Foucault shares a lot of interesting ideas and arguments as to why sexuality is viewed the way it is today. However, he writes as if he's trying to bolster the word count for an assignment. I will blame the English translation, I'm sure his original french is much more rich.

De la Dietética, un uso medido de la sexualidad y la lucha contra el propio deseo nos libertará de esa esclavitud seductora.
De la Económica, la energía debe fluir para sucesos importantes de la vida y debe ahorrarse de momentos lascivos desgastantes.
De la Erótica, el juego del amor entre el enamorado y el amante, sabiendo cuánto dar y cuánto ceder; sujeto al respeto mutuo.

I have to get this out before I forget too much. Not the concept or the implications, or the parallels to the current gender gap in most of the western or westernized world, or the status hierarchies and power struggles that come to mind and to which I could easily draw parallels; even though I am sure that monsieur Foucault could see so many finer and more pertinent distinctions that my comparisons would sound puerile. I don’t think I’ll forget that. But I’ll forget the book and its structure. It will dissolve in my memory, the ideas blurring and merging with others that I am going to come across, so I just want to write a few thoughts down.

In this book, the author is trying to reconstruct the sexuality of the ancient Greeks of the 4th century (B.C.E) using what remained of their writings on domestic life, health and erotics. To this end, the author splits the book by theme: Dietetics, Economics and Erotics and circumscribes them with a discussion on morality and one on truth.

The subject of Ancient Greek written thought, is, of course, the free man. Specifically, the works address the land owner, the master of a domain. The Greek man is taught how to keep his body healthy, how to exercise, eat and have sex, and the best time of year to engage in specific activities. He is taught how to manage his domain, how to keep a household organized and how to transform his wife into his partner. Then Foucault’s attention turns to the erotics and the power relations which run through the erotic encounters between men and teenage boys, how each of the partners (erastes and eromenos) is to behave in their courting rituals and their relationship. The thread which runs through each of the themes is moderation. Mostly, this boils down to not too much sex, not too many extra-marital affairs, not too many lovers.

Women play a marginal role since their status in Ancient Greek culture was always inferior to a man’s, and Foucault always stresses that the wife’s faithfulness is considered absolute in the texts which detail domestic affairs, while the husband’s faithfulness is described as a matter of politics. It mostly means that the husband should not commit adultery because of the risk of unwanted pregnancy and thus progeny who would muddle their heritage. However, since the texts refer only to men, I wonder how women were taught this way of life by their elders, and exactly what they were being taught. I’m guessing that it was some kind of oral culture that is now lost, where the young girl’s mother or a mistress of sorts would have explained to her daughter based on her experience and what she had heard and had been taught. And how these two points of view over marriage would overlap and in which attitudes they would differ.

The final chapters discuss the relationship between older men and teenage boys, which is, in fact, the centre of attention in most texts discussing “the use of pleasures” and the one most dominated by politics. I could try to explain it by saying that the loved one, the eromenos, is a kind of apprentice in the affairs of civic life and duty to the lover, and is being taught how to behave in a manner which would increase his status and retain his honour and prepare him for the functions of a statesman which he is expected to hold when he reaches maturity. But he isn’t an apprentice, because this is first and foremost a relationship based on sexual attraction, it does not put the learning of a skill first, nor is it supposed to produce physical artefacts. Of course there are some skills to be learned, because what is supposed to happen could be loosely defined as a courtship ritual, so that the loved one can reciprocate the advances of a lover that he finds worthy and who would help him by introducing him to the right people and increasing his status. However, the loved one in this relationship is to be weaned off this dependence so that he will take his role as a citizen with full standing. Foucault briefly summarises the dangers that such a loved one would face with examples like this one: “When one played the role of subordinate partner in the game of pleasure relations, one could not be truly dominant in the game of civic and political activity.” Now extrapolate this way of thinking to the current day relationship between men and women and the historic role of women, of which you will find traces to varying degrees in today’s cultures around the world, and you get a different understanding of the current gender gap.

