å Sunday, October 22nd, 2017

Good morning class, today we are going over passage 2 of Foucalt’s History of Sexuality. This section focuses on the repressive nature of sexual discourse from the 1700’s that Foucalt would argue, we still feel to this day. The idea of prudishness, as the paper discusses focuses on how sexuality was demonized by actively making talking about it a terrible thing. However, perhaps because of innate human nature to question things, this approach to sex had to be quickly redefined. That is, the “how” and “what” of sex had to be re-articulated using proper terminology that would be deemed acceptable, because it is difficult to censor large portions of society. This steady seceding of permissible conversation would lead to something more important later on, which was the open discussion of sexual acts. This largely had to do with the Catholic Church’s encouragement of people actively confessing more and confessing on a more personal level. This made sexual discussion permissible beyond the mind, which might not seem all that significant until you consider that for quite some time, sexual discussion was not had at all whatsoever. This steady transition from thought into spoken word is crucial as it provides a transition period where people feel more comfortable discussing these thoughts and ideas with someone that isn’t themselves.

However, there is an obvious downside. As this immediate need to confess consistently and constantly, meant that people would be discussing sexual acts on a nearly weekly basis. Even when discussing it, though, there was still a degree of censorship involved in “how” you were meant to confess things. You couldn’t just say that you had sex, there were ways which was perhaps a futile effort to keep the traditional values of prudishness around for a while longer. Our modern society is reflective of the failures of this approach. Yet the idea, was to approach the discussion of sex in an almost mechanical way to avoid the appeal of it. This was crucial as one of the powers of the church was in the control of relationships through marriage and if this “branding” of marriage were somehow tainted through promiscuity then it would collapse a large sector of the church’s values and approach. Which is why, in this particular situation, the Catholic Church faced a particular and most curious issue. They wanted to increase motivation for people attending church, which meant that people had to confess more, and in doing so the only thing left to confess that people did wrong was sex. Which is what led to this specific language for sex being developed, to describe it in such a way that made people feel as though they had done something wrong and needed to cleanse themselves of it. Did it do much in deterring premarital sex? That’s up for debate and another conversation. For now, however, it’s important to note the secession of authority when it comes to sex from the church to the people and its relationship that has slowly shifted in power.

In part one, Foucault says that at the beginning of the 17th century people were more liberal in the way they discussed and felt about sexuality. It wasn’t something that was as stigmatized and kept a secret as it later became because of the Victorian bourgeoisie. Sex was now seen as having a purpose which was to reproduce only. It became linked to the home and conjugal families. The beginning of capitalism happened around the same time the public opinion of sex shifted. A focus on sexuality went against the belief of focusing on work, and production. Labor capacity was said to have been exploited under capitalism. Everything became about production and not really pursuing pleasure. This connection could be tied into sexuality being repressed and people feeling like sex is only for married couples to make children. The repression of sexuality made talking about sex something that was somewhat revolutionary. It was going against what people were raised to do believe was the right thing to do. Foucault believes that the reason people speak of sex in a formal way today traces back to how it was repressed then and how it is still repressed now.People are very aware that by speaking on this topic is breaking an unwritten rule. It goes against what is socially acceptable and children are raised to see it as taboo. Sex also began to be linked to sin. Linking it to sin changed it from being a social issue to a moral issue. Foucault says that the process to free ourselves from the repression of sexuality will take a long time, and we will have to condemn it many times in order to see a change in how it is viewed and talked about. The prohibition of sexuality is a very complicated subject that involves censoring but isn’t limited to and shouldn’t be reduced to the surface level negativity.

Questions

1)Foucault mentions that we speak of sex in a solemn way nowadays. Do you agree or would you say that we are reverting back to the times of the early 17th century where people were more frank about sexuality?

2)Capitalism and the repression of sexuality happened around the same time. If we moved away from being a capitalist nation do you think it will impact how people view and talk about sex?

Michael Foucault discusses the concept of sex and sexuality throughout the ages. It is interesting how sex was used to control people and make them suspicious or frightened. Especially at the times when church and religion had a huge effect on people’s lives. Since sex was considered a sin, people were worried by the idea that they have sinned. Foucault also pointed out how society and the way of life made the topic of sex controversial. People don’t usually discuss sex and sexuality in depth, so most of the time this topic stays clandestine. Everybody knows about it but nobody speaks. Different regimes also change people’s opinions on certain aspects of sexuality. If we go back and compare how people discussed sex in early seventeenth century or any other century and how they discuss it now, we can clearly see that the societies’ understanding of this topic have changed. Nowadays people discuss sex and sexuality very openly because it is something that every individual should know. Especially, when it comes to sexual education. Although, the topic of sex was not so openly discussed in the past and it even became taboo in some parts of the world.

