Adam Ash

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Thursday, October 06, 2005

Deep Thoughts: on sex and Foucault

From Continental Philosophy:
In this article, which blames the perceived decline of American society on Margaret Mead, Alfred Kinsey, and Michel Foucault, R. Albert Mohler, Jr. writes:
“Finally, we turn to consider Michel Foucault. Probably the least well-known of this trio, Foucault was a dominant influence in the American academy--a French philosopher who died after being infected with AIDS in the gay bars of San Francisco, California. Foucault, one of the dominant figures in postmodern thought, taught that sex is everything and that the only way to be liberated is to sexualize every dimension of life in the direction of polymorphous perversity. In essence, Foucault argued that sexuality is itself a modern invention and that one of modern society's central ambitions has been to institutionalize sexual repression.”
Where exactly does Foucault argue that the only way to be liberated is to “sexualize” everything?  The point of The History of Sexuality is not that modern societies have institutionalized sexual repression, but rather that they have institutionalized the demand for individuals to make confessions about their sexuality.  Foucault is a critic of the repressive hypothesis, not an advocate of it.  I think this fellow might have it backwards.
SHIT, might it not be a good thing to have as your project the sexualization of society? Isn't that what Freud started? Isn't that what was meant when "free love" was advocated in the 60s? Isn't the sanctioning of pre-marital sex established in the 60s part of this? And isn't the bourgeosification of porn that's going on now but an extension of this? Perhaps that's what the culture wars are really about: the fear of sex vs. the joy of it. Or maybe the privacy of sex vs. the public discussion of it.

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