(august 2022) for the umpteenth time... every time i read this book i draw something new from it, some fresh horror of life, some fresh insight... this reading was the result of a reading group sparked by a friend reading it for the first time and it was really refreshing to read with others but outside of the school context and have a rich discussion but also be able to provide some background <3
(june 2021) every time i read foucault i am reminded just how crucial he really, really is.

Leer a Foucault siempre es un placer.

Vol 1 of the 'History of Sexuality' was written just before a significant shift in Foucault's thought: the 'ethical turn' of his later work. As such this is his last book covering the complex machinations of (bio)power and discourse, this time considering their operations on the body within the sphere of sexuality. It's a particularly erudite book and is fairly readable,due not only to its brevity but also its clear prose; no mean feat for a work often labeled 'post-structuralist'!
I would suggest then that it is a suitable starting point for a foray into Foucauldian thinking as alongside its relative pedagogical clarity it also contains a number of tropes indicative of Foucault's style and approach; a fairly lax approach to historiography (don't expect a historian's rigor); a tendency to reveal commonplace assumptions as fallacies; and a unique approach to theory in which his idea's and concepts are generated throughout the work via an analysis of 'history'.
The later point means that it is often difficult to see what Foucault is getting at theoretically speaking, leaving one to feel that they have missed some crucial point along the way, an issue compounded by the lack of a modern 'signposted' academic introduction. It's therefore appropriate to provide a short summary of the work:

***please note I am no expert so what follow is merely an interpretation, hope it helps!***

Foucault begins by challenging the 'Repressive Hypothesis', the notion that the during the Victorian ages discourse on sexuality was silenced, unless that sexuality was of the heterosexual, reproductive variety. This narrative posits the construction of a boundary surrounding the monogamous, married bedroom, a boundary which demarcates the sphere of legitimate discourse, confining it to utilitarian role aimed at maintaining the fertility and thus reproductive potentials of hetronormative, state sanctioned relationships.
Foucault demonstrates that this notion, although historically unfounded, became widespread (particularly within leftwing circles: see Marcuse's Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud) since it allowed sexual repression to be linked to capitalism and its associated societal repression. This link was made via the establishment of a narrative which saw discourse on sexuality as being purely aimed at establishing a reproductive imperative that operationalized sexuality towards the reproduction of societies labor capacity. This logic extended to the repression of abnormal (non-reproductive) sexualities, since they represented a wasteful expenditure of vital libidinal energy, energy better used to drive industrial development and economic expansion.
Underlying this perspective is what Foucault terms a 'Judicio-discursive' conception of power, a notion that holds power as a purely negative phenomena that only relates to its object in a oppressive capacity; preventing rather than producing. For Foucault this a far too reductive view of power, a position unable to illuminate the myriad dispersion of power across the sexual sphere.
Foucault challenges the Repressive Hypothesis and its underlying assumptions on the nature of power; demonstrating that contrary to this repressive narrative, Victorian society actually witnessed a veritable explosion of discourses relating to sex that incorporated the most diverse sexualities, seeking to understand, classify and ultimately discover the 'truth' of sex. This 'Will to Knowledge' entailed the deployment of what Foucault terms a ‘Scientia Sexualis’ which functions via an incitement to speak of ones sex, in order that it can be understood and ultimately pathologized. This process sutures sexuality to identity in that it considers ones sexual activity as central to ones very nature; for example this process was integral to the codification of the homosexual as a static identity (prior to which same sex relations were considered a momentary transgression, understood under the broad rubric of 'sodomy').
It is here that Foucault outlines what in my mind is the central theoretical argument of the book; his analysis of power. For Foucault, contrary to liberal and Marxist conceptions, power is not something exercised or even possessed by a hegemonic social entity. Rather it is a relation, immanent to the social field and exercised from a variety of junctions, that acts in a productive capacity. In respect to sexuality power functions to multiply sexualities by trapping them in discourse, codifying them as identities and defining their conduct. There is no exterior of power, everything, including resistance, is caught up in the intricacy of its complex networks.
If we return to the example of homosexuality, it can be seen that power functioned to link a sexual act (same-sex relations) to an identity, producing not only regressive instances of homophobia and marginalization, but also resistance to that marginalization and the production of communities, centered around an identity, that give meaning, a sense of belonging and purpose to many. This point illuminates a key perspective of Foucault's that has led many detractors to consider him nihilistic and amoral; power is not good, or bad it merely 'is'.