At the end of his analysis he describes how a relationship to truth emerges out of this erotics, meaning the way in which the young eromenos begins to understand himself and the world and glimpse the truths hidden behind what he sees, something like Plato’s world of perfect forms. Here he describes something akin to asceticism as the Ancient Greeks’ ultimate virtue. This is the one which, when practiced by a prospective lover, the erastes, would create a desire in the younger partner which, in turn, would allow the latter access to this truth. And, finally, this truth, Foucault seems to concede, is the ultimate ideal of love for the Ancient Greeks.

The book ends with a lead-in to the following phases of the development of eroticism, when the focus will shift from boys to women, and the relation between men and women will become the focus of future reflections on sexual pleasures. But, for me, the book was the beginning of a few trains of thought which gave me quite a few insights into how human relationships work, how they develop and what drives us. It managed to put into words thoughts which I could not comprehend clearly beforehand. So yeah, good job monsieur.

Va bene che rispetto al volume 1 il taglio di quest’opera è nettamente diverso, ma mi sembra che sia stata scritta da una persona completamente diversa (sarà forse che ho letto il primo volume in traduzione?).
Il volume 2 è scritto in maniera estremamente comprensibile, la scrittura scorre; Foucault presenta le sue idee, poi le argomenta, poi le corregge, e infine le riprende e le sintetizza. Ma soprattutto si ricollega sempre a problematiche successive, più o meno attuali, confrontandole con lucidità, senza cercare corrispondenze misteriose e senza erigere barriere insormontabili.

Peak Foucault? Thoroughly accessible and a breeze to read. Here he is able not only show how structure we take for granted are contingent but also show us an alternative through very clear gestures (specially pointing fingers). Granted, doing that with sexuality is simpler than when we look at epistemology, madness or discipline, but I guess that's why that's such an interesting inquiry after all.

فيه تقدم, بالنسبة لي.

First I should note that I am not really concerned with the accuracy of Foucault's interpretations of ancient Greek texts or even with sexuality as a topic of study. I'm not a Classicist so I can't comment on the empirical validity of the work. However, I am interested in understanding the truly original aspects of his work, mainly his theory of power, subjectivity, and the concept of discourse. In The History of Sexuality 1: An Introduction Foucault provides us with a sketch of his notion of power. In fact, Vol I pages 92-95 contains probably the most straightforward definition of his notoriously "slippery" conception of power that I have read. Foucault's notions of subjectivity, and particularly "discourse" are even more troublesome in this regard. However, in Vol. II Foucault defines by way of demonstration. After reading Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison along with these works on sexuality, one gets a better sense of how his primary theoretical interest in power, discourse, and subjectivity work together and form an integrated whole. We can clearly see this in Vol. 2.

Foucault starts Vol. 2 by laying out the "correlation between fields of knowledge, types of normativity, and forms of subjectivity" regarding sexuality in ancient Greek culture (p. 4). Subjectivity is the way in which an individual recognizes the form of power that he has (in this case it is always "he'). Discourses on sexuality and the control of the self provide forms of knowledge that enable the subject to perfect and reproduce his position within an "agonistic" social field. These discourses are instantiated in practice on the self-as-object-of-self in physical regimens ("dietetics") and on others as objects in the management of affairs ("economics"). The relations between free men and women or slaves are less a subject of discourse because the relationships here are assumed to be common knowledge and in little need of moral problematization. This discursive silence with respect to women and slaves speaks volumes (in Foucault's view at least) about their relations with free men. This is a key point, discourse, while a key component of power and part of its reproduction, is also a mechanism of change and transformation. This is why Foucault beings with the moral problematization of sexuality as his first chapter in the volume, it is the beginning of a discourse on sexuality in ancient Greek society. This is also why Foucault sees the increasing volume and diversity of discourse on sexuality in the 19th century as potentially liberating rather than necessarily repressive.

This book (read along with Vol. 1) is probably the clearest example of Foucault's entire analytical apparatus in motion. His entire "genealogical period" starting with Discipline and Punish should be read since Foucault assembles many ships that seem weak on their own but form an armada when combined with others.

