A distinction has to be made between a form of metaphorically invoked social invisibility and a form of actual invisibility experimented with by social actors. We can see why invisibility is experienced negatively when we examine the way in which social visibility is constructed: it is ontogenetically understood in expressive gestures intended for social subjects from the beginning of the socialization process. By experiencing themselves as receivers of expressive gestures, social subjects perceive that they are visible to one another. Conversely, the absence of this positive expressiveness is taken to be a sign of their invisibility. Visibility can thus be conceived of as an early but relatively neutral form of social recognition.