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Assignment 8 : part 4 Foucault

In part four chapter four of Foucault work, Foucault mentions the idea of “a technology of sex”. In order to go into depth of the concept you have to know what he is talking about when he mentions “a technology of sex”. Foucault states that during the end of the eighteenth century a new technology of sex emerged. He states the word new due to the fact that it escaped ministerial institution without being completely removed from the topic of sin. Foucault also uses the word new due to the fact that sex expanded to three stand points which were of  pedagogy, of medicine and of demography. Within these three applications Foucault brings them to tie with the specific sexuality of children, the sexual physiology strange to women, and the spontaneous regulations of births. All three applications were coming from the methods that had already been formed by Christianity, now the technology of sex was ordered in relation to the medical institution, the exigency of normality, and the problem of life and illness. With this all being said, it is clear to state that Foucault  is trying to explain that the notion of sex is starting to move away from the church. Foucault talks about the the medicine of perversions and the programs of eugenics. Both were considered to be the two great innovations in the technology of sex of the second half of the nineteenth century. This led to the assumption that heredity that was charged with many diseases ended up making a sexual pervert. This technology of sex also went on to explain how a sexual perversion resulted in being in your genetics meaning it will be pasted on to the next generation as well. Foucault also states that this technology of sex was nothing more than a
medical theory and didn’t have much scientific proof to support its theory. To conclude with this application the medicine stand point of a technology of sex just shows how sex is still being controlled, but this time it is not only by the church.