Homosexuality by Michel Foucault Analysis

📌Category: History, LGBTQ+, Social Issues
📌Words: 535
📌Pages: 2
📌Published: 27 January 2022

Foucault, in order to locate the emergence of the homosexual first details the emergence of a modern sex culture. He first expresses a fondness for the role of sexuality for the ancient Greeks. Ancient Greek culture was not centered around sexuality and sexual identity as it is today. The focus was rather on pleasures in general such as eating, exercising, and marriage. The moral judgment of these pleasures was based on the overall quality of one’s life and one’s ability to “exercise self-mastery”(Seidman 175). Consequently, in Greek culture, homosexuality was not seen as separate from heterosexuality as sexual preference was not a means of classification. Sexual relationships between married adult men and young boys were common, as marriage was overall seen as a social obligation as opposed to an act of love. Although several modern scholars and activists have used Greek society to argue for same-sex marriage/rights, Foucault argued that the Greeks were not enlightened, rather they just fundamentally viewed sexual preference differently. 

This paradigm was shifted along with the transition from Greek city-states to the Imperial Roman era, in which “Marriage took the place of same-sex love as the sphere of true love”(Seidman 176). This shift was instrumental in the creation of this modern sex culture. This culture taught that sex was “the hidden truth of the self”(Seidman 177). This idea of sex as an inner truth was further developed due to the rise of Christianity, particularly the practice of confession (Seidman 176). Confession furthered this idea as it promoted that sex must be kept a secret. Non-religious people searched for this inner self through practices such as therapy and psychiatry.

 In the Christian faith, homosexuality is classified as an act. This is mostly due to the idea that we are all made in the likeness of God. Because we are God’s children, we are not inherently sexual deviants, we merely commit acts of sexual deviance. This perspective is evident in modern-day conversion therapy, where it is the assumption that homosexuality is a disease that can be cured through treatment as religion. This point of view was shifted upon the popularization of discourse surrounding sex in the scientific field. The Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment triggered a quest for methods to explain and predict human behavior. The search for an order of sexuality that would reveal mankind’s true sexual nature created “a population of new sexual selves”(Seidman 178). In this modern culture of sexuality, your sexual preference labels you a certain sexual type. Foucault illustrates this by locating the emergence of a new sexual type: the homosexual. Prior to this homosexual behavior was treated in a similar way to any other criminal behavior due to the popularity of the Christian perspective. Now, however, the homosexual was not just a person who committed a crime but was marked a “deviant human type”(Seidman 178). Consequently, the homosexual became subject to punishment and a entirely new domain of homophobia was unleashed. 

In America, this movement for sexual identification was seen as liberating and allowed people to finally express themselves. Foucault noted the flourishing communities oriented around sexuality in American that developed movements to further normalize homosexuality. Foucault claimed, however, claimed that this very movement that claimed to liberate was used as a mode of social control. By existing, we are subject to this regime of sexuality regardless of whether we overtly identify with our sexuality or not. This shift from religion to science was decisive in creating the modern view of homosexuality.

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