Foucault Confessions

Foucault’s theories are helpful in understanding “Porphyria’s Lover.” In the poem, the male character, who is the narrator, perceives himself to elicit a confession from the woman. Inherent in the idea of confession are power dynamics. Confession is “...a ritual that unfolds within a power relationship, for one does not confess without the presence (or virtual presence) of a partner who is not simply the interlocutor but the authority who requires the confession...” (Foucault 61). Confession is a socially-constructed process in which it is necessary to have a mediator as well as a confessor.

Michel Foucault and Erving Goffman’s work was centralised around there two different concepts of how your identity is formed through the process of power and expert knowledge. This Essay will discuss the ideas of Michel Foucault who was a French Social Theorist. His theories addressed the relationship between power and knowledge and how both of these are used as a form of social control through society. The essay will look at Foucault’s work in The Body and Sexuality, Madness and Civilisation and Discipline and Punish which displays how he conceptualised Power and identity on a Marxist and macro basis of study. The Essay will also address the Ideas of Erving Goffman who was A Canadian Born Sociologist who’s key study was what

Sex. It is everywhere. We see in television shows. In magazines. On the Internet. But sex is still seen as a taboo subject in our society. I believe that being educated about sexuality is vitally important to one health. Understanding one’s body and how it impacts your life. To understand how your beliefs about sexuality and sex have developed one needs to look back over the years and how your beliefs were engrained in your life. This essay will be based on my reflection by looking back on my sexual history on how and what have significantly impacted my development of sexuality. The focus will be on my reflection of answering the sexual history questions and how I have changed and developed over the years. It is important to analyze and reflect to understand how I came to be today, that the past has created my ideas and beliefs about sex and sexuality that have shaped me.

Ira L. Reiss, a well-known sociologist, has contributed greatly to the field of human sexuality and in the 1960’s brilliantly predicted the revolutionary changes in sexual attitudes. In his novel, An End to Shame: Shaping Our Next Sexual Revolution, Reiss develops the notion that our previous sexual revolution did not adequately eliminate the inequalities related to sexuality. In reality he argues that America is in need of a newly formed sexual revolution, one that will address the negative consequences that our sex negative culture is experiencing. A significant portion of our population argues that these consequences are due to the fact that we talk too much and too soon about sex. This is an inaccurate view of the reasoning behind the sexual problems we are experiencing in America, as in reality the negative sexual outcomes we observe are due to the opposite of this view. This misconception is a common explanation for our sexual problems and many believe it is the key to solving our sexual crisis, but in reality is part of the problem. Reiss argues that “America is long overdue for a rendezvous with sexual reality” (18) and that the future of our nation depends on accepting these realities.

The repressive hypothesis discusses that because of this repression, we must “free” ourselves from the silence and instead be open to discuss and enjoy sex. Foucault agrees with some points of the repressive hypothesis, but not completely. Foucault did not understand how these examples such as the transformations of sex in our society could be seen as repressed. He believes instead of repression and silencing of the transformations of sex, there is a plethora of conversations being produced. There is not only one power, but also multiple. This is called the productive power. There is not one power, but many. Foucault explains them as capillary. Capillaries, by definition, are the connecting veins in which each thread transmits power around and then power becomes aggregated. Power is not something that is just one person and oppresses another person, it is dispersed and everywhere. The Catholic Church confessionals did not put a silence to sex; it brough’/t a conversation about sexuality. For instance, in

The article effectively presents the consequences of telling the truth, and, in Proust’s case, she was ridiculed and avoided for her words. On the other hand, her courage placed a spotlight on St. Paul’s School in an effort to reduce sexual violence on campus. Socrates does not advocate truth because it makes things simple but because the truth is justice, and “the man who has learned justice is a just man” (Plato 20). Through the lens of the Platonic framework, the article raises certain concerns about the justice system as a whole and the jurors’ verdict on Proust’s case. Although Proust’s openness also caused her classmates to mock her situation, perhaps someone in a similar predicament as her will now speak about their case. This article shows that even when one speaks justly and for the True, people may not understand or listen, but the truth must continue for the sake of

