The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction

by Michel Foucault

Unknown Binding

About the author

Paul-Michel Foucault was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationships between power and knowledge, and how they are used as a form of social control through societal institutions. Though often cited as a structuralist and postmodernist, Foucault rejected these labels. His thought has influenced academics, especially those working in communication studies, anthropology, psychology, sociology, criminology, cultural studies, literary theory, feminism, Marxism and critical theory.
Born in Poitiers, France, into an upper-middle-class family, Foucault was educated at the Lycée Henri-IV, at the École Normale Supérieure, where he developed an interest in philosophy and came under the influence of his tutors Jean Hyppolite and Louis Althusser, and at the University of Paris (Sorbonne), where he earned degrees in philosophy and psychology. After several years as a cultural diplomat abroad, he returned to France and published his first major book, The History of Madness (1961). After obtaining work between 1960 and 1966 at the University of Clermont-Ferrand, he produced The Birth of the Clinic (1963) and The Order of Things (1966), publications that displayed his increasing involvement with structuralism, from which he later distanced himself. These first three histories exemplified a historiographical technique Foucault was developing called "archaeology".
From 1966 to 1968, Foucault lectured at the University of Tunis before returning to France, where he became head of the philosophy department at the new experimental university of Paris VIII. Foucault subsequently published The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969). In 1970, Foucault was admitted to the Collège de France, a membership he retained until his death. He also became active in several left-wing groups involved in campaigns against racism and human rights abuses and for penal reform. Foucault later published Discipline and Punish (1975) and The History of Sexuality (1976), in which he developed archaeological and genealogical methods that emphasized the role that power plays in society.
Foucault died in Paris from complications of HIV/AIDS; he became the first public figure in France to die from complications of the disease. His partner Daniel Defert founded the AIDES charity in his memory.

Reviews

[Stephanie Spence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality, Volume 1 is a provocative dismantling of the idea that sexuality has been historically repressed. Instead, Foucault argues that modern discourse has obsessively produced knowledge about sex—not to liberate it, but to regulate and control it. Through his concept of biopower, he exposes how medicine, psychology, and law have pathologized certain sexualities while defining others as “normal.” For anyone studying psychology and human sexuality, this book is an urgent reminder that diagnosing, categorizing, and treating sexual behavior is never neutral—it is always entangled with power.

As a feminist, artist, and scholar, I find Foucault’s insights particularly relevant to the way sexuality has been medicalized, especially for women and marginalized identities. His critique of scientific discourse challenges us to consider how psychology has shaped—and limited—our understanding of desire, gender, and sexual identity. At the same time, his resistance to stable categories raises complex questions: Do labels like “gay” or “trans” help secure rights and recognition, or do they ultimately reinforce the structures of control? This tension is crucial for those of us working at the intersection of psychology and social justice.

Beyond theory, The History of Sexuality has deep implications for both clinical practice and creative expression. Just as abstract art resists rigid definition, Foucault’s work invites us to embrace fluidity in how we think about sexuality and the self. He does not offer solutions, only a method: to question what seems most natural and to remain wary of truth claims that serve systems of power. For anyone willing to sit with discomfort, this book is an invaluable tool for rethinking sexuality—not as something to be “discovered,” but as a discourse to be deconstructed.

[Steven H · Rating 3 out of 5]

THE FIRST OF FOUCAULT'S FINAL (UNFINISHED) SERIES OF BOOKS

Michel Foucault (1926-1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, and social theorist and activist. Openly gay [see the James Miller biography, 'The Passion of Michel Foucault'], he died of AIDS---the first "public figure" in France to die of the virus.

He wrote in the first chapter of this 1976 book, "For a long time... we supported a Victorian regime, and we continue to be dominated by it even today. Thus the image of the imperial prude is emblazoned on our restrained, mute, and hypocritical sexuality... It was forced to make a few concessions, however...the brothel and the mental hospital would be those places of tolerance... Only in those places would untrammeled sex have a right to (safely insularized) forms of reality, and only to clandestine, circumscribed, and coded types of discourse. Everywhere else, modern puritanism imposed its triple edict of taboo, nonexistence, and silence." (Pg. 1-3)

He continues, "We are informed that if repression has indeed been the fundamental link between power, knowledge and sexuality since the classical age, it stands to reason that we will not be able to free ourselves from it except at a considerable cost." (Pg. 3) He adds, "for decades now... we are conscious of defying established power, our tone of voice shows that we know we are being subversive, and we ... ardently ... appeal to the future, whose day will be hastened by the contribution we believe we are making. Something that smacks of revolt ...slips easily into this discourse on sexual oppression.... What sustains our eagerness to speak of sex in terms of repression is doubtless this opportunity to speak out against the powers that be, to utter truths and promise bliss... and the longing for the garden of earthly delights." (Pg. 6-7)

He summarizes, "my main concern will be to locate the forms of power, the channels it takes, and the discourses it permeates in order to reach ... that paths that give it access to the rare or scarcely perceivable forms of desire, how it penetrates and controls everyday pleasure... in short, the `polymorphous techniques of power.' ... I would like ... to search instead for instances of discursive production... of the production of power... of the propagation of knowledge... I would like to write the history of these instances and their transformations." (Pg. 12)

He suggests, "It is possible that where sex is concerned, the most long-winded, the most impatient of societies is our own.... What is peculiar to modern societies, in fact, is not that they consigned sex to a shadow existence, but that they dedicated themselves to speaking of it ad infinitum, while exploiting it at THE secret." (Pg. 33, 35)

He observes, "We must therefore abandon the hypothesis that modern industrial societies ushered in an age of increased sexual repression. We have not only witnessed a visible explosion of unorthodox sexualities, but... the proliferation of specific pleasures and the multiplication of disparate sexualities... never have there existed more centers of power, never more attention manifested and verbalized; never more circular contacts and linkages; never more sites where the intensity of pleasures and the persistency of power catch hold, only to spread elsewhere." (Pg. 49)

He explains, "This history of sexuality---that is, the history of what functioned in the nineteenth century as a specific field of truth---must first be written from the viewpoint of a history of discourses. Let us put forward a general working hypothesis. The society that emerged in the nineteenth century---bourgeois, capitalist, or industrial society, call it what you will---did not confront sex with a fundamental refusal of recognition. On the contrary, it put into operation an entire machinery for producing true discourses concerning it. Not only did it speak of sex and compel everyone to do so; it also set out to formulate the uniform truth of sex... it was essential that sex be inscribed not only in an economy of pleasure but in an ordered system of knowledge." (Pg. 69)

Later, he summarizes, "I have repeatedly stressed that the history of the last centuries in Western societies did not manifest the movement of a power that was essentially repressive." (Pg. 81)

At the end of the book, he observes, "By creating the imaginary element that is `sex,' the deployment of sexuality established one of its most fundamental internal operating principles: the desire for sex---the desire to have it, to have access to it, to discover it, to liberate it, to articulate it in discourse, to formulate it in truth. In constituted `sex' itself as something desirable. And it is this desirability of sex that attaches each one of us to the injunction to know it, to reveal its law and its power; it is this desirability that makes us think we are affirming the rights of our sex against all power..." (Pg. 156-157)

Controversial (particularly in light of Foucault's own life history), this unfortunately incomplete series nevertheless casts increasing light on an important side of Foucault's thought, and will be of great interest not just to those studying his philosophy, but to many others as well.