Most of the time sex and sexuality topics were suppressed. Sex was repressed and with it people’s right to have pleasure was also taken away. It was probably used as a power of control over people. Since they took away the pleasure then people would do anything to get it back. In addition to that more censorships and taboos appeared that could prohibit anything so people would end up only with something that their higher authority would want them to have. I believe that all this comes down to control of people. I might be wrong but many clues show that prohibition of sex and framing it as something unnatural, authorities gained their power.

Q1. Were there people at that time who thought that sex and sexuality was not a sin and It was normal to talk about it?

Q2. What was the moment when the modern understanding of sexuality emerged?

In part one of “History of Sexuality” by Michel Foucault, she basically states how and why sex had become repressed. At the beginning of seventeenth century, sexual frankness was was still common. The laws for the course or obscene was quite loose to the ones in nineteenth century. Once the Victorian Bourgeois showed up, the flexibility was completely removed. The subject of sex became the rule to be silent and when people make it too visible, they would have to pay the penalties. Children were allowed to talk about sex because they were thought not to have gender, but they surely were not allowed to have sex. People at that time were only allowed to expose sexuality at brothel or mental hospitals, and in other places, talking about sex was considered as taboo. She also mentions some people say that the free sexual expression was removed by capitalism because it would make the economic and reproduction system inefficient. This is because people sat that time thought that if sex was not rigorously repressed people would lost their motivation to do general work. The demand of sexual freedom became bigger and bigger. Even though it was strictly repressed to talk about the sex in the society, people were allowed to confess their sexuality to the church. Therefore, more and more people started confession at the church. That means people wee still seeking pleasure of sex in the era when exposing sexuality was strictly prohibited. She says that the repression might have not been obvious. This is also can be said to our current society too. How the sexuality should be can be blurred. Question 1: Why how sexuality was considered taboo, and why people were repressed t to talk about their sexuality? Question 2: Why people now have so much passion and resentment to the fact that we had once made sex a sin?

Sex has always been a topic few people feel comfortable discussing. Female teachers often teach sex education conservatively in schools. Parents are afraid to educate their children about sex; they believe that with this knowledge, they would want to experiment.
Foucault’s history of sexuality part 1 takes us through the 1800 century theory of sex or the “repressive hypothesis”. During this era, sex became more of a means of reproduction rather than pleasure. The bourgeois design this system where people worked so hard that they often relied on the reproduction of children to help with labor as a means of income to the growing families. The new system takes away women’s freedom to engage in other relationships.
Sex was strictly between a husband and a wife. This gave the men dominance over the women who faced abuse and rape and couldn’t share it openly. Religion forbade adultery and getting a divorce was considered sinful in the eyes of the society. These women were considered to be wicked and therefore should never be married again.
Foucault spoke about women who openly rejected the norms of marriage and fornication. Prostitutes were deviant in regards to following norms. They believed that sex should be in the open and should be pleasurable. Sex should not just be limited to having children so that they can inherit the father’s names and continue their legacy, but more than that. Prostitutes were fighting against political power. They wanted to put an end to the norms of how a woman should behave. Society set up rules that are beneficial to men and not women. Men didn’t want their woman to have outside affairs yet they would have affairs with prostitutes. Prostitution was bad yet it wasn’t banished throughout society. Prostitutes revolted against bourgeois by not working a “9 to 5 job” but being self-employed.
Capitalization wanted to control sex because it threatened couples work ethic. For instance, if everyone were to engage in sex during their jobs, work wouldn’t be done and too many women would be home due to pregnancy. With couples working all day, it is hard for them to return home to have sex. Instead prostitutes saw what society or capitalization brought and deviated from that. They wanted to build their own sub culture. Foucault shows us how sex has changed from the Egyptian period (prostitution) to a society that follows the strict sex moral conduct. With less play and more work the rich will always be power

Q: why was sex enjoyed during Egyptian period but in present day it’s seen as taboo?

In Foucault’s History of Sex he talks about how sex was related to pleasure and how it was suppressed throughout history. Foucault makes us look at this from different angles and aspects. He starts off with discussing the Victorian era where sex was considered a taboo, if one wanted to talk said subject it was best to do so away from the public ear. The young were forbidden to come anywhere near anything that was considered sexual both physically and mentally. Sex was contained and in a sense the people’s right to pleasure was also taken away. The only placed where one could truly let out his/her sexual desires or talk about sex was in the slums. The idea of sex wasn’t considered to be the norm despite the fact of it being completely normal (in a biological sense), such ideas weren’t  present in the slums making it the only place where an individual could let out his/her sexual desires.

Foucault then shifts to talking about experiencing pleasure through controlling others and/or exerting your power over another. He talks about the relationship in which both the oppressed and oppressor seek to gain pleasure through their actions. The church promoted the idea of confessing your sins to god, the act of confessing the sexual encounters that had occurred. At the beginning, one would simply state the actions her or she did without going into detail, however as time passed people started to confess providing much details in what had happened. In a sense people were giving a recollection of the event even adding in the thoughts what were form during the time. It was interesting how it was against the law to talk about sex but confessing all your sexual  thoughts and actions was alright. This lead to more and more people committing sexual acts and later confess them to god.

