"No Pain No Gain". Zur Verbesserung sozialer Chancen durch das Ertragen von Schmerz

In every community we can find the human body as an important medium, by which affiliations are defined. For this purpose quite often procedures are used which engrave the identity of an individual in an irreversible way on his body. These painful practices are culturally specific and that's why they are valued very differently. What participants themselves regard as normal and necessary, is from an ethic point of view often devaluated as absurd and mutilating. The present analysis asks by which circumstances and for what reasons pain is intentionally caused in cultural procedures and/or is at least accepted by the participants as a concomitant. These painful procedures include rites of passage, ritual beating and cosmetic operations. For this human behaviour exists a socio-biological explanation: bearing the pain increases the attractiveness of the individual. By obeying painful standards loyalty or maturity or beauty is expressed. Only by this means a normal social career is possible for the individual in her/his own society and/ or her/his chances on the market are improved. By the way of conclusion the evaluated comparison wants to show that it is exactly for these reasons that painful physical modifications are generally used and also tolerated by communities.