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There's an amusing parallel with the justification Foucault gives for his focus in the first volume of "The History of Sexuality". He points out that, for a ve

There's an amusing parallel with the justification Foucault gives for his focus in the first volume of "The History of Sexuality". He points out that, for a very long time, people speaking/writing about sexuality have tended to make some sort of gesture at the fact that we can't or aren't supposed to talk about these things. You can find a gloss of this "repressive hypothesis" at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_Sexuality#Volume_I:_The_Will_to_Knowledge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_Sexuality#Volum...

Orou 6y ago
I'm not sure that's a compelling argument. In both these cases, individuals are talking about broader societal trends. It's not a contradiction if they aren't talking about their own specific experience (i.e. "I'm silenced, therefore I can't talk, listen to me talk about how silenced I am"). An 18th-century writer discussing sex may contribute to the counter-argument that by virtue of their writing about sex, it isn't as taboo a subject as they imply. But in and of itself, it isn't proof that such a trend does not exist.
- abathur 6y ago
  I didn't really try to make an argument, nor even say I agree with Foucault here--just that I see a parallel and it amuses me. Caveats: 1) I read this over a year ago, 2) found it enough of a slog that my understanding feels pretty fuzzy, and 3) am still undecided/chewing on the main argument My impression is that Foucault wasn't trying to deny a trend, but to highlight a number of other trends (including the explosion of discourse around sexuality) to open the reader up to challenging or re-framing their received knowledge about sexuality at the time. His focus is very much on all of the power and control dynamics at this nexus. It's a little hard to distill what I mean by that--because it includes actual sex and sexuality, the science/study of it, who is speaking, whose sex is being spoken about, what kind of sex it is, social/class dynamics, etc.

Orou 6y ago

I'm not sure that's a compelling argument. In both these cases, individuals are talking about broader societal trends. It's not a contradiction if they aren't talking about their own specific experience (i.e. "I'm silenced, therefore I can't talk, listen to me talk about how silenced I am"). An 18th-century writer discussing sex may contribute to the counter-argument that by virtue of their writing about sex, it isn't as taboo a subject as they imply. But in and of itself, it isn't proof that such a trend does not exist.

abathur 6y ago
I didn't really try to make an argument, nor even say I agree with Foucault here--just that I see a parallel and it amuses me. Caveats: 1) I read this over a year ago, 2) found it enough of a slog that my understanding feels pretty fuzzy, and 3) am still undecided/chewing on the main argument My impression is that Foucault wasn't trying to deny a trend, but to highlight a number of other trends (including the explosion of discourse around sexuality) to open the reader up to challenging or re-framing their received knowledge about sexuality at the time. His focus is very much on all of the power and control dynamics at this nexus. It's a little hard to distill what I mean by that--because it includes actual sex and sexuality, the science/study of it, who is speaking, whose sex is being spoken about, what kind of sex it is, social/class dynamics, etc.