Why, for Foucault, is sex ‘the crucial target of a power organized around the management of life’?

 Introduction

Power according to Foucault, is all-encompassing. It more than any individual actions shapes our world through its unseen networks. Foucault explores some of these networks using genealogies and informs us of how knowledge, madness, discipline & punishment and sex act as discourses that allow power to manage life. The particular aspects of power and the management of life from Foucault’s work paint sex as the most pervasive, the reasons behind this are explored further within this essay. Madness and Civilisation as well as the Birth of the Clinic although later described by Foucault as being about Power are not focussed on here (Gutting, Foucault A Very Short Introduction, 2005).

Foucault’s methods

Foucault uses genealogy to establish his history of sexuality. This method is aimed at answering, what is for Foucault the key question, one that is not one simply of why something is, but rather of why we think something is the way it is and what has made us think that (Foucault, Space, Knoweldge, Power, 1986).

Defined by Foucault as “Gray, meticulous, and patiently documented it operates on a field on entangled and confused parchments, on documents that have been written over many times” (Foucault, Nietzsche, Geneology and History, 1986).

This search is not for origins but transitions of discontinuity that effect both history and the body. The results resist discovering universal laws and focus on the specific events and how the threads within link together. Unlike history, it meets histories three modalities of parody, systemic dissociation and will to knowledge which Foucault claims history itself fails to meet (Foucault, Nietzsche, Geneology and History, 1986).

These systems of discourse can be used as a means of understanding non-discursive practices. (Gutting, Michel Foucault, 2005). Foucault focusses these methods on uncovering systems of power and how they interact with knowledge, madness, discipline & punishment and sex.

Power according to Foucault

Power, generally defined as the ability of an individual or institution to achieve something (Blackburn, 2016). Although Foucault accepts the existence of the objective reality his views say objective facts within our world are merely fuel for the subjective (Foucault, Truth and Power, 1986). That rather than being the domain of the individual, power is best understood by looking at large scale phenomena as networks made up of vast numbers of minute, unconnected facts (Gutting, Michel Foucault, 2005) These facts or knowledge are not merely employed by power but form a symbiotic relationship with power to create systems of social control that are both creative and repressive (Gutting, Michel Foucault, 2005). These networks should be seen as “a multiplicity of force relations immanent in the sphere in which they operate and constitute their own organisation” (Foucault, The Will to Knowledge: The History of Sexuality, 1981).

That once a particular discourse or set of knowledge emerges even if it provides complete truth systems of power will utilise the new knowledge to dominate or create. Although power/knowledge is seen by Foucault as all-encompassing this does not stop knowledge generated by a particular system from causing that particular system’s destruction although generally there will be resistance (Foucault, Truth and Power, 1986).

Sex according to Foucault

Arguments within this essay are limited to Foucault’s views from 17^th century on modern sex, although he did cover ancient sex this was not directly linked to an exploration of biopower and is therefore not relevant to the question at hand (Gutting, 2005).

We think of this period as a period of reduced discourse on sex, described as the repressive hypothesis, however, Foucault rejects this idea and lays out the ‘discursive explosion’ during this period (Foucault, The Will to Knowledge: The History of Sexuality, 1981).

Christianity started a discourse on sex. With sex being a thing we must treat as a secret and not talk about in polite society but reveal to empowered individuals. At that moment priests but over time the secularisation of society would move that role from the clergy to the sciences (Foucault, The Will to Knowledge: The History of Sexuality, 1981).

This discourse would go beyond mere actions, it would be crucial that power also gains a view on the thoughts, desires and inclinations that go along with the actions performed by individuals. (Gutting, Michel Foucault, 2005). The dawn of the social medicines that seek explanations for all actions and thoughts replaced the priest as out confession and fuelled further investigations into the thoughts, desires and inclinations not just of individuals but of populations.

This leaves us with sex as spoken about more than ever but one kept as a secret between individuals, the experts and the institutions of power that they serve (Foucault, The Will to Knowledge: The History of Sexuality, 1981). This modern world and the discourse on sex serves to normalise the population both as objects of knowledge but also as self-scrutinising subjects (Gutting, Michel Foucault, 2005).

Management of Life

Power over life and death is no longer, according to Foucault the same as what it once was, that is the ability for a sovereign to take life. It is now, in the modern era, a conditional relationship between individuals and the state. A successful state must not just act on when “Deduction” of life is necessary but also when to “incite reinforce, control, monitor optimise and organise” (Foucault, Right of Death and Power Over Life, 1986).

That in order for a system of social control to be successful it must have institutions that optimise its bio-power through power-knowledge. This endeavour no longer involves merely the management of individuals but of populations for economic, social, political, or military purposes (Foucault, Right of Death and Power Over Life, 1986).

This makes a system that successfully manages life one that is made of individuals and institutions that:

• Avoid deducting life.
• Reinforce the existing system of domination
•  Monitor other individuals and institutions to ensure conformance to the existing system of domination.
•  Optimise biopower and power-knowledge
• Organise to ensure the spread of the existing system of domination.

Sex as the crucial target for managing life

Foucault within his wider writings looks at how knowledge, discipline and sex interact with power (Gutting, Foucault A Very Short Introduction, 2005) Knowledge, madness, discipline and sex all aid systems of social control to guide individuals as objects.

To deduct life is, by modern systems, avoided at all costs. Knowledge, Crime and sex rely on the continuation life of the individual subjected to the system of control (Foucault, Right of Death and Power Over Life, 1986). In the case of sex by ensuring that the population is normalised in various ways not just thrown away but transformed to be useful to the state. The same is true of crime which now as a medical matter is not the segregation and punishment of a dissident but the transformation of the individual into one that better serves society (Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 1979).

