"The History of Sexuality" is not so much about sex, as it is about the relationship between communication, discourse, knowledge in power. In the Foucault debates the ever so common ideology that sexuality has become "repressed" by power in the Western world; he offers insight into the relationship of power-knowledge-pleasure. More specifically, Foucault argues against what he calls the "repressive hypothesis". Although Foucault does not refute this argument entirely, he raises several questions.
This repressive hypothesis supposes since the Victorian age of the bourgeoisie, the sexuality of humans has been repressed. He discusses how many consider that the repression of the bourgeoisie, in modern terms, coincides with the development of capitalism and the repression that developed with it. "It (sexuality) is incompatible with a general and intensive work imperative."
Why do we view sexuality as something that is supposed to be repressed? Foucault argues that this "repressive......
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