Foucault's History Of Sexuality: Part II

Hi there, here's the second part of my reading of History of Sexuality. I think it is a ground-breaking work which should reach to everyone who wants to enhance their visions about sexuality. So in this project I'm trying to summarise it in order to render it available to everyone.

“The Perverse Implantation"

The previous part has shown us the dual nature of the changes in human sexuality—specifically in the Western tradition—that have been occurring since the Victorian era. Chapter 2, titled “The Perverse Implantation,” begins with mentioning the basic concern that may be responsible for that dual nature by which the virtual repression of sexuality is paradoxically linked to the multiplication of sexual discourses. According to Foucault, the diversification of sexuality through its subjugation in multiple discourses might serve the objective of optimising the reproduction of population and of labor capacity (p. 37). Here, Foucault draws attention to the sociopolitical structure underlying the changes in the conception of and practises related to sexuality, which is a typical Foucauldian gesture, in that, the modern conception of sexuality, which normalises itself and puts itself as something universal and unchangeable, is rather hypothesised to be a product of power relations, which destabilises its privileged position. Foucault is content with making this point without further elaboration, and passes on to expanding on the multiplication of discourses that began to take place in the 18th century. He explicates the three major codes of conduct governing the entire range of sexuality, namely, the canonical law, Christian pastoral and civil law. Those codes treat human sexuality in a uniform and homogeneous manner. Before the multiplication of which Foucault speaks, there was no special attention to the children’s sexuality, nor was there any classification of this kind. Different types of transgressions of the codes, as well, such as adultery, incest, rape and sodomy, were condemned in a uniform way under the broad scope of “a general unlawfulness” (p. 38), and it was only after the modification of this general system that different sexualities emerged. Then, sexuality of children, of mad men and women, of criminals etc. began to take place in the medicinal, psychiatric and pedagogical discourses. This, Foucault says, amounts to the division of the Sixth Commandment, “thou shall not commit adultery.” Just as there are different discourses in which sexuality is concerned, there are different ways of non-obedience to the norms of sexuality, since that non-obedience, adultery in the Sixth Commandment, acquires different meanings in different discourses, practises, and places, such as in prisons, asylums and schools. A true dissemination in the field of sexuality.

On the page 40, Foucault asks the key question: “Is the fact that they could appear in broad daylight a sign that the code had become more lax?” To explain, there are more ways in which human sexuality may be expressed. Does this possibility of different transfigurations amount to any kind of liberation regarding sexuality? It turns out that the dissemination is just the dissemination of the control mechanisms, and the multiplication of the discourses in which sexuality takes place is the result of the changes in how power operates. One may recall here the ideas developed in the Foucault’s earlier work Discipline and Punish, according to which the monarchical power gave its place to the disciplinary power. The era in which power changed its form strikingly coincides with the era in which sexuality was multiplied in different discourses. One remark should be made here. Those mutations and shifts taking place in various fields are certainly not single historical events that occurred at a certain time to leave everything behind by opening a new era. They are rather processes whose emergence Foucault tries to point out. So, the change in the field of sexuality should rather be conceived as an ongoing process, since Foucault also uses the phrase “in the last three centuries” many times (p. 17, 34, 72), including the century he lived in. That being said, as power shifted from monarchical to disciplinary form, the aim of power shifted from simple annihilation of the criminal which was taken to be an enemy of the monarch, to a re-ordering of the entire lives through categorisations, classifications, analyses and many ways of normalising individual subjects. This is exactly in line with what Foucault says on the page 40 when he were talking about what happens to those who infract the moral codes: “they were always hounded, but not always by laws; were often locked up, but not always in prisons.” So, this new form of power does not simply condemn the perverse sexuality in a homogeneous way, but instead aims at producing different forms of sexuality and treat them in different ways based on the categorisations and systematisations within discourses. Just as the quote says, the locking up, imprisonment, takes place in schools, hospitals, homes, and in every aspect of daily life one can see the process of “education” or normalisation is going on. Thus, the dissemination does in no way means liberation, but an increase in the complexity of the structures in which sexuality is expressed, and is controlled.

Foucault stresses the four operations of the new form of power, all of which I believe may be deduced from the structure that was just explicated. First, the aim and tactics of the new form of power are not the same as that of the ancient prohibitions of adultery. It is not punitive but rather corrective. It makes use of surveillance and corrective discourses that permeate into each detail of daily life. Second, especially through medicinal discourses, the behaviours are categorised and systematised so as to be controlled. But subject shouldn’t be thought of as something that exists separately from those control mechanisms. Those mechanisms create individuals; those discourses produce subjects. So, there is no individual prior to coming into relation to those mechanisms. Since those mechanisms are precisely what construct individual. Third, to borrow Foucault’s words, “There was undoubtedly an increase in effectiveness and an extension of the domain controlled” (p. 44). Medicine’s role must be emphasised here once more. By classifying subjects, medicine works in a way that even the perverse desires of individuals fall under the category of intelligible and hence controllable fields. Even the resistance to power becomes just one element in the game that has been taking place between doctors, patients, teachers, students, etc. since the 19th century (p. 45). It is only with the classifications of medicine that forms of pleasures—sexually perverse pleasures, pleasure of resisting against power, and others—are understandable. The fourth operation describes the specific relationship between power and subject. Foucault gives the example of a 19th century family. He shows that a family does not simply consist of a group of people, but there are also “a network of pleasures and powers linked together at multiple points and according to transformable relationships,” codes of separation, i.e., grown ups and children, boys and girls, etc. (p. 46). So, when we look at a family, we should see not only the constituent elements but also the relations between them present right there in the family. Those power relations, codes of conduct, discourses within which the possibilities are inscribed, and interplay of powers and pleasures, by being intertwined with subjects themselves, form an inseparable multiplicity of forces. So, the power and subject shouldn’t be thought of as two opposing parties; rather they form the “spirals in which pleasure and power reinforced one another” (p. 47).

The practise of confession is addressed in the text many times, and it has a very significant role in identifying the new form of power. Foucault already elaborated on the relation between confessions and transformation of sexuality into discourse (p. 22). The act of confession, actually, implies the complex mechanisms of the new form of power. By confessing their guilt, by explicating each and every detail of the sexual activity they made, one makes two different things at the same time whose relationship with one another is quite remarkable. First, they reveal what is otherwise concealed. But this revealing comes into play by negating what is revealed. Confession is not just one statement among others; it is to state what shouldn’t have taken place. So, the one who confesses their guilt makes both an announcement and a denouncement by the same stroke. Applying the same structure, unorthodox sexualities are produced by the new form of power, which, at the same time, denounces them. By way of metaphor, then, one may think of the new form of power confessing its perverse pleasures it has created by the very act of that confession. Foucault concludes the chapter by making it explicit that the form of power with which the current understanding of sexuality has been shaped can be understood neither simply as a repressive force nor as a liberation towards the multiplicity of pleasures, but as having the dual nature of confession aimed at the optimisation of power.

We will continue with the third part next time, titled "“Scientia Sexualis”. Thank you very much for your support for the first part of my reading. You can reach it here:
https://steemit.com/philosophy/@patarnataka/foucault-s-history-of-sexuality-part-i