PHIL 2125 Chapter History of Sexuality: Foucault - Deployment of Sexuality
Document Summary
Sex is hidden because it doesn"t fit the definition of bourgeois decency. Desire is not naturally repressed, but an illusion enforces such repression. We must move toward an analysis of power dynamics when discussing sex, not a theory. The negative relation: rejection, refusal, exclusion, blockage, concealment, and masking. The insistence of the rule: all sex exists within a binary system of power (i. e. illicit/licit, permitted/forbidden, etc. The logic of censorship: sex must not be mentioned, an injunction of nonexistence and silence. The uniformity of the apparatus: all power acts in a uniform manner, top to bottom function. All modes of domination are reduced to an effect of obedience. The success of power relies on its ability to mask itself. Exercise of power has always manifested itself in law (since the middle ages) A hysterization of women"s bodies: the most visible form of the female body is the mother"s image of the nervous woman .