Given the stories that go round about him, I felt slightly apprehensive in moving towards reading this book in which Foucault discusses - amongst other things - the ancient Greek's attitude towards (erotic) love for adolescent boys. If I were to read this text from the perspective of literary psychoanalysis, I would have a hard time not ascribing his efforts to a justification of his own tastes. Luckily, I did not explicitly and exclusively take up such a perspective in reading this work. That would not have done it justice.

For the love for boys is only a sub-theme, although undeniably one that's important to Foucault himself, in his discussion of the variety of attitudes that (the elite) of ancient Greece took towards sexuality. Even that discussion on boys specifically loses its ranchy connotations as Foucault shows how boys took up a particular, peculiar interest in those times; one that was more to do with a type of beauty that was exclusive to the boy, as well as a preparation for civic life, and the process of learning. The point that Foucault makes in comparing this attitude towards boys, to the later attitude towards women, this comparison being grounded in (young) women becoming the focus of a morality surrounding sexual behaviour, is - to me - decisive in ridding this work of those ranchy connotations. Put very simply, boys had the same intensity in focus of sexual interest in ancient Greece that women have later received - developed to a peak in (probably) Victorian England. Nowadays, they still do to a high degree.

Beyond this, it's a much broader work, and more broadly interesting. He links the practices of regimen (dietetics, in a very different sense than we're used to), mastery of household and social relations (economics, in a very different sense than we're used to), and an ethics of sexuality (erotics, in a very different sense than we're used to) by grace of their self-directedness. This is such a stark contrast, because we're used to externalising these domains, to either direct them outside of us, or to receive them from outside, rather than apply them to ourselves. This project ends with a chapter on true love, in which Foucault touches upon the relation that (at least) Plato saw between love and truth.

Remarkable read.

Far more transparent than the opaque preceding volume, Foucault's canvassing of Greek thought as it pertains to the history of how the norms of sexual behaviour have developed is thorough, fair, and clear. A helpful introduction to Greek thought on the issue.

In this book Foucault shows how Ancient Greek sexual norms were technologies of the self, exercices to create oneself as a free, healthy and happy subject, and not laws or proibitions.

The introduction to “The Use of Pleasure,” the second volume in Michel Foucault’s “History of Sexuality,” promises a lot. Refocusing from his well worn conception of power networks to “desire and the desiring subject” (5), Michel suggests his study will combine his two previous modes of scholarship--the archaeologies of the 1960s and the genealogies of the 1970s--in a single volume. This is, he says, a work of philosophy that uses fourth-century BCE practical historical texts to construct, again, “the genealogy of desiring man,” his “practices of self,” and his “‘aesthetics of existence’” (12). It is refreshing to see Michel move beyond the pure analytics of power and to channel his obsession with discursive nodes, modes, networks, and domains into a different kind of relations, those that exist between people and inside the individual. In fact, while some of Michel’s previous work handled the ways in which power worked on, through, and within the individual, “The Use of Pleasure” seems the first Foucauldian publication to emphasize the ways in which desire (substituting for power) is conditioned by the self for the self. This concern seems to derive, in part, from his definition of contemporary philosophy, which he claims is “the critical work that thought brings to bear on itself” and, more importantly, concerns the ~desire~ “to learn to what extent the effort to think one’s own history can free thought from what it silently thinks, and so enable it to think differently” (9). This denotation feels like the closest admission of subjectivity that Michel is capable of and, if nothing else, suggests that this is his ~passion project~. It also places a burden on the subsequent work that Michel fails to actualize: it’s never very clear--within the text itself, without a biography of the author--how he is bringing these thoughts to bear onto his own history. I couldn't quite overcome this failure.

