The Critiques of Foucault and Sexuality Studies
Abstract: Michel Foucault, the author of A History of Sexuality analyzes the context that created part of what we think of today as sex and sexuality. While not the sole contributor to this topic, he laid out many questions for us today that we are still pondering. His work continues to be contentious for some while being the cornerstone and groundwork for others in their work and study of sex and sexuality. This written piece examines Foucault’s contributions and analyze some of the post prominent critiques in order to further understand the field of sexuality studies.
Introduction
The modern-day study of sex and sexuality has come very far from where it originally began. Some people used to think that sperm was actually tiny fully-grown babies that was just waiting to be incubated in a womb. Most people don’t think that anymore but just the idea really goes to show how the process of how sex and sexuality used to be thought about. Michel Foucault was also a thinker (actually a philosopher) on the topic. While he didn’t focus necessarily on gender in his work like many modern-day scholars in sexuality studies, he did want to talk a lot about sex (and sexuality) and its use in society.
He wrote and thought about many other systems that we see still in the “western” world. They include famous titles like Discipline and Punish, The Archeology of Knowledge, and Madness and Civilization. His books touch on politics, medicine, the state (bourgeois), justice, as well as the one being focused on now, sexuality. Foucault was a philosopher by training but his work has been used by many other disciplines including sociology, anthropology, and other various forms of cultural studies.
In order to understand his work further, knowing that he contributed more to academia than just his work A History of Sexuality is important. Some people don’t consider him an expert in this realm of study but his work continues to be useful for many scholars. Like many other academics, Foucault had his admirers as well as those that heavily disagreed with what he proposed in his writing. This paper takes an in depth look at his work in hopes to find the main points of his contributions as well as briefly analyze the critiques. Even though some disagree with his points of view, this work continues to be important because his books (not just The History of Sexuality) are still being used today in various fields to create frameworks of understanding in both academia and activist work.
The Repressive Hypothesis
Regardless of whether Michel Foucault agreed with the Repressive Hypothesis or not, he wanted to talk about it in his work in order to help the readers understand the reasoning for such an abrupt change in how sex and sexuality was discussed by the general public. Foucault had three main questions that he defined as doubts: Was the 17th century truly the beginning of this sexual repression? Is it an “established fact”? Are prohibition/denial/censorships forms of power that are used in all societies and are all forms of power a category of repression? And his third he asks, “was there a historical rupture between the age of repression and the critical analysis of repression with his main question centering around repression being a road block or not when it comes to what the intended function of repression itself”? (Foucault pg. 10). To summarize the Repressive Hypothesis, Foucault uses many examples. It was a(n) (successful) attempt to silence talk centered around sex. Before the 17th century it was talked about freely and openly but afterwards it was silenced became a controlled discourse, mostly coming from the Church at first. He said “At the beginning, frankness was still common…” until “…it moved into the home. The conjugal family took custody of it and absorbed it into the serious function of reproduction” (Foucault pg.3) Sex (and speaking of it) became something that was only done and talked about by the ‘other” Victorians (i.e. “the prostitute, the pimp, and/or the client. (Foucault pg.4)
According to the hypothesis, the censorship became a form of power. This silence was created a new way of speaking about sex and sexuality. Power is used to repress and the repression is used to control the populations of people that used sex before for more than just act outside of marriage and procreation. It was no longer about pleasure and pursuing a part of life that was natural but to a new discourse created stewards of proper sex and sexuality guarded by matrimony and heteronormative expectations. The institution also became a group that pushed forward this discourse. While repression forbid speaking about sex in the way that was before it did speak about it (a LOT) by pushing its own agenda. Foucault said, “Far from silence, we witness “an institutional incitement to speak about [sex], and to do so more and more; a determination on the part of the agencies of power to hear it spoken about, and to cause it to speak through explicit articulation and endlessly accumulated detail” (Foucault pg.18) This was also one of Foucault’s larger questions and critiques of the hypothesis. He asked, “Are prohibition, censorship, and denial truly the forms through which power is exercised in a general way, if not in every society, most certainly in our own?” (Foucault pg.3)
This hypothesis created stipulations on who, when, and how people could talk about sex and sexuality. Foucault didn’t necessarily agree with this idea that sex was not talked about because it was in fact talked about a lot even though this hypothesis talked about repression and silence. He contributes a lot of the reasoning for control due to class issues of struggle and the rise of upper classes like the bourgeois. He uses the government as an example and how sex was used as a way to control the general population as well as the image of the country itself. Bodies were needed for labor and for the continual expansion of many European countries. Robust populations, high marriage rates, and good overall health showed that the country was doing well. He also used the repression implemented by the Catholic church as an example of how sex and sexuality was never really silenced but instead reframed and brought forward as a moral issue by focusing on the “family”, marriage, and sin. Categories were created at this point as well that condemned sex and sexuality.
Overall Foucault was not really onboard with this idea as a whole. Some aspects he agreed with but with much of it he did not. He doesn’t deny though that sex in Western society continues to be a subject that is not talked about freely however he did argue that this form of “repression” did not actually stop the talk of sex and sexuality. It in fact did the opposite to where it was talked about more but in a different fashion than it was before. Foucault referred to this as the discourse of sex and sexuality changing rather than silenced.
