal collapse, which brings them back
down on us heavier than ever. (p. 161)
Thus, Deleuze and Guattari (1987) warn against wild destratification: “You don’t
do it with a sledgehammer, you use a very fine file” (p. 161). With these cautions in
mind, they offer specific steps toward the creation of a BwO. I now trace these steps to
see how it is possible to make a BwO.
As a first step, I have to proceed carefully by mimicking the dominant strata by
keeping enough of the signifying organism to be able to respond to the dominant real-
ity to avoid either death or restratification. As I examine the fit feminine body, my
strata will then be the dominant strata of fitness. In addition, I need an assemblage to
host my BwO. As I earlier conceptualized Pilates as a possible assemblage, I will con-
tinue to disread my previous assumptions of organism (the exercising body), signifi-
cance (feminine exercise practices turn into oppressive practices), and subjectification
(resistant agency that individual women use to recover their true feminine selves) by
practicing Pilates. At the same time, the process of making a BwO concerns me con-
cretely: I cannot only theorize about making myself a BwO or provide authoritative
readings on how to make other exercisers into BwOs, but I have to engage in the actual
pragmatics of this becoming. However, Deleuze and Guattari (1987) want to make
sure that the BwO is not an internal psychological state at an individual level, but
neither is it an externally imposed category:
It is a question of making a body without organs upon which intensities pass, self and
other—not in the name of a higher level of generality or a broader extension, but by virtue
of singularities that can no longer be said to be personal, and intensities that can no longer
be said to be extensive. The field of immanence is not internal to the self, but neither does

it come from an external self or a nonself. Rather, it is like the absolute Outside that knows
no Selves because interior and exterior are equally a part of the immanence in which they
have fused. (p. 156)
I, as a researcher, need to actively create my own BwO, an individual practice that

allows the zone of transformation to activate. In this sense, Pilates is an assemblage
that brings together various BwOs, mine among the others. Assemblage ties them up
to allow the construction of continuums of all intensive continuities. They enable a fur-
ther deterritorialization of the field of fitness by fabricating each BwO into a larger
canvas of intensities.
Next, following Deleuze and Guattari (1987), I need to find “potential movements
of deterritorialization, possible lines of flight” (p. 161). What could such lines of flight
be? Obviously, their trajectory is across, not vertical as in the striated organization of
the strata. But where to? What kind of fitness practice would deterritorialize the inter-
pretation of the image of the fit feminine body? Theoretically, one could assume that a
careful analysis of the actual Pilates movements would be a step toward a pragmatic
analysis. However, it is necessary to disread these movements from their signification
as feminine or masculine. I should no longer interpret exercises as creating oppressive
feminine looks or liberating masculine strength. Moreover, according to Deleuze and
Guattari (1987), the researcher needs to experience potential lines of flight of deterri-
torialization to make a BwO. This means that I have to actually practice Pilates
myself. Pilates is, like any exercise practice, based on anatomical movement princi-
ples, the mechanics of the biological body. Does that not take me back to the stratum of
organism—the biological body? Does this not mean I will never be able to tip an
assemblage of fitness practice toward a BwO?
In their discussion of a BwO, Deleuze and Guattari (1987) did not advocate that we
rid ourselves of the material body or what they labeled the organs. On the contrary,
organism refers to what is made of the body by the scientific organization of its organs.
As Deleuze and Guattari conclude,
We come to the gradual realization that the BwO is not at all the opposite of the organs.
The organs are not its enemies. The enemy is the organism . . . . The BwO and its “true
organs,” which must be composed and positioned, are opposed to the organism, the
organic organization of the organs. (p. 158)
I must focus on how Pilates composes the body. Like any exercise practice, Pilates
creates a body through movement. Consequently then, a Deleuzian analysis should
point to an increased need to subject bodily movement to social analysis. Then the
lines of flight can take off toward a new imaginary plane that fosters creative theoriza-
tion of movement sensation as a central source for social theory. This makes me hesi-
tate one more moment: How can I, by observing my own movement practices in a fit-
ness class, create a larger scale transformation in the feminine body ideal? Doesn’t
focus on individual practice contradict the earlier insistence of the BwO not remaining
an internal state? Are Deleuze and Guattari looking for life without structure? Are they
guiding us toward relativism?

Deleuze and Guattari (1987) do not see the BwO as a means for the humanist self
who, free of all control and social influence, exists entirely in its own reality. Rather
they challenge the binary between singular and multiple:
Is there a totality of all BwO’s? If the BwO is already a limit, what must we say of the
totality of all BwO’s? It is a problem not of the One and the Multiple but of a fusional mul-
tiplicity that effectively goes beyond any opposition between the one and the multiple. A
formal multiplicity of substantial attributes that, as such, constitutes the ontological unity
of substance. (p. 154)
It is therefore necessary to share an ontological unity of substance, but that unity

