the personal vs the communal

According to Simmel, everything that ‘adorns’ can be ordered along a scale in terms o its closeness to the physical body, from tattoos to clothes to jewellery or gadgets. Steward describes the tattoo as adding additional surface to the body with its message of communally understood symbols fully incorporated into the body. Whereas the locket or closed object is an additional recess of the body always threatened by loss or exposure.