Review article
https://doi.org/10.21464/mo42.222.117131
Foucault and the Theory of Sexuality
Željko Senković
orcid.org/0000-0001-6831-6130
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University Osijek, Croatia
Abstract
This article examines Foucault’s texts on sexuality, written at a time when ideologies on sexual liberation inspired by W. Reich and H. Marcuse were flourishing, rife with psychoanalytical theory. They all constantly speak of sex in order to say that sex cannot be spoken about, as it is repressed by bourgeois morals and family and marital standards. If Freud freed us from this, he did so quite loosely and in a conformist fashion. Sex crosses over into discourse, and so it is necessary to examine the speech and forms of this discourse. Foucault’s 'History of Sexuality' is a history of techniques of selfhood, genealogies of subject, and modes according to which the subject was established in the dawn of Western culture. Foucault attempted to discern the source of ethical concern that, depending on the moment, seemed more or less significant from moral attention paid to other areas of individual or collective life. His thorough study centres around the genealogy of desire, from the classical ancient cultures to the first centuries of Christianity. In addition to this, the article also comments on religious opinions on sexuality, which do not only affect the religious, but are also used to force other people to respect those rules of living. They are established as “natural” truths, formally separated from the religious performances that created them.
Keywords
Michel Foucault; sexuality; power; man; culture
Hrčak ID:
158556
URI
Publication date:
26.4.2016.
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