The Body as Threshold Between Public and Private Self

Sor Juana's body was a convent body, subject to scrutiny and community life. Yet she maintained regions of privacy—her thoughts, her writing, her inner life. The body is the literal boundary between what is public (your appearance, your visible behavior) and what is private (your thoughts, your desires, your secret self). This concept asks you to consciously manage that boundary. Physical self-concept includes the right to privacy in your own body. This might mean protecting your physical space (your room, your time alone), setting boundaries around who touches you or knows your bodily secrets, or maintaining interior thoughts that no one else owns. In our age of social media and constant exposure, this becomes urgent. Your body is not fully public property. You are entitled to keep parts of yourself. Sor Juana wrote about her inner life but revealed it selectively, in art. She gave the world her words, not her interiority. For contemporary practice, this means: What parts of your body do you make public? What do you reserve? How do you enforce that boundary? Your physical self-concept includes the sovereignty to say: this is mine; you may not see it.