  In Butler's view, whenever we discuss the body, we are also always representing it in culturally specific ways. To speak of the biologically sexed body as somehow prior to particular discourses about it is to, in so doing, nonetheless ironically speak about it within some particular discourse and hence to represent in some way.  According to Butler, sex is culturally instituted by representing the body as the natural container of some inner, gendered self.  Sex is understood as the bodily indication that concealed within it is the essence of either a woman or a man. For Butler, this view is false.  However, just as the natural attitude may be treated as if it were true even though it is not, so, too, bodies can be falsely treated as containers of gendered selves. To the extent that this view is pervasive and regulative of human conduct, one can—in this sense—say that sex is socially constructed.