HREQ 1900 Lecture Notes - Sexual Intercourse, Heredity, Queer Theory

• School: York University
• Department: Human Rights and Equity Studies
• Course: HREQ 1900
• Professor: Nadiah Habib

Document Summary

Lecture # 7: unpacking notions of sexuality i. Michel foucault"s book the history of sexuality broke new ground. Foucault argues that sexuality has not always been repressed. He tells us, that it is only with the advent of the. Enlightenment and the rise of capitalism, that sexuality has become organized in a particular way. In the history of sexuality, foucault attempts to disprove that western society has seen a repression of sexuality since the 17th century. Western culture has long been fixated on sexuality. Rather, the social convention, not to mention sexuality, has created a discourse around it, thereby making sexuality ever-present. This would not have been the case, had it been thought of as something quite natural. The concept sexuality itself is a result of this discourse. And the interdictions also have productive power: they have created sexual identities and a multiplicity of sexualities that would not have existed otherwise or not been named and analyzed as such.