A Note on Foucault and Sexuality
by Yvy Truong
After reading a bit of Foucault, it made my mind do a bit of running. I will say though, it deserves a second read to understand it more clearly.
But, as I was saying… Reading Foucault made me really think about how we think about sexuality today. I don’t know how to think of it really. For one, you could say that we have progressed forward and more sexually liberated. More and more we are pushing towards equality and people who aren’t heterosexual are allowed to express themselves. When people who are attacked because they are homosexual, transsexual, etc., etc., we see that as hate crimes. Just recently on the Grammy’s (I believe it was the Grammy’s anyway) I believe 30 couples got married (and not all of them were heterosexual couples mind you). However, though we are allowed to express sexuality, you could argue that our image of sexuality is a bit too… risqué? Overly-sexualized perhaps? (And I’m speaking of Western culture because I think if we observe cultures in different countries, sex really is something not talked about, people cannot publicly express their sexual orientations, and women are prohibited in many ways). As a young woman, I cannot easily ignore the standards that are emplaced before me. There are adds that exploit sexuality, there are billboards of women parading in teenie-weenie undies, frolicking in a sexual euphoria, and pornography may set a wrong example of what sex is (at at least what I think sex is)
But is that liberating?
Sexual liberation seems to be a bit of a paradox. In one sense we are more free to express ourselves but on the other, there are standards and depictions of sexuality that are a bit ridiculous.
Haha, so what I’m really saying is that I shouldn’t be shunned for wearing my granny-panties.
I have my problems with modern sexual liberation because of how unnecessarily excessive it feels, to the point where those women who frolic in sexual euphoria, as much as they may flaunt liberation and ownership of the female form, are also contributing to female objectification, while imposing society’s accepted view of sexuality onto everybody, making it not true liberation but just more repressive behaviour.
Why is so-called sexual liberation accompanied with excessive, occasionally lewd behaviour?
Perhaps it’s not and I’m just a bit of a prude.
foucault : granny-panties
I just liked seeing that in your tags.
I think you put it more eloquently than I did, but that is indeed exactly what I am **trying** to say, haha!
Really interesting discussion here, and I, too, enjoyed seeing “granny panties” in a tag! Your point that we are perhaps not as “liberated” as we think we are because of the images portrayed in popular culture and pornography is a very good one. Can we just be sexual in however way we choose (of course, making sure we aren’t harming anyone or doing anything without others’ consent)? No, not really. What counts as “normal” sexuality is very much influenced by the cultures around us, as you and Kathy note. And hey, granny panties are comfortable!