Part 4, ,Chapter 1, Objective Summary and Analysis

In Chapter 1, Foucault presents his objectives in discovering the history of sexuality. One objective is to analyze and validate the talking sex worn by Western society; a second is to understand the unceasing and simultaneously restrained and loquacious discourse of sexuality. Sexuality has not been, is not, repressed. Instead it is magnified, illuminated, and studied endlessly. In modern times it has largely been subjected to a particular form of exploitation through discourse, which has tied sexuality inextricably to power. Yet power's relation to sex is subtle; power is influenced only negatively, by laying down rules about sexuality. Power dictates law to sex and insists its own rules of prohibition be observed. One prohibition is on the acknowledgement of sexuality; thus "[r]enounce yourself or suffer the penalty of being suppressed; do not appear if you do not...