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i have been re-reading the History of Sexuality, and. there is a common reading of this book, and 'social construction' theories of sexuality more generally, that says, basically: 'there has always been sex between men, and between women, but it is only relatively recently (since around a hundred years ago) that this took the form of an identity, gay or homosexual or queer (etc.) identity. before that, anyone could commit an act of sodomy; afterwards, anyone who committed an act of sodomy was considered a particular kind of person, a sodomite. it's the difference, basically, between doing and being'. this, it seems to me, is accepted as more or less common sense by most people involved in queer theory.
but that's not what foucault said at all. in fact, he specifically rules that out as an interpretation of his argument. on page 152 of HoS vol. 1, he writes 'Is "sex" really the anchorage point that supports the manifestations of sexuality, or is it not rather a complex idea that was formed inside the deployment of sexuality? In any case, one could show how this idea of sex took form in the different strategies of power and the definite role it played therein.' over the next few pages he elabourates and restates this point; for example, p. 155, 'sex is the most speculative, most ideal, and most internal element in a deployment of sexuality organised by power'; later down the page, sex 'is an imaginary point determined by the deployment of sexuality'. etc.
so my question, dear reader, is: what the fuck does that mean? i have been going over it in my head, and the only ways i can figure out to understand it are basically banal, so i don't think they are what he meant. this is the best i can do - the idea of sex artificially groups together a whole array of different kinds of pleasures. for example, john preston mentions during his time as a hustler, a certain trick who would pay him to go to a department store and handle packaged underwear, while the trick watched. there is a whole subculture for men who get off on watching women in high heels step on insects. and sometimes i like to spend a night laying somewhere men will piss on me. now, all those things are considered 'sex', but really they don't have all that much in common, either with each other or with the missionary ideal.
but so what? it seems to me that sex is something you do to get aroused, or have an orgasm. it doesn't seem, to me, to be a particularly speculative or imaginary ideal - orgasms are real, horniness is real, and most of us seem to organise certain parts of our life around them, more or less distinctly.
so what did foucault mean? some of you must have ideas about this, because it is confusing me heaps. the only insight i have been able to draw from it - something i already knew, but tend to forget - is that foucault was way, way weirder than you'd ever guess from most of his admirers. and i mean that in the best way. |
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