2 Foucault’s The History of Sexuality, Volume II

Key Ideas and Terms to Know:

• Morality
• The Ethical Subject
• Aprodisia
• Sophrosunē
• Active vs. Passive

In Volume II of Foucault’s History of Sexuality (The Use of Pleasure) he examines how desire came to be a moral issue and the various discourses we engage in to affirm the moral valuation of sex. He also engages in a discussion of the ethical subject. Who gets subjecthood? Men? Women? Adults? Children? Who can give consent? A part of this discussion is a person’s ability to control themselves and curb their desires. There is an antagonistic relationship between one’s sexual desires, and their mastery over that desire. Foucault almost alludes to a “victory” one has over themself: but this mastery is only possible for adult men. A part of this discussion is the active vs passive.

Main Point 1: Problematization of desire

“This dynamics was defined by the movement that linked the aphrodisia to the pleasure that was associated with them and to the desire to which they gave rise. The attraction exerted by pleasure and the force of the desire that was directed toward it constituted, together with the action of the aphrodisia itself, a solid unity. The dissociation–or partial dissociation at least–of this ensemble would later become one of the basic features of the ethics of the flesh and the notion of sexuality. This dissociation was to be marked, on the one hand, by a certain “elision” of pleasure (a moral devaluation through the injunction given in the preaching by the Christian clergy against the pursuit of sensual pleasure as a goal of sexual practice; a theoretical devaluation shown by the extreme difficulty of finding a place for pleasure in the conception of sexuality); it would also be marked by an increasingly intense problematization of desire (in which the primordial sign of a fallen nature or the structure characteristic of the human condition would be visible).” (P. 42)

Main Point 2: Self-control

“The relationship to desires and pleasures is conceived as a pugnacious one: a man must take the position and role of the adversary with respect to them, either according to the model of the fighting soldier or the model of the wrestler in a match … This combative relationship with adversaries was also an agonistic relationship with oneself. The battle to be fought, the victory to be won, the defeat that one risked suffering–these were processes and events that took place between oneself and oneself. The adversaries the individual had to combat were not just within him or close by; they were part of him.” (P. 68)