I’m confused

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As with most weeks, I read Charlotte’s blog post before I wrote mine and I agree with everything she said. Big surprise. I also saw a lot of things that echoed Trouillot and Freud (the latter more obviously, as his name is mentioned in the text), which was interesting.

I also liked Trouillot, and yet I find this a bit … unrewarding. I’m reading the words, and I’m processing, but I’m not getting anything from it. And it’s not the usual “hmm I wonder what this means” feeling that I have after reading a particularly mind-boggling text. It’s more of a perpetual “hmmmmmmmmm” and not much else.

This is about sex. Okay. I find that a lot of the things Foucault addresses as phenomena, or something like phenomena, are rather obvious. For example, parents sleep in different bedrooms from their children because sex and children do not mix. The issues of masturbation and puberty are part of the so-called ‘sexual experiences’ of children. A lot of times sex is considered a taboo subject and is kind of skirted around rather than being tackled head-on. This seems very simpleminded to me, rather like a mediocre essay. Almost there, but not quite that last step that would make it an A.

Also, being the OCD/petty details person that I am, I find the text in this book impossible to look at. It literally looks like a chunk of words on every page. Oh, and the sentences are ridiculously long.

A few quotes I found interesting:

“Everything that might concern the interplay of innumerable pleasures, sensations, and thoughts which, through the body and the soul, had some affinity with sex.” (Foucault 20) –> so everything to do with pleasure/sensation has to do with sex?

On page 27, he describes sex as being “a constant preoccupation”. I feel like by this point he’s said it a few other ways already. I get it. Everyone is thinking about sex, all the time, every day.

Once again, it’s late (not even Sunday anymore, but Monday…) and I’m looking forward to hearing Christina’s thoughts on this puzzling text in lecture tomorrow.