Understanding

"The History of Sexuality" is not so much about sex, as it is about the relationship between communication, discourse, knowledge in power. In the Foucault debates the ever so common ideology that sexuality has become "repressed" by power in the Western world; he offers insight into the relationship of power-knowledge-pleasure. More specifically, Foucault argues against what he calls the "repressive hypothesis". Although Foucault does not refute this argument entirely, he raises several questions.

This repressive hypothesis supposes since the Victorian age of the bourgeoisie, the sexuality of humans has been repressed. He discusses how many consider that the repression of the bourgeoisie, in modern terms, coincides with the development of capitalism and the repression that developed with it. "It (sexuality) is incompatible with a general and intensive work imperative."

Why do we view sexuality as something that is supposed to be repressed? Foucault argues that this "repressive hypothesis" leads people to discourse about sex; the relationship is intertwined. Because we believe or own sexuality is repressed, to discuss it is viewed as liberating, as empowering, as "revolutionary." He compares our discourse on sexuality to preaching; sexual discourse alludes to a future of liberation, a future of freedom from the "powers that be". Therefore, instead of asking the question of "Why are we repressed?", Foucault believes it is more logical to ask "Why do we say we are repressed; why do we speak so much of our own repression?". The notion that we are repressed goes against countless advances towards free speech, the recent broadening of what is termed socially acceptable, etc.

Foucault believes that what he calls the "juridico-discursive" idea behind power is both a misconception, as well as one that underlies the "repressive hypothesis"; it is present in the minds of many members of our society. The "juridco-discursive" concept views power as something that is strictly negative, something that is built around the concept of repression. There are five characteristics of the "juridco-discursive" conception, according to Foucault. The first one is that the relationship between pleasure and power is one that is strictly negative, where there is power there is repression. Power cannot say "yes" to sex, with the exception of for the purpose of reproduction. The second one assmes that power places sex in a sort of "binary system"; power prescribes an order for sex and power's hold on sex is maintained through language. The third is that power acts only to prohibit and to suppress sex. The fourth is that power says sex is not permitted, that it is not to be spoken of, and ultimately, that it doesn't exist. The fifth one regards power as something that is omnipresent, as something that doesn't change. There is a uniform repression.

Foucault wants to disengage from the idea that power is something that is "to conceive them in terms of law, prohibition, liberty, and sovereignty", he states that "we must construct an analytics of power that not longer takes law as a model and a code". Foucault was interested in a much wider concept of power. He was interested in a way of thinking that could "conceive of sex without the law, and power without the king"

From Foucault's perspective, power is something which is "all-inclusive", there is no one source of power. Everyone and everything can be a source of power. Power exists in every form of discourse. The acknowledgement of such power does not signify a lack of power, rather a different manifestation of power.

There are five propositions regarding power, according to Foucault. First, power is not an object that one can posses or transfer, rather, it is exercised