Sex = power. Well, I knew that. ( )

My second Foucault. While he makes some interesting general ideas, most of what he writes is unsourced, unconvincing, and nonsensical. I approached this text with an appreciative eye and I still got very little out of it, at best an appreciation for the historical trend of sexual discourse Foucault identifies. Had I been more sceptical a reader I would have put the book down long before I finished it. ( )

Just when I thought it wasn't possible for Foucault to broaden the scope of his argument any more, he did just that. The beginning of the final chapter of this work contextualizes his entire argument theretofore. What was already a discussion that dealt in very broad terms-- covering huge expanses of time, encompassing the most elemental aspects of political society-- became but one part of a larger discourse on Power. I sense that this section of the book has the most continuity with Foucault's other works. It is probably the common feature of all his life's work.

Such a generalized discussion did result in some passages that would make Strunk and White shudder in disgust. One sentence stood out:

"It is to the political credit of psychoanalysis--or at least, of what was most coherent in it--that it regarded with suspicion (and this from its inception, that is, from the moment it broke away from the neuropsychiatry of degenerescence) the irrevocably proliferating aspects which might be contained in these power mechanisms aimed at controlling and administering the everyday life of sexuality: whence the Freudian endeavor (out of reaction no doubt to the great surge of racism that was contemporary with it) to ground sexuality in the law-- the law of alliance, tabooed consanguinity, and the Sovereign-Father, in short, to surround desire with all the trappings of the old order of power."

-Pp. 150

Oy.

As common as such near-incomprehensible ramblings were unmistakably original and unique insights. In these, Foucault elicited in me a level of understanding of the macroscopic, often invisible forces that have come to shape life that I have rarely touched. It was a gift.




( )

Think a more honest rating would be 3.5 stars. This is interesting to read this after I read Eroticism by Georges Bataille. Bataille's philosophy on eroticism is quite dependent on the repressive hypothesis, I would think, which is the very hypothesis that Foucault attempts to disprove in the book. The repressive hypothesis sees the history of sex as a history of repression, connected to bourgeois values and the rise of capitalism. To him this hypothesis is absurd, since from the 18th century there has been an explosion on the Discourse on sex, albeit within an accepted language or divulged through accepted authorities such as the church or the state. He states that there is in fact a "proliferation of sexualities through the extension of power."

He does repeat himself a lot, although for someone rather difficult to read that might be necessary. It gets better towards the second half when he starts to really tie it together and talk about how "sex" exists within a field of meanings, an economy of discourses. The history of sexuality "must first be written from the viewpoint of a history of discourses." In the West, as opposed to the East (broad strokes here), there is a science of sexuality, as opposed to an ars erotica -- so it's viewed through a scientific instead of a more artistic lens. This science of sexuality of the West thus has completely changed the way sex is talked about, arming "experts" with an array of terminology to use, and configuring the way bodies, behaviours, pleasures, are seen and understood. Putting it under intense consideration and study.

Once he makes the connection of the discourses of sex and its relation to power, or the power that deploys it, the book gets a lot clearer. He identifies 4 areas that power deploys the discourse of sex to -- children, women, the perverse, and married couples. He goes on to explain how the controlling and obsession over sex by the state due to reasons of population control or racist, eugenicist aims also figures into this. It's a regulative method, and we would do well to be able to understand sex in this way, as being caught in a Discourse, as opposed to merely seeing it as simply repressed through law. That would get us closer to understanding and dismantling the power that has put the entire machinery of discourse into being.

I will go on to read the 2nd volume hope it's more interesting. ( )

I have little to say in the way of critique of Foucault's first volume other than it is a lucid analysis of the history of sexuality and power dynamics in society. The role of the family was particularly interesting in maintaining the status quo and challenged a lot of my assumptions.