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The history of sexuality Volume I: An Introduction by Michel Foucault Part Four: The Deployment of Sexuality Prof. Wen-chuan Chu Student: Jason Wei-lun Lou (69212107) June 14, 2007. Chapter 1. Objective.
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The history of sexuality Volume I: An Introductionby Michel FoucaultPart Four:The Deployment of SexualityProf. Wen-chuan ChuStudent: Jason Wei-lun Lou (69212107)June 14, 2007
Chapter 1. Objective I. In this part, Foucault’s aim is to determine why we have placed so much emphasis on our sexuality, why we think of it as holding the key to the truth and to our personal liberation. II. Foucault asserts that desire only exists when there is a repressive power keeping one from what one wants. And he wants to criticize this juridico-discursive conception of power that underlines both the repressive hypothesis and the psychoanalytical position that law constitutes desire.
Chapter 1. Objective III. Foucault identifies five characteristics of the conception of power. (1) It establishes a negative relation between sex and power: sex is always something that power constrains. (2) Power acts as a law that determines how sex should be treated and understood. (3) Power acts only to prohibit and suppress sex. (4) Power says sex is not permitted, that is not to be spoken of, and ultimately, that it doesn’t exist. (5) Power is seen as working in the same manner at all levels: everywhere, there is a uniform repression.
Chapter 2. Method I. Foucault’s chapter on “Method” defines his theory of power. II. He sees power as all-embracing: everything and everybody is a source of power. Power exists in every relation. III. Following, Foucault sets up four rules in his investigation of power: (1) Rule of Immanence: we must see knowledge and power as always connected. We must be aware that what we know about sex and the way that we come to learn about sex are both determined by the power relations that motivate our will to know about sex.
Chapter 2. Method (2) Rules of Continual Variation: power does not manifest in static relations. The nature of a power relationship may shift over time. (3) Rule of Double Conditioning: all “local centers” of power are parts of larger strategies, and all larger strategies rely on local centers of power, but one does not emulate the other. (4) Rule for the Tactical Polyvalence of Discourse: Discourse is what joins knowledge to power, and like power itself, discourse works in all sorts of different ways.
Chapter 3. Domain I. Sexuality is a social construct that channels a variety of different power relations. II. Foucault identifies four centers that have related power and knowledge to sex. (1) The “hysterization of women’s bodies” has led us to think of the female body first as highly sexual and second as an object of medical knowledge. The female body, as a center for reproduction, has also come to be considered a matter of public interest and public control.
Chapter 3. Domain (2) The “pedagogization of children’s sex” sees children as highly sexual creatures, and sees this sexuality as something dangerous that needs to be monitored and controlled. (3) The “socialization of procreative behavior” sees reproduction and therefore sex as a matter of public importance. (4) The “psychiatrization of perverse pleasure” is the result of studying sex as a medical and psychiatric phenomenon.
Chapter 4. Periodization I. In the nineteenth century, the repressive hypothesis claims that sex has been repressed in order to maximize economic production. The bourgeois are more vigilant regarding their own sexuality than that of the working classes, and were particularly interested in women and children.
Chapter 4. Periodization II. Sexual repression was not exercised on the working class for economic motive; it was a self-affirmation of the ruling, bourgeois class. The bourgeois became interested in controlling sex as a means of preserving their own health and lineage. III. The sexual repression of the nineteenth century was intended to increase the strength and dominance of bourgeoisie.
Chapter 4. Periodization Thus, Foucault asserts, sexuality varies between classes: for the bourgeois, it is a means of self-affirmation, for the proletariat, it is a means of control. IV. Sexual repression came about largely because the bourgeois needed to distinguish their sexuality from that of the proletariat, and did so by placing controls on themselves. The repressive hypothesis is not liberating us from our sexual history: it is a part of that history.
Source: Egan, David. SparkNote on The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, Volume 1. 20 Jun. 2007 . <http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/histofsex>.