In choosing to focus on classical Greece, Foucault essentially abandons the project he set out on in his “Introduction,” requiring readers to do mental gymnastics to see correlations between modern and contemporary sexualities and the classical sexualities he discusses here. There are, don’t worry, many such connections to make and, very occasionally, Michel will compare some portion of Greek conceptions of the self to more recent Western notions (most often when he is discussing the homosexual; is this his connection to personal history?). On the other hand, Michel’s periodization allows him to focus solely on the nature of desire and pleasure among classical Greece’s “free men,” a category he should have problematized more. Here as everywhere else in his oeuvre, Michel fails to take an intersectional perspective, that is, while he may acknowledge issues of class, he completely neglects a feminist critique of the rampant misogyny of the periods he discusses let alone begins to tackle the flagrant racism that was omnipresent. Yes, he does mention women somewhat extensively in relation to marital fidelity but he literally goes on (and on and on) about how women were submissive and passive to their husbands without once truly ‘problematizing’ (to throw one of his pet words back at him) this relation. The more I think about these omissions, the more I believe they seriously hinder the potency of his arguments about both power and desire. It’s like he has historical amnesia or, perhaps, he is solely concerned with men because they, rather than women or people of color, have been the dominant focus of discourse. (WORST EXCUSE EVER.) Or, perhaps, men just interest him more because he was gay. (Don’t be basic, Michel.) Whatever reason there may be for the neglect of feminist and racialized analyses, it is a complicated, frustrating fact that the “truth” promised by this esteemed author did not include these perspectives. I am ashamed to not have thought of this before but now that I have thought it I can't get over it, despite some otherwise provocative arguments and arresting individual chapters.

Running throughout is the proposition that freedom for ancient Greeks possess a doubled nature by which a truthful relation of oneself to oneself, primarily characterized by moderation of pleasures/desires, corresponds to and largely determines one’s position within the city state. Attaching civic responsibility to an ordered, moderate lifestyle means that an enslavement to desire threatens one’s individual freedom as well as the health of one’s government. This critique especially rings true in an era when emotion rather than reason (rationality being the guiding logic of this claim) dominates political discourse and governmental as well as electoral decision-making, a troubling change that risks the health of many nations as well as global political, economic, social, and environmental well-being. In establishing truth through moderation in relation to a self responsible to both a populace and itself, rather than rooting truth in the enlightenment of a singular knowing subject, the ancient Greeks privileged both individual and collective in a way that many contemporary societies do not. Therefore, the troubling, doomed idea of the rugged self reliant individual (hello, America) had no place in Greek society. By tying truth to an aesthetics of existence rooted in “formal principles in the use of pleasures, in the way one distributed them, in the limits one observed, in the hierarchy one respected” (89), Michel suggests that moderating one’s sexuality helped one become a better citizen.

Equally powerful are the final two parts of the book, which handle how sex and love played out in relationships between older men and adolescent boys. These chapters have significant ramifications for the queer theory that emerged in the wake of Foucault and suggest there is Foucauldian work yet to be done. There were a whole set of prescribed practices and moral values associated with these kind of affairs that would, ideally, culminate in a loving friendship that one would derive just as much if not more pleasure from than the preceding sexual relationship. In fact, both sections come at the end of the volume, a placement that likely derives from Michel’s belief that these kinds of relations were the most troubled in all of ancient Greece. Restated with more power, he claims that the epoch’s sexual ethics formed around and derived from this love between boys and men (245). Michel suggests, via Plato, (this) love was a spiritual concern, that is, love pertained to the identification of beauty and truth in the soul--rather than the body--of another. Thus, the conception of “true love” came from men looking into the souls of boys and vice versa. While initially suggesting there were passive/active and submissive/dominant relations between boys and men, Michel, again via Platonic discourse, concludes that the boys eventually became the “masters” of these relations because they first knew true love, which was fostered not through sexual pleasure but rather through an alternative pleasure cultivated by knowing one’s partner was satisfied. He uses this claim to restate and generalize the proposition that true love was not a matter of erotics but rather resultant from an open communion between two (male) souls based in the pleasure of knowing one another. This is a liberating theory of the true love and the self rejected by queer pessimism and not fully taken up by queer optimism; it suggests that the original figure for true love in Western culture was that fostered between a man and boy, positing that a proto-homosexuality rather than heterosexuality was the basis for all subsequent notions of love, desire, and pleasure. It is important to note, however, that Michel doesn’t mean to bring about LGBTQ+ liberation with this fact but rather seeks to right a discursive wrong, perhaps limiting the ramifications of his claims. It seems to me that Michel's intention should be separated from the content used to reach said conclusions because these are radical reformulations of Western sexuality and could be harnessed as tools of liberation. Moreover, it would seem that the onus to connect these conclusions to a personal philosophy of history rests with contemporary queer theorists and historians frustrated by Michel’s failure to live up to his own promises.

