Sunday, February 12, 2006

Foucault, The History of Sexuality: An Introduction

As you read this, a couple of suggestions and reminders.

1) While this book is ostensibly about the history of sexuality (or, more accurately, the history of the way was talk, write, and think about sexuality, and regulate it), we're interested in what we can learn about the way power works in society, according to Foucault.

2) Still, this is a difficult book, and while Foucault will eventually have a lot to say about power, he doesn't discuss his theory of power much directly in the early chapters. Don't worry too much about power, just try to follow the argument and the narrative Foucault presents. As you continue to read he'll get to his theory of power, but it'll be quite difficult to understand if you haven't followed the narrative about sexuality so far.

3) This book was first published in France in 1976. A bit of historical context: Foucault is writing in the wake of the so-called sexual revolution of the previous decade in Western Europe and the United States. In other words, many people--especially Foucault's likely audience--are heavily invested in the "repressive hypothesis" that Foucault is criticizing. The idea that the recent innovations in sexuality in Western societies were acheived by throwing off antiquated forms of repressive social power and replacing them with freedom were widely held. They were primarily challenged by those on the cultural right; defenders of traditional and quasi-Victorian sexual mores. Foucault is one of the only to challenge this way of thinking from an entirely different perspective that has nothing whatsoever to do with the traditional values critique.

4) Foucault's pessimism about the sexual liberation of his era is perhaps even more surprising given his personal life (Foucault was a gay man who died of AIDS-related complications in 1984). Given his sexual orientation, he was someone particularly situated to benefit from the social changes associated with the sexual revolution, which included a major step forward for the social acceptance of gays and lesbians.

1 Comments:

At 9:35 PM, Blogger Scott F said...

Foucalt finds a means to look at power through culture and cosequently a different aspect of power we rarely see through watching government in progress. Non-governmental groups using their influence to repress opposing sects while raising their own. Consequently this form of social repression can be observed as a political group against another by the means used. Making homosexuality a taboo without enforcing it with religion is a mark that certain unaffiliated parties are attempting to repress instead of a more obvious institution.

 

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