What Vol 1 provides then is a reappraisal of our historical understanding of sexuality, demonstrating that it has not been repressed, but has rather been discussed endlessly. Furthermore, and arguably most significantly, it provides a novel and radical understanding of power, an understanding that challenges and provokes more traditionalist understandings of power (Marxism and Liberalism!) and the praxis they inspire. What troubles me about Foucault's view of power is that, in its immanence, it seems to rob the individual of agency, rendering us all passive subjects of an inescapable totality.
In some respects I wonder if it is this loss of agency that caused the 'ethical turn' in Foucault's work, demonstrated in the latter two books of The History of Sexuality (The History of Sexuality 2: The Use of Pleasure and The History of Sexuality 3: The Care of the Self) in which Foucault turns to an analysis of Greek and Roman sexual ethics and the methods by which they related to and integrated the power relations structuring their society? I have yet to study these volumes carefully, but I sincerely hope that Foucault is able to provide some respite from the all encompassing power relations that define us and our society; I imagine so, since the practice of ethics hints at the construction of an interiority (subjectivity) that perhaps offers the only means of escape from the complex exteriority this volume traverses.

feels wrong to even rate tbh. style-wise, roughest thing I’ve ever read. content-wise, don’t know where else to find these ideas.

Me tardé más de un año en leer este libro, pero no me arrepiento. Cada palabra, cada frase es digna de un análisis y reflexión minucioso. Los libros así, que te quebrantan, que explotan tus ideas del mundo son a los que más gratitud tengo.

Neste primeiro volume, Foucault faz a ligação entre a Grécia e o Cristianismo, assegurando-se que não reforça a ideia de uma ruptura cultural, que não terá existindo, visto que uma cultura terá herdado a outra e a partir dela evoluído, nem a de uma transição suave, que também não aconteceu, segundo o autor.

A cristandade trouxe de facto mudanças profundas. Mas elas aconteceram ao longo de séculos. A própria condenação do amor dos rapazes vai sendo gradual e começa ainda nos gregos, no final do período clássico. Os dois volumes seguintes vão continuando a dar conta desta passagem desconexa de uma para outra cultura.

Os gregos tinham uma cultura diversa e Foucault vai citando as várias vozes, os muitos autores que divergiam um pouco entre si.

Foucault escreve de forma eloquente, clara, brilhante, inteligente. Conhece aquilo de que fala. Estudou a civilização a que se refere. Avisa que não é um helenista e no entanto conhece bem o periodo e os textos clássicos. É surpreendente ler esta história da sexualidade.

Chama a atenção para o facto de que o sexo (sexualidade é palavra moderna) não lhes interessava tanto como a seguir interessou aos cristão. Aos gregos interessava mais o que chamariam de dietética (onde o sexo) é uma parte pequena. Como comer, que exercício fazer, quantas vezes ter sexo, com quem e onde. O sexo, como tudo o resto, para os gregos, era uma questão de saúde, e de auto-domínio.

Para os cristãos, vai ser, sobretudo com a confissão, discurso. Onde estiveste e com quem. O que fizeste. E com a noção de pecado, quantas vezes, que pormenores, o detalhe do mal é extraído. Mais tarde o Santo Ofício, a Inquisição vai determinar com precisão como se devem conduzir os interrogatórios para extrair confissões de pecadores.

Disappointing, esp. after reading a masterpiece like Discipline and Punish. This book consists of a serious of loosely connected, and individually incomplete meditations on various topics, that are intended to serve (not very successfully, imo) as a prolgomena to a history of sexuality. Indeed, the project was abandoned (what was eventually publishd as vols. 2-3 was part of a newly and differently conceived project begun several years later), proving that the current work was a failure.

It should not have been published, and one can assume that MF may have felt the pressure to come out with another book fast to capitalize on the success of D&P.

Parts I-III contain suggestive hints on the relation of sex in the formation of the Self (whereas for Freud, the ego is constructed at the boundary between desire/id and reality, for Foucault the Self is constructed at the boundary where superego (i.e., the administrative gaze of Power/Knowledge) inscribes itself upon the body. This is a brilliant conception, and a fascinating answer to the inherited problem of the transcendental ego, but it is really only adumbrated in these chapters.

Part IV deals with method, and is long and dull, and can be "skimmed".

Part V then takes the topic of sex in the direction of MF's new interest in biopower, which was then the topic of the Collège de France lectures of these years (1976-1979), before he turned back, at the end of his life, both in the lectures of 1981-1984 and in vols 2-3 of Sexuality, to the problem of the constuction and the hermeneutics of the Self -- a topic that Dreyfus-Rabinow also discuss in detail at the end of their study...

Diskursus, diskursus, diskursus ... diskursus. Foucault seletab teoses lahti seksuaalsuse "represseerimist" läbi ajaloo. Huvitav lugemine, aga ma ei oska sellele konventsionaalses hindamisskaalas hinnet panna. Tegu on ajaloolis-filosoofilise uurimusega, mida tundub väär nõndaviisi hinnata.





Diskursus. (seda sõna kohtab selles teoses paarsada korda)

Foucault's entire investigation is an attempt to counter the way the 'repressive hypothesis' of human sexuality is presented within the historical discourse. Living in a post-Freudian landscape, we all have at least a basic grasp of the fundamentals of Freud's theory of sexual repression - it's something like the following: civilized society's attempt to repress human sexuality is intrinsically tied to the psychological destabilization of man, so if we can figure out the sex thing, namely by becoming less repressed, our social and political problems will disappear. This was inarguably the most important and consequential theory of the modern era and has carried forward, permanently impressed on the collective consciousness, and, according to Foucault's theory, is one of the indispensable tools of cultural/political power that continues to be aggressively wielded today.