simultaneously allows for lines of flight between multiple assemblages and territories
with which each individual is engaged. The purpose of constructing a BwO is not to
oppose or to step out of the strata but rather to create new territories that gradually
allow the strata to smooth out. Therefore, no activity, including Pilates, can exist out-
side the strata but can, by initiating lines of deterritorialization, aid in the creation of a
BwO and allow for a gradual transformation of the thinking behind fitness, the femi-
nine body, and the feminine identity.
Conclusion
Throughout this article, I have searched for creative ways to theorize the transfor-
mation of the fit feminine body. The rhizomatic philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari
(1987) has resonated with my aim. Through their critique of philosophy, they urge
researchers to abandon the logic of organization and development—the philosophical
thought of a singular, dualistic system of totality—and adopt a more flexible frame-
work of thinking that they title the plane of consistency. Such a plane is in a constant
process of change and must, therefore, be continually recreated. This recreation can
take place through assemblages: types of abstract articulations of phenomena in which
the content and expression are not entirely fixed according to the logic of modern
philosophical thought. Here, according to Deleuze and Guattari, lies the possibility for
transformation. A BwO can then be conceptualized as individual practices that enable
the zone of incorporeal transformations to actualize and lines of deterritorialization to
take hold of further milieus of the existing strata.
In my project regarding the transformation of the fit feminine body, my thought
plane, feminism (and within it the concept of feminine identity), needed first a cri-
tique. After an attempt to think differently—by divorcing a feminine identity from the
dichotomous totality of organized thought and by reconceptualizing it as a positive
multiplicity in a constant process of becoming—I sought for a context, an assemblage,
to locate a zone of transformation for the fit, feminine body. I experimented with imag-
ining Pilates as an assemblage with its own system of semiotics (the Pilates principles)
and its own system of pragmatics (the actual Pilates exercises). I then pondered how I,
an individual researcher, can make myself a BwO to activate the lines of flight from the

zone of incorporeal transformations to reach other assemblages. My experimentation

does not mean that no other exercise technique can form an assemblage or that my way
of creating a BwO is the preferred way to deterritorialize the strata of fitness that define
the image of the fit feminine body. As Deleuze and Guattari (1987) summarize,
The . . . plane of consistency must be constructed. This can take place in very different
social formations through very different assemblages (perverse, artistic, scientific, mys-
tical, political) with different types of bodies without organs. It is constructed piece by
piece, and the places, conditions, and techniques are irreducible to one another. The ques-
tion, rather, is whether the pieces can fit together, and at what price. (p. 157)
My next task will be to construct a BwO by fitting together Pilates movement prac-
tices with their semiotic system to analyze how to activate a zone of incorporeal trans-
formations and deterritorialize the strata now defining the fit feminine body. Yet I can-
not help but feel that despite Deleuze and Guattari’s complex and elegant conceptual
framework of constructing BwOs that gradually create a smooth and rhizomatic plane
of consistency, my attempt to theorize how Pilates might provide an assemblage for
such practices ends up looking rather simple. There is nothing new in my Deleuzian
interpretation of fitness, some would say, whereas others would smile at its theoretical
language and dismiss it as a pure intellectual exercise created to amuse a bunch of
poststructuralists. What was the point for asking help from Deleuze to create better
exercise practices for consumers? I must admit that as an intellectual exercise, very
few things are as stimulating as making sense of Deleuze’s philosophy of becoming.
But what about my feminist praxis? What about the politics of fitness in contemporary
society?
Deleuzian philosophy, through its premise of becoming, is inherently political. In
addition, Deleuze provides a conceptual framework to start from the present to look
for the future. However, in its poetic beauty, the philosophy of becoming is playful and
imaginative. Therefore, it is more than likely that my reading of Deleuze has left much
to desire. However, his conceptual framework, I believe, can aid me to move beyond
the binary oppositions of feminine-masculine identities, oppressed-resistant selves,
dominant-liberating practices, and representational-material bodies to a more positive
and more flexible theoretical framework of constantly flowing intensities in flight.
Following Deleuze, perhaps, encourages me to leave behind the examination of the
static, visible representations of the body to engage with visceral, ephemeral move-
ment to create a line of flight to new territories of feminist research.
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Citations (this article cites 3 articles hosted on the

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Disreading the Fit

Keywords: Deleuze; femininity; fitness; identity

A s a feminist sport sociologist, I have examined a range of possibilities to trans-

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Deleuze’s Critique of Philosophy

I became interested in Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy of becoming through Foucault

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binary logic of dichotomy characterizes the arborescent model of thought: In this

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An Arborescent Model of Feminism?

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Although lacking the complexity of Haraway’s theoretical stance, my assumption

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Deleuze’s Philosophy: Becoming Positive

Deleuze and Guattari (1987) have developed a different image of philosophical

The Plane of Consistency

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Downloaded from http://jss.sagepub.com by Camila Melo on September 26, 2007

Downloaded from http://jss.sagepub.com by Camila Melo on September 26, 2007

I could think of fitness as a social formation. To create a BwO that allows me to

Downloaded from http://jss.sagepub.com by Camila Melo on September 26, 2007

Downloaded from http://jss.sagepub.com by Camila Melo on September 26, 2007

I, as a researcher, need to actively create my own BwO, an individual practice that

Downloaded from http://jss.sagepub.com by Camila Melo on September 26, 2007

It is therefore necessary to share an ontological unity of substance, but that unity

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zone of incorporeal transformations to reach other assemblages. My experimentation

Downloaded from http://jss.sagepub.com by Camila Melo on September 26, 2007

Downloaded from http://jss.sagepub.com by Camila Melo on September 26, 2007

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