Foucault, from The History of Sexuality (Norton 1502-20)

1. What does Foucault bring to bear on the common stereotype of the Victorian era as a time of sexual frigidity and the repression of instinct?
2. The Marquis de Sade, as you probably know, is generally considered to be a sexual rebel, who dared to explore taboo subjects and practices in print amid a conservative cultural climate. Yet Foucault argues that Sade was no rebel, but an exemplary man of the age: why?
3. What are some of the ways that the state begins to intervene in the sexual lives of individuals beginning in the 17th century? What drives this process, according to Foucault? Can you think of examples from modern-day life?
4. Foucault tells us that the three major “codes” that governed sexuality in the 17th-18thC—canonical, civil, and pastoral—focused on marriage: protecting it, defining it, preserving it. What happens to this in the 19th-20thC? What are the implications of this shift?
5. Foucault tells us that it first becomes possible to speak of someone as a “homosexual” around 1870. What is the difference between someone who engages in what we now think of as “gay” behaviors pre- and post-1870? How does this difference speak to the broader shift in the social/discursive construction of sexuality?
6. Does Foucault think the “centrifugal” movement that results in the explosion of different categories and descriptions of sexuality from the 19thC onward is primarily liberating or repressive? How does he characterize the relationship between (individual) pleasure and (social) power in modern times?