Foucault's The History Of Sexuality

The History of Sexuality written by Michael Foucault was a shocking and scandalous book that provided arguments for the repression of sexuality in the emerging Victorian era, his work and Judith Butlers were both connected through the philosophy of the discourse of sex. Both have valid arguments that surrounded the issue of gender, sex and identity.

In Foucault’s The History of Sexuality he introduces us to his term the “Repressive Hypothesis”. This term is used to describe the discourse of sexuality, when the world began to suppress sexuality from the beginning of the 17th century until the mid-20th century. Sexuality began to be confined to the private homes and lives of the Victorians. From history we see the free expression of the sexual

In his book Foucault states “if sex is repressed, that is condemned to prohibition, nonexistence, and silence, then the mere fact that one is speaking about it has the appearance of a deliberate transgression”. The new way of life was the oppression of sex and the way the government and the church would handle the discussion of it. Sex was forbidden to be discussed and it became the society norm to not discuss it unless it applied to certain areas. The church played a role in the confessions of tempting thoughts and actions, people would flock to confess their sins and even the thought of a sexual desire was to be expressed to the confession booth. Society was forbidden to discuss sex with the children and the young people in Victorian age. They were to be monitored and groomed in purity, yet the government and the new age of Capitalism required a “population” a term Foucault address in his work. The population was to fuel the ever growing need of workers in an age of emerging industrialism. The government gained interest in birth rates and recording the births that occurred to keep records of population growth. Science also became interested in the topic of sex and discourse. The marriage bed was ultimately the main focus of the emerging

In society people are held under the conformity of standards put in place by the social norms that society deems appropriate. In Judith Butlers words “identity” is assured through the stabilizing concepts of sex, gender, and sexuality. In her work she argues that there are intelligible genders that are maintained in society. There is a whole range of genders that she argues for. Foucault states that there is a regulatory economy of sexuality, though Foucault’s thesis of understanding sexuality gender is the main point of argument. Butler brings attention to the hermaphrodite Herculine Barbin who is studied by Foucault, and Butler states that she is not an “identity” but the sexual impossibility of an identity. Herculine according to Foucault is not able to be categorized within the gender binary. When she is able to live as she wishes before the authorities forced her to live as man she lived a happier life. This brings into question the contradiction of Foucault whose whole thesis is the repressive hypothesis. Herculine is not a male or female but a combination of both sexes, and therefore Herculine cannot be categorized to the binary standards according to Foucault. Butler then describes how Foucault imagines Herculine’s experiences as happiness in her early life. Foucault explains that real sexuality is an illusion in his work in The History of Sexuality so Butler states that Foucault