More circles, More anxiety: An Exploration of Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality

After delving further into Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality, I was forced to continue questioning the widespread and generally accepted assertion that western society is sexually repressed, an idea I had previously considered nothing less than indisputable fact.  Throughout Part One of the work, Foucault investigates this theory of sexuality, questioning both the origin of the guilt we seem to harbor in regard to our perceived sexual repression and the legitimacy of the repressive hypothesis itself, eventually concluding as Part Two of the book draws to a close that “Modern society is perverse, not in spite of its Puritanism or as if from backlash provoked by its hypocrisy; it is, in actual fact, and directly, perverse”(47).  In effect, Foucault positions the constant meditation upon and ardent belief in the repressive hypothesis as merely an excuse for society’s sexual perversion.  He asserts society’s obsession with the repressive hypothesis has actually glorified  the discourse surrounding sex as subversive action against an exaggerated, if not nonexistent power system,  allowing discourse about sex to multiply as we “other Victorians” seek “to utter truths and promise bliss, to link together enlightenment, liberation, and manifold pleasures”(7).  In short, though we would like to think we talk about sex as an act of rebellion, in realty we do so because we have an insatiable curiosity for all things involving sex.

  Foucault discusses the pleasure which arises from the subversion of authority, using the mental patient as one example of the pleasure potentials involved in authoritative systems.  He asserts the confessional discourse of modern psychiatry generates a complex dynamic between power and pleasure by allowing the psychiatrist to derive pleasure from both exploring the sexuality of the patient and exerting authority upon the aforementioned sexual behavior, while simultaneously allowing the patient, who practices some form of alternative sexuality, to derive both pleasure and power from the subversion of authority through resistance to the psychiatrist’s questioning .  As “ these attractions, these evasions, these circular incitements have traced around bodies and sexes, not boundaries not to be crossed, but perpetual spirals of power and pleasure,” the repressed and repressor dynamic  generates perpetual pleasure, seemingly positioning itself as the optimal relationship for human enjoyment(45). Though shared power and pleasure intertwine the individuals on the opposite ends of this spectrum and Foucault asserts the an individual’s role within “this game” is fluid, society seems to put a lot of stock into strict differentiation between the individuals occupying the roles of those who strive to regulate alternative sexual practices (an example of repressors within Foucault’s proposed power system) and those who practice alternative sexual practices (an example of the repressed within this system).

Judith Butler explores such urges for differentiation within Gender Trouble, and more specifically the section “Bodily Inscriptions, Per formative Subversions.”  Butler, in exploring the ideas of Kristeva, presents the theory that “ the repudiation of the bodies for their sex, sexuality, and/or color is an ‘expulsion’ followed by a ‘repulsion’ that founds and consolidates culturally hegemonic identities along sex/race/sexuality axes of discrimination” and that through this “excreting” of self “others become shit” (182). Returning to the example of the therapist and the “sexually disturbed patient,” is the patient “the shit” by the therapist’s standards because he or she is a rejected part of the therapist’s self?  This seems plausible, as rampant curiosity about alternative sexual practices likely plays some role in the therapist’s pleasure generated in response to “the physical proximity and interplay of intense sensations” which characterizes the patient and doctor encounter in the wake of the “medicalization of the sexually peculiar” (44).   Could this curiosity stem from the desire to understand oneself and be nothing more than an act of self exploration?   Is the complex system of power regulating sexuality somehow rooted in a search for self that the expulsion of certain sexual urges and identities has caused?  Does the desire to ignore knowledge of this denial of self somehow contribute to the positioning of repression as the sole lens through which sexuality is examined within society, creating another circle of sorts?

Quite frankly, I now feel some strange sort of guilt for not questioning the somehow undeniable reality of sexual repression before, or even ever really thinking deeply about something I’ve always regarded as truth. Foucault has made me feel guilty for not thinking, for letting the conventional wisdom of others stand in as my own beliefs and not questioning that the prevailing ideology could be misguided or incomplete.  I now find myself anxious that many of my assumptions are wrong, or are merely explanations masquerading some psychological phenomenon or fundamental truth.   In turn, my level of anxiety generated by this fear also bothers me; do I really have this little faith in the mental capacity of myself and fellow members of my own species?  The whole thing is very circular, just like the systems of power Foucoult asserts have defined sexuality and its discourse. The structure of his theories have somehow begun to play on my emotions, but instead of admitting to being the most impressionable human being alive, I’ll chalk it up to the strength of his argument. Kudos Foucault. 

- Tracy

Works Cited

Butler, Judith Butler. Gender Trouble, Feminism And The Subversion Of Identity.

     Routledge Classics, 2006. Print.

Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality: Volume 1 An Introduction. Random House, Inc

      1990. Print.