"All these negative elements - defenses, censorships, denials - which the repressive hypothesis groups together in one great central mechanism destined to say no, are doubtless only
component parts that have a local and tactical role to play in a transformation of discourse,
a technology of power, and a will to knowledge that are far from being reducible to the former."

But Foucault is concerned about the discourses themselves. In being dragged on stage and mandated to dispense with its secrets, "what were the effects of power generated by what was said?" According to him, it is the way "sex is put into discourse." Establishing some kind of linguistic perimeter or a conjuration of ways to talk about sex, pathologize, place it under a set of rubrics.

"From the singular imperialism that compels everyone to transform their sexuality into a perpetual discourse, to the manifold mechanisms which, in the areas of economy, pedagogy, medicine, and justice, incite, extract, distribute, and institutionalize the sexual discourse, an
immense verbosity is what our civilization has required and organized."

The Victorian Era, the one we commonly associate with prudishness and that we have been frantically trying to escape from, started around the 17th century. Prior to that, according to Foucault, sex wasn't relegated to private discussions or to the respectability of the personal conjugal bedroom. It was all very direct and shameless, bodies were on display and freely exchanged.

Then something shifted in the 18th or 19th century, which began to produce discourses around sex and relegated the topic to a variety of different scientific and judicial professions that served (and still serve) as the primary centers of power. These acted as fundamental sources of credibility and expertise, which function as the primary scaffolding of society, foundational nodes of power that promulgate and support the "web of discourses" and power relations that act as sociocultural enclosures. Sexual desire, among all other things, could not be tolerated outside of this enclosure. If power is to survive or function optimally, it must do so under the same biological imperatives of any viable organism, whose fundamental dictates are propagation, expansion, and integration. The way to do this was to expand the jurisdiction of medicine and criminal justice, both principally tasked with treating and eradicating affliction, whether in its biological or social form, so as to capture and pathologize the spectrum of human sexuality and safely bring it under the aegis of the social sphere.

This annexation of human sexuality to the site of the convergent medical/security regime, whose dealings with illness and death or criminality naturally gave the impression that human sexuality was intensely dangerous and in doing so "intensified people's awareness of it as a constant danger." And this move to pathologize sexuality was to categorize perversions as such and relegate them to the periphery of normative sexuality, which all centered on a productive (ie. reproductive) sexuality that ensured the continuation of practical economic imperatives and social relations.

This created an economy of power and pleasure, which "function as mechanisms with a double impetus: pleasure and power. The pleasure that comes from exercising a power that questions, monitors, watches, spies, searches out, palpates, brings to light; and on the other hand the pleasure that kindles at having to evade this power, flee from it, fool it, or travesty it."

Scientific Confessionalism -

Systems are rarely entirely remade to usher in a new era of culture. More often than not, it's a pivot that more aptly describes these moves from old to new. In this case, the Church provided much of the metaphysical practices and hierarchical dynamics necessary to eventually establish scientific discourse as the predominant method of apprehending the individual. Rather than the omnipotent, all-seeing God invoking spiritual demands about the divulgence of one's sinfulness or behavior, the human being could now be mapped out sexually according to a scientific rubric and the processes of interrogation and analysis. The individual was to be forthcoming with his innermost self, practicing the same type of self-surveillance he did with his own behavior in relation to the demands of religious dogma.

"... can one articulate the production of truth according to the old juridico-religious model of confession, and the extortion of confidential evidence according to the rules of scientific discourse?"

This and his other work gives a tremendous amount of material for intellectual ferment, and his ideas seem to become more prescient with time.

I find the discussion very interesting. But the insistence of visualizing EVERYTHING through power dynamics is tiring.

Read for my Queer Studies class. A study of sexuality, bodies, pleasures, institutions, discourse, knowledge, power, 'truth', and all the relations therein. It definitely changed the way I think. He says in the book that the history of Western sexuality is really a history of discourse, and that is what you should be expecting (as he hammers home: sexuality is discursively produced).
It can be frustrating because it's a book based around ideas; the abstract and not the material. Somewhere in there you may start to feel like ideas exist separate from us and that they are adapting, surviving, and reproducing all on their own, controlling our minds (and our bodies) through their strange ways. You'll get through it.
I didn't find it particularly difficult to read- it wasn't light, you did have to be critically thinking as you went through it, but I don't feel that my skipping a few overly-complicated sentences here and there hurt my understanding of the book as he does repeat. He can make a sentence last a paragraph, which I admire, but it can get irritating if you're trying to understand what he's saying and you have to go back a paragraph to get to the beginning of the point.

I’m convinced this guy has never had good sex.