References for Theme: History of Sexuality
- Foucault, Michel
- The history of sexuality: An introduction, volume I (1978)
(p.113) Hence the domain we must analyze in the different studies that will follow the present volume is that deployment of sexuality: its formation on the basis of the Christian notion of the flesh, and its development through the four great strategies that were deployed in the nineteenth century: the sexualization of children, the hysterization of women, the specification of the perverted, and the regulation of populations- all strategies that went by way of a family which must be viewed, not as a powerful agency of prohibition, but as amajor factor of sexualization. The first phase corresponded to the need to form a "labor force" (hence to avoid any useless "expenditure,"...
- The history of sexuality: An introduction, volume I (1978)
(p.120) If one writes the history of sexuality in terms of repression, relating this repression to the utilization of labor capacity, one must suppose that sexual controls were the more intense and meticulous as theywere directed at the poorer classes; one has to assume that they followed the path of greatest domination and the most systematic exploitation: the young adult man, possessing nothing more than his life force, had to be the primary target of a subjugation destined to shift the energy available for useless pleasure toward compulsory labor. But this does not appear to be the way things actually happened. On the contrary,the most rigorous techniques were formed and,...
- The history of sexuality: An introduction, volume I (1978)
(p.126) There is little question that one of the primordial forms of class consciousness is the affirmation of the body; at least, this was the case for the bourgeoisie during the eighteenth century. It converted the blue blood of the nobles into a sound organism and a healthy sexuality. One understands why it took such a longtime and was so unwilling to acknowledge that other classes had a body and a sex-precisely those classes it was exploiting. The living conditions that were dealt to the proletariat, particularly in the first half of the nineteenth century, show there was anything but concern for its body and sex:l it was of little importance...
- The history of sexuality: An introduction, volume I (1978)
(p.136) In any case, in its modern form-relative andlimited-as in its ancient and absolute form, the right of lifeand death is a dis symmetrical one. The sovereign exercisedhis right of life only by exercising his right to kill, or byrefraining from killing; he evidenced his power over life onlythrough the death he was capable of requiring. The rightwhich was formulated as the "power of life and death" wasin reality the right to take life or let live. Its symbol, afterall, was the sword. Perhaps this juridical form must be referredto a historical type of society in which power wasexercised mainly as...
- The history of sexuality: An introduction, volume I (1978)
(p.25) One of the great innovations in the techniques of power in the eighteenth century was theemergence of "population" as an economic and political problem: population as wealth, population as manpower or labor capacity, population balanced between its own growth and the resources it commanded.
- The history of sexuality: An introduction, volume I (1978)
(p.36) All this garrulous attention which has us in a stew over sexuality, is it not motivated by one basic concern: to ensure population, to reproduce labor capacity, to perpetuate the form of social relations: in short, to constitute a sexuality that is economically useful and politically conservative?
- The history of sexuality: An introduction, volume I (1978)
(p.5) By placing the advent of the age of repression in the seventeenth century, after hundreds of years of open spaces and free expression, one adjusts it to coincide with the development of capitalism: itbecomes an integral part of the bourgeois order. The minor chronicle of sex and its trials is transposed into the ceremonious history of the modes of production; its trifling aspect fades from view. A principle of explanation emerges after the fact: if sex is so rigorously repressed, this is because it is incompatible with a general and intensive work imperative. At a time when labor capacity was being systematically exploited,how could this capacity be allowed to...
- The history of sexuality: An introduction, volume I (1978)
(p.95) Where there is power, there is resistance, and yet, or rather consequently, this resistance is never in a positionof exteriority in relation to power. Should it be said that one is always "inside" power, there is no "escaping" it,there is no absolute outside where it is concerned, because one is subject to the law in any case? Or that, history being the ruse of reason, power is the ruse of history, always emerging the winner? This would be to misunderstand the strictly relational character of power relationships. Their existence depends on a multiplicity of points of resistance: these play the role of adversary, target, support, or handle in power...
- The history of sexuality: An introduction, volume I (1978)
- The Care of the Self: Volume 3 of the history of sexuality (1986)
(p.18) The case of prostitutes is different. Here the analysis setforth by Artemidorus is rather curious: in themselves women,as objects from which one derives pleasure, have a positivevalue; and prostitutes-whom the traditional vocabularysometimes calls "workers"-are there to furnish these pleasures,and they "give themselves without refusing anything. "There is, however, " a little disgrace" i n frequenting suchwomen--disgrace and also expense-which no doubt detractsa little from the value of the event forecast by the dream thatrepresents them.
- The Care of the Self: Volume 3 of the history of sexuality (1986)
(p.32) It is this principle that makes it good to dream of sexual intercourse with slaves: one profits from one's possessions; that which one has purchased for the benefit of labor yields the benefit of pleasurebesides.
- The Care of the Self: Volume 3 of the history of sexuality (1986)
(p.74) In its ancient form, marriage held no interest, had no reason for being, except insofar as, although a private act, it had legal effects or at least effects relative to status: handing down a name, instituting heirs, organizing a system of alliances, joining fortunes. This meant something only to those who were capable of developing strategies in such domains. As Paul Veyne says: "In pagan society, everyone did not marry, far from it. . . . Marriage, when one did marry, corresponded to a private objective: to transmit the estate to one's descendants, rather than to other members of the family or to the sons of friends; and it corresponded to...
- The Care of the Self: Volume 3 of the history of sexuality (1986)
- The History of Sexuality: The use of pleasure (1988)
(p.152) The activity of landowners [within Xenophon's Oeconomicus], on the other hand, is practiced in the market-place, in the agora. where they can fulfill their duties as friends and as citizens, as well as in the oikos. But the oikos comprises more than just the house proper; it also includes the fields and possessions, wherever they may be located (even outside the boundaries of the city): "whatever someone possesses is partof his household"; it defines a whole sphere of activities.2 And this activity is connected to a lifestyle and an ethical order. The landowner's existence, ifhe takes proper care of his estate, is good for him first of all; in...
- The History of Sexuality: The use of pleasure (1988)
(p.155) We see, then, that relations between spouses are not questioned in themselves; they are not first seen as the simple relationship of a couple comprised of a man and a woman who might, in addition, have to attend to a house and family. Xenophon deals at length with the marital relation, but in an indirect, contextual, and technical fashion: he deals with it in the context of the oikos, as one aspect of the husband's governmentalresponsibility and with a view to determining how the husband will be able to make his wife into the co-worker, the partner, the synergos he needs for the reasonable practice of economy.Ischomachus is asked...
- The History of Sexuality: The use of pleasure (1988)
(p.158) Ischomachus dwells at length on all the advice he remembers giving his wife on how to store things inthe space of the house so that she might find what she has put away, thus making her home a place of order and memory. In order that they might work together in the exercise of these different functions, the gods endowed each of the two sexes with particular qualities. Physical traits, first of all : to men, who must work in the open air "plowing, sowing, planting, herding," they gave the capacity to endure cold, heat, andjourneys on foot; women, who work indoors, were given bodies that are less...
- The History of Sexuality: The use of pleasure (1988)
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