En Historia de la sexualidad II, Foucault continúa el proyecto investigador sobre la sexualidad, sólo que esta vez se centra en cómo la actividad sexual fue problematizada por los filósofos y médicos de la Antigua Grecia, para quienes no interesaba tanto el objeto de la actividad, sino los modos y convenciones que giraban alrededor de dicha práctica.
En términos de lectura es un libro con una escritura menos pedregosa que el primer volumen, por lo que se hace más fácil de seguir; pero no por ello es menos complejo en torno a las temáticas que presenta. De hecho, me atrevería a decir que multiplica las complejidades en torno a las mismas, lo que me parece sencillamente estupendo.
Ahora si, un par de novelas más y me mando con el tercero.

مجنون هذا الفوكو
بهذا الجزء يطرح فوكو الكثير من الأفكار لدى الاثنيين القدماء وفلسفاتهم ويناقشها ويحللها

استعمال المتع وتدور افكار هذا الجزء نحو ثلاثة أجزاء
الاول الحمية البدنية والرياضية والفكرية
والثانية الجانب التربوي البيتي
والثالثة حب الغلمان

ويناقشها ويحللها ويقارن بين الكثير من حوارات الفلاسفة

ويتعمق حتى يأخذك معه في جانب المؤيد لهذه الأفكار
وبالطبع حين تعرف أن فوكو من المؤيدين للمثلية الجنسية ولكن لا يرغمكعلى موافقته بل يدعك تحلل وتفكر معه هل كانوا محقين ام لا
وبطبيعة الفطرة الانسانية نقول لا نحن نرفض هذه المثليه ولكن يقول لك فوكو انا موافق لرأيك ولكن تعال معي اشرح لك لماذا
قبلوا هده الأفكار
ولماذا كانوا يؤيدون هذه الأفكار

تتعمق معه وتحلل وفي النهاية تجيبه ثانيه


كتاب رائع موضوعي سلس لأبعد درجة

ممتع هذا الفوكو ولو لم نتفق معه

Again, not one of my favorite topics that Foucault wrote about or critiqued.

Why am I subjecting myself to this, you ask? Well, I read the first volume so I thought might as well read the other two, my intentions were purely un-intellectual, I just wanted to flex about having read all three volumes of Foucault's History of Sexuality. Do I regret it? Not at all. The second book is even better than the first, more informative and highly amusing. Hilarious even.

In this volume Foucault examines Greek sexual practices and Greek attitudes, thoughts and taboos on sex, to get to the root of the problematization of sex. And this includes a lot of reading and analysis of early Greek writing on sex. And man, have they got some solid advice:

But the author restricts himself to brief generalities: first, no one should “make frequent and continual use of sexual intercourse”; the latter is more suitable for “cold, moist, atrabilious, and flatulent persons,” and least suitable for thin ones; there are periods in life when it is more harmful, as in the case of old people or for those who are “in the period that extends from childhood to adolescence.”

The Greeks or Romans had no notion of 'sexuality' as such, they did not link various loosely connected sexual practices under a single origin. Sexual virility was not connected to ideas of active/latent homosexuality or even with what modern society would consider 'effeminate, but rather with lack of moderation.

Sexual taboos were not clearly defined, instead a 'mastery of the self' was encountered and even idealized. The sexual act was not an object of moral disqualification for the Greeks, but Foucault writes that the texts reveal an anxiety about the violence of the act itself, about the obstacles it could potentially raise for a mastery of self-control.

Hence sexual activity was located within the broad parame ters of life and death, of time, becoming, and eternity. It became necessary because the individual was fated to die, and in order that he might in a sense escape death.

Within marriage, a wife was required to submit to the authority of her husband and therefore infidelity on her part was essentially forbidden. While the husband was not prevented from engaging in adultery by social norms (as long as the other participant was not another married woman,) he was encouraged to refrain from doing so, as a show of self-restraint. A cheating husband reflected poorly on the wife, because within the Greek society it implied that she was incapable of properly governing the household and satisfying her husband. And thus, Foucault writes that marriage relations were fundamentally asymmetric.

Most importantly, Foucault writes that our notion of homosexuality is plainly inadequate while referring to the set of experiences and forms of valuation that constituted same-sex relationships within ancient Greek culture. The Greeks did not view love for one's own sex and the other sex as opposites, as two exclusive choices.

In short, modern conservatives and liberals would be utterly confused and would probably pull their hair out in ancient Greece.