Adam M.'s outline for Foucault: Objective

Description:

· We tend to read the history of sexuality in the context of the repressive hypothesis, which describes the fact that since the rise of the middle-class, any sexual relations that were purely intended for pleasure have been frowned upon.

Analysis:

· Some principle features exist in this representation of sexuality. For example, a cycle of prohibition occurs in which people deal with sex by denying its existence. By suppressing sex, people believe they can constrain it to the point where it is no longer a “problem” (p.84)

· Power represses sex and law constitutes desire, which takes us back to the fact that this aforementioned power is incapable of doing anything other than creating limits and is centered on little more than the statement of the law and the operation of taboos (p.85).

· Power is tolerable only on the condition that it hides a substantial part of itself. Essentially, people are only willing to tolerate power when it is not overt, and its success is directly proportional to its ability to hide the way it operates (p.86).

Vision:

· Foucault’s aim is for us to try to rid ourselves of a juridicial and negative representation of power, and to instead view it simply in terms of law, prohibition, liberty, and sovereignty (p.90).

Strategy:

· We must conceive of sex without the law, and power without the king.