He further support his thoughts, he also explains the “denaturalization” of sex by breaking it into categories that he claims were created through this social construction of normal and abnormal sexuality. These involved roles of the woman, sexuality in children, psychology, and the use of sex in marriage in relation to the population (or biopower). (Taylor pg.86) All of the categories mentioned gave examples on how sex(uality) was used (and is still used today) to control the various groups of people by labeling what is abnormal and what is not.
Scientia Sexualis vs Ars Erotica
Foucault goes into how science decided to study sex and sexuality. Biology and psychology took a particular interest. At the time there wasn’t a lot of study on sexuality and how it pertains to humans even though there was a lot of work related to plants and animals. In science though, sex and sexuality were not about morality like it was within religions. It was trying to find the “facts” about sex and sexuality in comparison to what was socially seen as correct. Sex is the biological drive to procreate rather than the personal pleasure of the act.
Foucault divides this topic into two parts: ars erotica as seen in China, India, Japan, Rome and Arabo-Moslem he says, in the erotic arts, truth is drawn from pleasure itself, understood as a practice and accumulated as experience” (pg. 57) while scientia sexulis focused on sex being used as a form of reproduction and continuing the human species like the way animals use/perform sex. He articulated this difference to not only how various places in the world once thought of sex but also to prove his point on how the production of knowledge is a form of power and how knowledge is used to assert power over individuals.
Within his book, Foucault speaks a lot on the use of confession and how its normalization within religion and society helped perpetuate the method used when gathering knowledge. He says, “Since the Middle Ages, at least, Western Societies have established the confession as one of the main rituals we rely on for the production of truth.” (Foucault pg.58) Throughout the text, he brought it all together by claiming that the use of confession has been an integral part of our society to really how ingrained it is. Not only are confession used in religion (which is what many people associate it with) but also in policing (interrogations), and gathering information like interviewing in various fields like the social sciences or the medical field. Finding the “truth” became a drive in Western society. The truth became the all-encompassing knowledge that brings everything back to Foucault’s discourse on power.
Critiques
Some of the main critiques of Foucault come from the idea of how he breaks down power and how it is transferred to one person to another and/or how it is used on people. Mark Philip critiques Foucault a lot and does an analysis on him on his use of power in his array of work. He says, “…Foucault uses a relational conception of power… He rejects the former (Luke’s radical conflict model and Poulantzas’s structural conflict model) on the grounds that it retains an individualist account of agency, and the latter on the grounds of its assumption of a general and organized domination” (Philp pg. 32) Many authors also critiqued Foucault on similar aspects that involved agency within the individual.
This was actually a huge critique from both Feminist and Marxist scholars. Sex was never in relation to what women wanted or the woman’s point of view. Edith Kurzwell brought a few critiques to the table. In her article on Foucault’s work she speaks a lot about his profound lack of action even though he made so many claims in relation to sex and sexuality and its impacts. She mentions that he doesn’t talk about the patriarchy or the societal evolution from feudalism to late capitalism. (Kurzwell pg. 662)
Other critiques that are quite common involve Foucault’s lack of analysis of gender and how that comes into play when sex and sexuality is involved. Michael Wilson brings this up especially in association to modern studies of sexuality and gender. He points out that people still think that biological sex and gender are one of the same just like how they think that sex and sexuality are along the same lines. He also states that the “sex/gender distinction has been increasingly eroded.” (Wilson pg.195) And he says this as a critique towards Foucault’s lack of distinction and address towards gender and how it isn’t just a binary system.
Anne Grow looks at his work and while acknowledging his arguments on its use of power, she does mention that he ignores the crucial aspects of sex that involve “ethical or moral meaning” and agency by saying, “He thereby devalues it to as common a human function as eating or sleeping… Therefore, Foucault’s theory perpetuates an oppressive view of sexuality that favors the male sexual experience and elevates the freedom to express physical sexual desires as the ultimate dictator of sexual activities.” (Grow pg. 2) because he also ignores desires for love because of his hyper focus on power and how it is used and perpetuated rather than sex and sexuality and how it is experienced in a person’s everyday life.
Conclusion
Foucault thought that power was more connected to the knowledge we created rather than specifically being used as a way to oppress or repress societies as a whole (even though knowledge can be used to do this exact act). Sexuality and sex were what society, starting in the 17th century, decided to use as a way to control the population. Looking past the critiques made by those that disagreed with Foucault, his use of a new discourse and reasoning as to why sex and sexuality became the forefront of Western societies mind is understandable. It is by all means his own thoughts and subject to analysis like any other person’s work. His ultimate goal seemed to be finding the root of Western societies power within this specific time frame and through his analysis, the control over sex and sexuality discourse seemed to be one of the main examples of the use of power.
Works cited
Foucault, M. (1990). The History of Sexuality (Vol. 1). New York: Random House.
Grow, A. E. (2018). The meaning of sexuality: A critique of Foucault’s history of sexuality volume Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.
Philp, M. (1983). Foucault on Power: A Problem in Radical Translation? Political Theory, 11(1), 29-52.
KURZWEIL, E. (1986). Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality as Interpreted by Feminists and Marxists. Social Research, 53(4), 647-663.
Taylor, C. (2017). The Routledge guidebook to Foucault’s The History of Sexuality. London: Routledge.
Wilson, M. (2003). Thoughts on the History of Sexuality. The William and Mary Quarterly, 60(1), 193-196. doi:10.2307/3491503