03.25.07
Foucault
I read up on Michel Foucault in Beginning Theory and after reading The History of Sexuality, I was able to tie the information from both works together a little better. On page 175 in Beginning Theory, it says “New historicism is resolutely anti-establishment, always implicitly on the side of liberal ideas of personal freedom and accepting and celebrating all forms of difference and ‘deviance.’ I thought this was interesting because throughout Foucault’s reading, he discusses sex and how it is viewed. I think that Foucault believes sex should be on a more personal level, not discussed so openly/freely. On page 1649 in The History of Sexuality, it says “Discretion was advised, with increasing emphasis. The greatest reserve was counseled when dealing with sins against purity.” Here Foucault is explaining how sex should be kept quiet and only spoken in particular places, at certain times, with certain people. “Sins against purity” is mentioned here because sex was obviously viewed upon as wrong before marriage. It’s also a double standard here because in most cases, it’s “okay” for men to have sex before marriage, but the woman should remain pure. The woman is seen as tainted if she is not a virgin. In my other English class, we discuss a lot of double standards and in one of the texts that we dissected called The Cult of True Womanhood, it says men “are supposed to be pure, although it came awfully hard to them, but men were the movers, the doers, the actors. Women were the passive, submissive responders.” Double standards are just insane!
I thought it was really interesting how religion was also touched upon in the text. Again, sex is wrong before marriage, but because a lot of choices were based on religion back then (such as Christianity), it is known that religion used to be the reason why people didn’t make bad choices. Today, religion doesn’t play as big of a role in people’s lives as it did back then.
I also liked the part on page 1655 where it says “Salzmann even organized an experimental school which owed its exceptional character to a supervision and education of sex so well thought out that youth’s universal sin would never need to be practiced there. And with all these measures taken, the child was not to be simply the mute and unconscious object of attentions prearranged between adults only; a certain reasonable, limited, canonical, and truthful discourse on sex was prescribed for him–a kind of discursive orthopedics.” I think this would be a great idea.. in other words have classes that focus on sex. A lot of kids today don’t know a lot about it, the diseases that one can catch, and the fact that teenage pregnancy is occurring more often. It seems as though a lot of parents have the attitude “Oh, not my child..” rather than sitting down with them and discussing right from wrong. Parents think that their kids learn about it in school, when in reality they don’t.. it’s just other kids bragging that they’ve had sexual relations.
Back to Beginning Theory, it says “Discourse is not just a way of speaking or writing, but the whole ‘mental set’ and ideology which encloses the thinking of all members of a given society.” Because discourse is defined at the extended verbal expression in speech or writing, I find this quote to be true. You can only learn so much from conversations and books, some information learned comes from real life experiences.
carawhalen said,
March 25, 2007 at 11:50 pm
Hello –
I thought that you discussed a lot of great points throughout your blog. When you were speaking of how Foucault discussed sex and how it is viewed, it raised the question of did Foucault want to be understood? At first glance I thought that Foucault was saying that societies vary in their reasoning’s of what is accepted and what is not, however is Foucault necessarily saying that sexuality should be private or public? I too thought that Foucault portrayed that sex should be on a more personal level, not discussed openly. Yet, for some reason I can’t help but to wonder why, and is this truly what he is saying. I suppose what I’m trying to get at is if Foucault is in a way challenging these observations that he’s made. I also thought that the quote you used, “Discretion was advised, with increasing emphasis. The greatest reserve was counseled when dealing with sins against purity.” Foucault’s idea of where/who/how sex is ‘ok’ to discuss (with). The other aspect that I too commented briefly on in my blog was the introduction of children to sexuality. I thought children’s exposure to sexuality has been too closely cut down and monitored with limitations. I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s class to see what truly is being said, and hopefully get some answers to all these loose ends. Great Blog!!
elizabeth0509 said,
March 26, 2007 at 1:39 am
hey Joei, it seems that you have a really good grasp on this piece of reading. Also, I found a lot of similar points that you brought up in your piece so it helped me to understand the reading better. The idea of sex is obviously a big part. I wrote about how sex is viewed and how it is also censored. We pretty much wrote the same exact thing so it made me feel more comfortable with my writing, thanks! For some reason, I read through the religion section and really didn’t pick up anything from it. Maybe it was just a boring section for me but I liked how you wrote about it. It’s so true that in today’s society, it isn’t such a big deal. It was a sin if someone were to have sex before marriage and although some still believe that, it’s definitely not an uncommon thing today. I didn’t read from the Beginning Theory book but I think after this I might pick it up and scan through it, it seems like it helped you a lot. Great job!
hanaa said,
April 5, 2007 at 6:58 am
So for Foucault is the power of desire held in the private or public sphere? Because if desires are kept personal instead of placed on display then it gives the person more control over their own desires. But if their desire is placed in the public sphere they must worry about it fitting into the public domain, and is restrained by culture. I was so fascinated by his ideas about everyone policing each other, and maybe that is what culture is made for. To give a blueprint of what the “normal” person does and their habits and anyone outside of that sphere must be labeled as an other. We can’t police an unknown, therefore for society to have the power, everything must be scrutinized under public opinion. Identity no longer belongs to the individual person but is a reference in which society views us.