Ultimately, there have been ups and down with my introduction to sex. On one hand, there were many ways that my family and regional aspects were more accepting and beneficial than others towards my introduction to sex. On the other hand, the media’s role here in the US does a good job at creating a lack of self-worth in people. Nonetheless, I don’t believe my introduction to sex was overtly censured due to my

Foucault address the changing definition of crime and how power is exerted through the enforcement of punishment. During the monarchy, kings and queens showed their power and authority of the people by determining what punishment someone would receive for their actions. In the current political system, judges and juries are in the position to make these decisions. Judgement is the current system is based on motives and intent rather than on the severity of the crime alone. We care more about the psychological state of the individual and want to be able to change the person's soul to better respect society. The quote below addresses how punishment uses a variety of specializations and how the individual's mental state is molded to fit into standards we have created today.

After discussing how sex can have different meanings throughout history, Warner discusses the state of sexual shame in America today by mentioning the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Warner notes how discussion of Clinton’s impeachment focused more on his sex life than it did on laws Clinton had broken, because sex is by definition humiliating and therefore was used as a weapon against Clinton. In addition, the case on Bill Clinton shows just how much people like talking about sex, especially if it means shaming someone else for it. This suggests that, contrary to popular belief, we are not very repressed in our society. There are not restrictions against talking

Michel Foucault wrote a book called History of Sexuality. In Part five of the book Right of Death and Power over Life, he discusses about the historical “Sovereign Power” where one is allowed to decide who has the right to live and who has the right to die. The sovereign uses his power over life through the deaths that he can command and uses his authority to announce death by the lives he can spare. Foucault then moves on to Disciplinary Power where he came up with the “Panopticon” where one is to believe they were under surveillance at all times. Such surveillance is still used in our everyday life such as schools, prisons, offices, hospitals, and mental institutes. Later in his life, Foucault discovered Bio-power. This bio-power

The uniform truth about sex is really a consistent and unique truth that is inscribed upon society as necessary to keep societies organized and controlled. These controlled systems acquire and control our sexual appetite too for effectiveness because our sexuality is the weakness point of our bodies through which multiple discourses or sources of knowledge can pervade our conduct and our existence (Foucault 69). The control of our sexual feelings is the best method to discipline our behaviors, and thru discourses of knowledge is how power is prompted. For instance, Foucault explains that through confessions power is applied. As humans, we tend to see such confessions as a way

Michel Foucault’s work within philosophy has made important impacts when it comes to understanding how power affects a capitalist state. Believed that history of a country should how the past created a better future for society but in most cases through history, that was not the case. One of the examples that Foucault uses is how the mentally ill were treated in the Renaissance compared to the 18th century. During the Renaissance period, the mental ill people were allowed to seen within society and were seen as useful and gave wisdom into their society rather than in the 18th century. People with mental illness were put away and see as a burden to society and seen as needed to being cured by sinister people. Another example that Foucault discuss

Foucault's text takes the discussion of sex and places it against not only its own repression is society, but how sex in a society can be used as a path into discovering other aspects of the society. Sex became "normalized" in the Victorian-era, and when ones' sex life did not conform to what was considered normal, they were cast aside into brothels and mental institutions. This can expand farther into society, because it became if any aspect of life did not conform to what was "normal" and "proper" people were outcast and persecuted.

Do not get me wrong, a lot of the speeches in Symposium I had agreed with and made connections to, but looking at modern day society we do not really see sexuality as a form of transcendence, unless you follow the Kama Sutra properly, or as a means to become immortal. So, I sided more with Foucault for his claim or his Repressive Hypothesis since the sixteenth century discourse on sex/sexuality undergone processes of restriction. Quite the opposite happened after where sex/sexuality were subjected a process to increase the talk over the subject; “the techniques of power exercised over [sex/sexuality] have not obeyed a principle of rigorous selection, but rather one of dissemination and implantation of polymorphous sexualities; and that the will to knowledge has not come to a halt in the face of a taboo that must not be lifted, but has persisted in constituting – despite many mistakes, of course – a science of sexuality”

In women, a history of sexual activity is not taken to suggest experience in a positive sense, expertise, and high-quality sex. On the contrary, it is seen as a negative mark that marks off a certain kind of woman; which can be labeled as “loose” or “easy”. In our society, women have become to be valued for their innocence.