RHETOR 103B Chapter Notes - Chapter 7: Sexual Repression, Michel Foucault
Document Summary
Necessary to first subjugate sexuality on the level of language - censorship. Also control over enunciation: where and when to talk about it. Restrictive economy: spontaneous and concerted at the same time. Steady proliferation of discourses about sex > more important was multiplication of discourses concerning sex in the field of exercise of power itself. Even with language refined, scope of confession increased. Injunction as scheme for transforming sex into discourse, devised a long time ago in an ascetic and monastic setting. Western man drawn for three centuries to the task of telling everything concerning his sex, constant optimization and valorization of discourse on sex meant to yield multiple effects of displacement, intensification, reorientation and modification of desire itself. Boundaries of sex enlarged and discourse connected sex by a complex organization with varying effects. In 18th c: sex became a police matter.