I feel like all the information provide was just for the reader to process it and for us to make our own ideas/prospective on the topic.

Q: Do you think the oppression or containment of sex in history was used was a way to control the people?

Q: When you think about sex throughout history, are we stilling following the ideas of the pass or have we really moved on and forward.

In Bell Hook’s essay, “Eating the Other” there is a relationship established between “the other” and everything that isn’t part of that group. Affectionately named, “The Other” this classification of people entails anyone that isn’t white, so to be a part of this group you have to be just dark enough that a person of this group questions your “purity.” What’s important to note, is that throughout my personal experience as well as in class, we have examined that you can also belong to this group as well as “The Other” all at the same time. As there is no realistic barrier of entry for being a part of the white majority, you just need to look enough like them and act enough like them to reap the benefits that being white entails. However, we’re examining the relationships that is shared between whites and non-whites as interpreted by Bell Hooks. The first thing is that there’s obviously some degree of ethnocentrism among  any group of races, regardless of their color. Whites aren’t the first to think of themselves as the all powerful majority and they certainly won’t be the last, either. That doesn’t mean this doesn’t serve as a starting point for interpretation into “how” the white majority views their counterparts. Which is perhaps best described as a tasteful yet cautious curiosity. This intense separation of “Us VS. Them” offers a unique form of appeal between the white majority and anything that isn’t white that’s very unique to any minority group that finds themselves in a position of needing to interact with white people on a daily basis. This perhaps can serve and is suggested by Hooks as the breaking point at which the racial division can crumble, as white people are still people, and their inherent desire to satisfy their curiosity is perhaps far greater than any desire they have of hating a group that hasn’t personally wronged them, I think.

In his book, History of Sexuality, Foucault emphasized concepts of power and pleasure in relation to sexuality. Similar to Federici, Foucault talks about capitalism and how it deprived people of simple pleasures unless it was purposed for the benefit of the population. The law repressed sex that did not procreate, and as Foucault points out, it motivated revolts in people who wanted to experience freedom through overturning the repressive law on sexuality. There is interplay of power and pleasure, where people experience pleasure through sexual activities, and those in power are seeking to take away such pleasure from the people. Another aspect of power and pleasure is introduced when Foucault argues that pleasure is also experienced by those who exert power over others. There is an interesting relationship of how those being oppressed and those exerting oppression are both in a way striving to gain pleasure through their actions. In part two of the book, Foucault talks about the Catholic Church and the Christian pastoral, and one can see that people are seeking pleasure through sexual activities. People confessed to their sin of submitting to desire by seeking pleasure from sex. Despite the law that set boundaries in regards to sexuality, the high number of confessions indicated that people were still seeking pleasure from sex, even if it meant going against the law. This led to increased discourse amongst the people, and moreover, this was desired by Church leaders, who wanted to reconvert people back into faith by having them come to face with their sinful desires and eventually learn to master it.

The repression on sexuality is not as straightforward as one may think. Foucault explores many aspects throughout history, and even relates it to modern society, on the topic of sexuality and its continuous progression in regards to how it is represented and practiced.

People were oppressed because they weren’t “normal” and went against “nature.” Will there ever be a time when we can overcome this boundary of what is considered natural in this world and allow all kinds of people to be connected as one?

The Playboy magazine gives men pleasure by objectifying women. Is that a dominant desire shared by most men almost as a hidden natural instinct, or is it acquired taste?

I read Part 1 of The History of Sexuality by Michel Foucault. Part one described the Victorian regime and how we continue to be dominated by it today. The seventeenth century was a time of direct gestures, shameless discourses and open transgression. This was a period of when bodies “made a display of themselves.” Sexuality had been careful confined during the Victorian bourgeoisie. When talking about the subject of sex, you had to be silent about it. The conjugal couple had imposed themselves as models and enforced the norm, truth, and reserved the right to speak while retaining the principle of secrecy. During this time. children were not allowed to have sex, talk about sex or even hear sexual comments or acts. These were some of the characteristics that were features attributes to repression. The topic of sex was not allowed to be spoken of during this tine. If it was necessary for sexual acts, the brothels and the mental hospitals would be places they can be freely with their sexuality. Only in these places would sex have the right. In other places it would be considered taboo, nonexistence and silent. If sex is so rigorously repressed, it is because it is incompatible with a general and intensive work imperative. The demand for sexual freedom had become very popular and the right to speak about it by gaining knowledge from it. A question I have after reading The History of Sexuality by Michel Foucault, was why having sex and speaking about anything sex related was such a sin and banned against? Another question I have after reading this article was, why did sexual repression come about in there first place? How did it establish?