Foucault: the imaginary sex

J Homosex. 1993;25(1-2):41-61. doi: 10.1300/J082v25n01_04.

Abstract

Foucault has haphazardly written many things about contemporary homosexuality (we have only two short interesting interviews on the subject). But La Volonté de Savoir develops a new idea about the modern sexuality inclination; Surveiller et Punir is a real political economy of the human body; and Foucault's last two books on antiquity give us a new point of view as regards the relations of subject to desire. This combined analysis constitutes a coherent structure of proposals that helps to enlighten crucial matters relevant to the gay community, particularly when it deals with what sexual "freedom and sexual identity mean. The answers outlined by Foucault yield two questions and two meanings as regards homosexuality nowadays, which cannot be kept apart from experience, and without any need of theoretical dissociation, if we are to understand the problem better.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study

MeSH terms

  • Cross-Cultural Comparison
  • Female
  • France
  • Gender Identity*
  • Homosexuality / psychology*
  • Humans
  • Imagination*
  • Literature, Modern*
  • Male
  • Sexual Behavior
  • Social Conformity
  • Social Identification