Unfortunately, a bit too often Michel’s infatuation with details that fascinate him but may bore even the specialized reader take center stage: there are very under-theorized chapters about diet and an overlong discussion of semen (ancient Greeks thought it a “foam” generated in the brain!), neither of which are wholly justified, at least in their length, by the overall argument. There’s plenty more such detail to go around, which makes a large portion of this book a slog to get through. When it’s riveting, it’s riveting, but I suspect, depending upon why you’re coming to this book, large swaths will not appeal to you.

This book contains interesting reflections on how subjectivity was formed in ancient Greek culture around (sexual) pleasure as a result of relations men had with oneself in terms of moderation, selfmastery, selfstylization and domination. As such, Foucault shows, the Greeks developed an ethics of the self through selfcare.

A criticical note: the book contains alot of redundancy and repetition, which usually isn't the case with Foucault.

What further strikes me is that Foucault doesn't give women a voice in his book, while a history of female (sexual) pleasure can also certainly be written, or at least be given a place in a book such as this. Think for example about works and reflections on female (lesbian) pleasure in poems of Sappho and Alcaeus to name just two examples from ancient Greece. He calls his book 'The History of Sexuality', yet in my opinion he only offers a very selective and limited reading of this history, making this book as masculine as the culture and its practices that it's trying to describe.

A very well communicated, descriptive overview and retrospection of Ancient Greek sexuality and its problems, especially around the love of boys which becomes the focus by part 4. Still, getting past any uncomfortable feeling with the subject — and even reading past the author’s obvious motivation for writing on the subject — this book serves as a good starting place to broaden one’s perspective on one of the most taboo but ubiquitous topics.

Foucault, however, does not give a satisfactory answer to any problematization around sexuality or pleasure — besides the descriptions of dietetics and economy. He borrows a lot from Dover, while (unsurprisingly) conveniently ignoring Freud who at least attempted an answer well before this history of sexuality. It is also interesting to see how Foucault’s successors, like Halperin, miss a lot of big picture for the sake of self-justifying, ideological purposes.

Regardless, even though I have much to criticize in the book — particularly in what it lacks, like a resolution — it is worth the read to anyone interested in the subject as a good description or introduction to it. It is well written and ‘objective.’

The first chapter, on morals, is the clearest overview of the Ancient Greek ethical system / debate that I have ever read. Why wasn't I assigned this in college.

Foucault entra a fundo nos textos gregos. Percebemos como os gregos viam o prazer. Como regulavam o sexo e se regulavam a si próprios. Que preconceitos tinham sobre o género e sobre os papéis de cada um na sociedade.

Sobretudo a partir dos textos morais e de comentários sobre comportamentos da altura, que chegaram até hoje, sabemos como os os gregos viam as relações. Ficamos a saber que valorizavam acima de tudo o domínio do próprio sobre as paixões do corpo.

É mais tarde que o cristianismo vem legislar sobre o que é permitido ou não fazer. Os gregos levavam a mal, sobretudo, que um homem (a moral era sempre uma moral dos homens, feita na perspectiva masculina) mostrasse falta de domínio. Sobre si, ou sobre a(s) suas mulheres, escravos. No sexo, era mal visto não que se fizesse determinado acto em particular, mas que se desse a entender que o desejo, as paixões estavam a dominar em vez de ser ao contrário, em vez de de se conseguir dominar o desejo. Era bem visto ter uma relação com um rapaz mais novo, por se estar numa posição de domínio, e isso não implicava nenhuma perda de virilidade. O que lesava a reputação era estar numa posição de dominado, numa relação com outro homem. Precisamente por isso, há conselhos extensos, nos textos morais, sobre como se deve comportar um rapaz, que entra numa relação com um homem mais velho, não sendo demasiado fácil, para não estragar a sua reputação. Não são condenados os actos em si, como imorais, mas o caracter do homem que se coloca numa ou noutra posição.

