The body is also a visually symbolic medium of culture, and as such communicates a complex of socially-constructed meanings. Thus the body expresses personal feelings and values, at the same time it expresses cultural meanings and values. It is impossible to separate the physical, biological body from the social factors which it operates in or which act on it. Criminology's view of tattoos, often regarded as physical indications of criminality, is an example of bodily communication. As a means of visual communication, the body is not merely a natural object, but is socially and historically constituted.
Culture is the interpretant of body symbolism.
Anthropology, with its research focused primarily on non-Western countries, developed theories of the body early. Public symbolism was more important than in modern societies where wealth and lifestyle are more personal and individual. Because images can be a form of control, the discipline and normalization of the individual's body is a strategy of image-control, a form of control which goes beyond the physical. Visual images reinforce social control and resist people's attempts to seize power. By manipulating properties of body modifications and supplements, people communicate their personal characteristics, including the important distinctions of gender.