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The Venus Suit

Manifestation of Sexual Symbology
in the Business Environment (2)
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Various professions require different costumes and uniforms. A welder wears goggles, a heavy fire proof apron and long gloves for protection from the flame and sparks. Chefs wear white to project an image of cleanliness. Students wear uniforms as an imposition of discipline and a neutralization of economic disparities. Athletes wear padding to protect against injury. Monks shave their heads and wear simple garments as a show of their piety. Punk rockers wear pink Mohawk hairdos to express their nonconformity. A policeman wears a high collar and flashy metal ornaments as well as a club and gun in order to command respect. Soldiers wear camouflage to avoid detection from the enemy. An astronaut wears a space suit as protection against extremes of heat and cold, cosmic rays and the vacuum of outer space.

But why do businessmen wear a suit and tie? What function, practical or semiotically, do these forms signify? Is the lapel perhaps a protection against spilled cocktails and the tie a leash from those above? Or does the tight shirt collar and restricting necktie express the separation - in business - between the head and the heart? Towards an understanding we may examine the nature of the business environment, or rather, the anti-naturalism of the businessman's world.

Engaging in the world of business, both local and international, imposes many restrictions on the freedom of an individual. Business people - and this includes doctors and professors, bureaucrats and politicians - must spend a large part of their time in artificial environments like office buildings, convention centres and hotels, all with tinted windows, artificial lighting, re-circulated air and chemically treated water. And then there is the dubious nutritional value of aeroplane meals, eating on the run, cafeteria food, fast food snacks, canned drinks, bottled water and the mandatory copious amounts of coffee and alcohol.

Communication is "enabled" by the internet, cellular phones, fax machines and video conferencing systems, not to mention audiovisual presentations, using slide projection, video and computer multimedia along with the amplified drone of prepared oral presentations. With some free time they might find themselves in a sightseeing tour bus, a museum, shopping centre or some other architectural curiosity. To get around, the businessman is subjected to the hyper-controlled environments of air conditioned automobiles, taxicabs, rail cars and high speed jet travel. Rest is obtained curled up in front of a video monitor with the news of the day or some adult entertainment or by sleeping in suspiciously anonymous beds.

All said, the business world imposes extremely artificial environments and behavioural constraints on an individual. Little, if anything, seems to be related to Nature. But the nature in us cannot be suppressed, as we are from nature and must needs act by intuition, instinct, fear and desire. Nature must be present, at the very least to prevent us from going mad. But in what ways does Nature manifest herself in the midst of this contrived atmosphere of artificiality and simulacra? Is she perhaps found in the artworks on the walls or the plants in the lobbies of hotels and office buildings? Could a travelling businessman find some naturalism by working out at the hotel gym or sweating it out in the sauna? Or from the meat of a juicy steak or the flesh of a hired companion? No, all of these examples are inadequate to counter the gross unreality of the environment described.

Nature manifests herself in a much more prominent fashion - in the form of the men's business suit. Many have suggested that the necktie is a phallic symbol. It is a long shaft emanating from the waist and terminating in a knob at the end, like an oversized paisley penis. But this is only the first, most obvious sign.

The form of the three-piece suit and tie are essentially a large scale representation of that most primary of natural symbols: a woman's open vagina. The lapel represents the outer labia and the vest represents the inner labia. The tie band represents the vaginal opening and the tie knot, the clitoris. The handkerchief or carnation represents vaginal secretion or blood.

If we consider the white shirt as an intermediary medium between the man and the suit as being similar to the amniotic sac, then the man's head - often bald - protruding from the suit-front is in fact a large scale representation of that most primary naturalistic of events: that of a newborn's head protruding from his mother's vagina at the moment of birth.

Toronto '85–Seoul '97