Michel Foucault was a 20th-century philosopher and historian from France who is most widely known for his forensic critique of the modern bourgeois capitalist state. With a major focus on understanding how power worked in society, Foucault questioned many modern-day assumptions about how much better the world is today as compared with the past – often arguing the contrary.
Foucault’s early life was one of privilege and simultaneous distress, the latter of which culminated in him attempting suicide. This prompted a psychiatric visit which revealed Foucault’s distress to be a by-product of keeping his homosexuality and sadomasochism hidden from a chastising society.
What is “The History of Sexuality”?
“The History of Sexuality” is a series of books written by Michel Foucault, divided into three volumes. The first volume is ‘An Introduction’ while the second and third are titled ‘The Use of Pleasure’ and ‘The Care of Self’. In order to fully understand his theory, Foucault’s work needs to be placed within an appropriate context – which, in this case, was the sexual revolution (or sexual liberation movement) in the United States during the 1960s and 70s.
Graphic Credits: Sabia, Graphics Intern at Mandonna
It was a popular belief up until that time that sexuality was something that was taboo and forbidden to talk about. That it was a private matter between the husband and the wife. Sex outside of this boundary had not only been prohibited but it had also been repressed. This is the repressive hypothesis – which states that the relationship between power and sex has been expressed for the past 300 years as repression. (For example, the Church in the 17th century made it an obligation for everyone to regularly confess their sins. All details of their thoughts, fantasies, and acts had to be told).
Throughout his work, Foucault challenges the repressive hypothesis. He does not contradict it and does not deny the fact that sex has been a taboo subject in Western culture. Instead, he sets out to find out why sexuality is made an object of discussion. Foucault’s interest does not lie in sexuality itself, but rather in our drive for a certain kind of knowledge and the power that we find in that knowledge.
The Bourgeois and Sexual Repression – Vol. 1
One of the major ways in which Foucault questions the repressive hypothesis is by asking whether we can trace sexual repression and the ideas related to it to the rise of the bourgeoisie in the 17th century. He writes that since the bourgeois, unlike the aristocracy, became wealthy through hard work, they valued a strict work ethic and frowned upon “shallow” activities such as sex. Sex for pleasure, thus came to be considered inappropriate and a waste of energy. And since the bourgeois were the ones with power in society, they were able to spread these ideas and came to dictate people’s, i.e. the proletariat’s knowledge and opinions about sex.
We can infer from this that the desire of the bourgeoisie to control and confine sex was essentially a desire to control power.
Sexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome – Vol. 2 & 3
In his second and third volumes, Foucault draws a dichotomy between the sexual repression from the 17th century and the role of sex in ancient Greece and Rome. The latter did not consider it to be a moral issue but rather viewed it as erotic and normal. According to Foucault, the moral conceptions of sex in Greek and Greco-Roman antiquity were more concerned with self-discipline (ascesis) and the practices of the self, rather than towards strong codifications of what was right and what was forbidden (as seen from the 17th century onwards).
For this reason, according to Foucault, our very idea of sexuality does not exist in ancient Greece, at least not as a monolithic entity applicable to all. He instead draws attention to the Greek term ‘aphrodisia’, or the multiple forms and aesthetic uses of pleasure. The Greeks were unbothered by the ‘hermeneutics of desire’, which is our tendency to discuss, interpret and codify sexual behaviour. Instead, they placed emphasis on moderation and self-control within a broad context of unrestrained sexual behaviour.
Contemporary Impact
Foucault’s work indicates that the way we think about sexuality today is largely an invention of the 19th century – that modern sexuality and present-day knowledge of sex have emerged from certain practices of power, such as that of the bourgeoisie. The way we conceive of sex and sexuality today varies from place to place and societal orientation. While many sections today are still bound by the repressive hypothesis, an ever-growing part of the community has embraced the culture of ‘ars erotica’ that was prevalent in the cultures of Rome, China and Japan, and was widely embraced by Foucault himself.
Foucault’s work on sexuality has been essential to the realm of academia as it has opened up new ways of thinking about power, identity, and the relationship between sex, society, and societal culture. While it does contain a certain degree of abstractness, it has had a profound impact on the fields of sociology, gender studies, and history.
Authorship Credits
Mihika is a second-year Political Science Honours student at Miranda House, DU.