3.75 stars

Well that was quite something…

A short, straightforward work that analyzes the relation of sexuality to social power. Worth reading not only for the good clear writing, but also for Foucault's original take on sexuality as an object of knowledge.

Acquired unknown year--probably between 1995 and 1999
Cheap Thrills, Montreal, Quebec

It was good but I preferred the first volume.

This is very different from the first one and it is more about a very specific focus on sexuality in Greek antiquity, and I found it curiously "too" straightforward for a Foucault work, I was expecting more complex and profound analyses, but that simplicity allow him to establish a very coherent and interesting reading of ancient Greek sexuality. Also, it makes it pretty easy (the easiest?) to read for a Foucault's book.

Moreso, I hoped that it would talk more about female sexuality, even if I get that there was clearly less literature about it, I cannot accept that it was not possible to expand more on it.

But I kinda like that Foucault was probably just chilling here and got especially hyped to talk about men-to-men love!

If I wasn't so specifically interested in Greek antiquity and its sexuality, I would give it 3 stars.

The second volume of Foucault's History of Sexuality is another great, provocative entry in Foucault's series of historical studies on the changing nature of power, knowledge, and morality. It is also a good indicator of the direction that late Foucault was heading before his death: a turn to ethics, self-care, asceticism, and individual agency - topics that also feature in his famous Birth of Biopolitics and other subsequent Collège de France lectures. The long introduction is one of the highlights as it reveals crucial details of Foucault's intellectual journey towards his concern for "a history of ethical problematizations based on practices of the self."

Foucault focuses on a few key aspects of Greek attitudes towards sexuality - the writings on aphrodisia - that he deems important in the period: the proper "use" (chresis) one's body and pleasures, the ethical ideal of "self-mastery" (enkrateia), and the regulative ideal of erotic "moderation" (sophrosyne). Through his erudite, evocative, and rich narrative, Foucault explores how the Greek "ethical subject" (the free male citizen of the Greek polis) was formed over time, what different forms it took in different genres (including dietetics, economics, erotics, and philosophy), what aspects of sexuality were deemed problematic or crucial based on one's position in life (for example, in the inegalitarian relationship between the adult free citizen and the youth), and many other aspects of that complex dynamics of Greek ethics and erotics. Philosophically speaking, his analysis is interesting in what it reveals about the Greek attitudes - and, by extension, the numerous possibilities of reshaping diverse human attitudes - towards human subjectivity, pleasure, self-regulation, virtue, community norms, transcendence, and truth.

Structurally, the book is a bit of mixed bag. The material is a bit scattershot and surprisingly repetitive at times, which is surprising given how meticulous Foucault was with style. The limitations of Foucault's historical interpretation become apparent with the way he weaves the material together to fit his narrative goals. Although he is a much better scholar than his detractors care to admit, he certainly had a tendency to use historical data selectively, and to extrapolate from a small sample to grand theories. The way he uses Plato, for example, to illustrate the changing nature of attitudes to sexuality, and the power dynamics of male courtship, showcases both his brilliance as an analytical thinker and his limitations as an exegete. To his credit, he acknowledges the limits of his analysis. He takes pains to present the contradictions in the material. If one is aware of these limitations, one can let the cool philosophical analysis sweep one away.

Despite being somewhat limited in its exegetic power, and weirdly incohesive in structure, Sex II is overall a delightful book. It neither valorizes Greek ethical problems nor demonizes them, and it situates their erotic literature in the context of their concern for ethical subjectivity and virtue. The book's impact on modern scholarship has been almost exclusively positive. It always shocks me how big of a gap there is between the popular image of Foucault and the real Foucault: the former being the clownish image of a nihilist confabulator concocted by dwarfish minds, while the latter being the rather dry, punctilious, and joyful archival historian with a philosophical bent.