Politics in liberal democracies with a neo-liberal mode of governance has become a manufactured reality that is little different from a reality TV show. Politics is now constructed as a mode of entertainment in which the political slogan is the substance, just as in corporate advertising.

How can this manufactured world of spin and glossy appearances be transgressed? Through taboo and transgression, such as violence in the form of sacrifice and the sexualized body. For Bataille transgression is a desire created by taboo itself, where taboo is understood as a system of rules and conventions designed to maintain order in society. Taboos also provide a space for transgression in the form of a disruptive force to develop.

Thus the body for Bataille as being opposed to the normative constraints that serve to constitute subjectivity within social formations. According to to this account of Bataille's work:

The body thereby resists absorption by social forces. For example, in the modern era, which is dominated by the capitalist mode of production and hence by the values of prudence and usefulness, the body serves as a reminder of the limitations of the notion of exchange‑value. The body cannot be recuperated within the logic of the market place, since bodily functions do not accord with dominant notions of exchange and profit. The body, rather, is prodigal: its basic constitution is determined by way of an alternative logic of excess