Reinforcement is the first key component of the management of life where a focus on sex has a significant advantage for Foucault over crime or knowledge. Crime and Knowledge allow power to act upon the body, they treat individuals as objects (Gutting, Michel Foucault, 2005). Sex on the other hand and the practice of the confession to experts and the rules that now pervade our discourse on sex not only act on individuals as objects to discipline the body but also act upon the mind of the subject (Foucault, The Will to Knowledge: The History of Sexuality, 1981). This internalisation of the rules of society now entangled with the ideas of sex makes the mind of western people that of a ‘confessing animal’. This confessing animal unlike medieval people would not open up to their family, friends, educators but only their doctors, the supposed wielders of objective truth (Foucault, The Will to Knowledge: The History of Sexuality, 1981). In reality, Foucault argues that these really are instruments of the view of power wearing the veil of truth.

Furthermore, the monitoring of individuals with this confessing reflex creates a panopticon of the mind (Foucault, The Will to Knowledge: The History of Sexuality, 1981). Bentham’s panopticon concept was that it involved controlling convicts through the potential for constant observation rather than force (Calhoun, 2002). What more constant observation and monitoring could any system of power hope for than the mind of the very individuals it wishes to dominate.

A controlled discourse on sex is not there to eliminate but to ensure that sex is focussed towards economic or political purposes. That although irregularities are treated as mental illness for all ages and those sufferers helped to overcome those abnormal behaviours, behaviour that reproduces labour capacity and remains politically conservative is enforced. This growth and optimisation of biopower also extends to areas of sex often seen as immoral such as prostitution and pornography which remain as a pleasure that can be sought just in a manner that is economically or politically use and observable to the state or confessed to the state by the subject (Foucault, The Will to Knowledge: The History of Sexuality, 1981). The modern capitalist system would not have been possible without good bodies, bodies that formed a population capable of effective production.

Organisation of those bodies into docile bodies was first explored by Foucault in discipline and punishment (Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 1979). These bodies are not selected by looking at natural properties or gifts but by acting upon all bodies equally, like clay that can be moulded into a soldier or a citizen. These methods create man as a machine one that acts, moves and behave as intended (Foucault, Docile Bodies, 1986). This however still only succeeds at creating objects for use by the state not true subjects, it leaves minds free of the effects of power. That the organising power of exerted on sex from “top to bottom, state to family, agencies of social domination to the structures that constitute the subject himself” (Foucault, The Will to Knowledge: The History of Sexuality, 1981). The very fact that we think of sex in a less rational way means it power a way into controlling our will, a path that can never be exploited by knowledge or disciplinary techniques which remain as the rational other.

Remaining undetected

The disguise of managing knowledge of sex through so called objective truth via the ‘dubious’ science of psychiatry gives a useful means of social control (Foucault, Truth and Power, 1986). However, its greatest power is to remain undetected. Power relies on secrecy to remain unchallenged (Foucault, The Will to Knowledge: The History of Sexuality, 1981). Despite being the subject of a discourse more prolific and varied than ever before, sex, remains a topic that is investigated for its effect on us but not how it is used to control us or how we came to think of it like we do. That the subjects forbidden nature allows power’s use of it to remain undiscovered long after power’s affect on knowledge or crime would have been undone.

This is primarily facilitated by control of and eventual removal of language. That sex more that most subjects as been easily amenable to power to at first change the circulation of speech and over time extinguish words that would make sex visibly present (Foucault, The Will to Knowledge: The History of Sexuality, 1981). Beyond this initial control, the remaining language is the language allowed by power, one that rarely calls sex what it is and focuses on the licit if it does and never the censored illicit. That this control of discourse on sex directly affects the nondiscursive actions of individuals in a manner that is both economically and politically beneficial in managing life (Foucault, The Will to Knowledge: The History of Sexuality, 1981).

Liberation of a paradoxical sort

Not only can power remain hidden within the realm of sex through the control of language it can propagate the ‘right’ ideas by having them seen a liberating for the individual. That the historical narrative of repression and the trend towards greater freedom. That the rebellious energy we have can be dedicated to this newfound freedom with our increased knowledge and rational understanding of an ultimately emotional domain. That not only does power act in secrecy but for us to believe that we are breaking free of power we also have to accept it does not exist. The issue with our liberation is power does set a law of sex enforced by language which is simply a law of prohibition reliant only on the punishment of the repression of sex (Foucault, The Will to Knowledge: The History of Sexuality, 1981). Simply put, we can be free in a controlled manner that we do not believe to be controlling at all, we feel more liberated than we have ever been whilst diligently serving the current system of power.

Conclusion

Michel Foucault throughout his works has investigated the relationship power has with knowledge, crime, and sex. Through his genealogies he outlines how systems of power can deduct, incite reinforce, control, monitor optimise and organise life. Although knowledge and crime support a system of power that can perform all of these acts they are limited to affecting individuals merely as objects. Only sex is shown to be able to turn the individual into a self-normalising subject of power. Beyond creating subjects, sex’s forbidden nature allows power’s control of language to remain undetected for far longer than systems of knowledge or discipline and punishment would. Not only does power’s effect on sex remain undetected but it has had the effect of allowing us to feel liberated due to the false narrative of repression meaning even rebellious acts fit into power’s regime. These key advantages make sex, for Foucault, the crucial target for a power organised around the management of life.

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