Scientia Sexualis
In the third part of The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault introduces the concepts of scientia sexualis, or “telling the truth of sex which are geared to a form of knowledge-power,” and its counterpart, ars erotica, or telling the truth of sex from “pleasure itself” (57-58). Foucault argues that Western civilization has adopted the scientia sexualis approach and filtered sex through science to the point that finding the truth about pleasure became a pleasure (71). Foucault has the confession in mind as the form for scientia sexualis and identifies five ways the traditional confession can be transformed into scientific terms (65-67). In my mind, Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by popular-science writer, Mary Roach, came up.
Roach introduces the pioneers of modern sex research such as Williams Masters and Virginia Johnson, Alfred Kinsey, etc. and their early studies. As Foucault described, confessional-style explicit records of a study subject’s/patient’s sexual history are highlighted as the first direct instances of human sex research in Roach’s account. Yet, the majority of Roach’s book covers more contemporary sex research in which live sex/human subjects are bought into the lab and perhaps even hooked up to lab equipment, which is perhaps a step up from the confession-style data collection Foucault had in mind. From my recollection of reading Bonk, heart rates were recorded, a “penis-camera” was built, MRIs were used, and a menagerie of other techniques were used and data collected for the sake of understanding and quantifying the technical aspects of sex and sexual pleasure. With that in my mind, I very much buy Foucault’s argument of how Western society deals with the truth of sex. And perhaps, a bit beyond Foucault’s time, the medicalization of sexual-dysfunction further increased scientific sex research and discourse.
Another constant theme in Roach’s book is the stigma and the moral, civil, and (sometimes) legal troubles many sex researchers in the past and even in the present had to deal with. Roach cites contemporary sex researchers purposefully using vague terms (ex. “physiological” instead of “sexual”) for grant proposals and human subjects review boards and having to engage in tangent research (fertility, urology, etc.) to keep labs afloat (2008: 14). Roach also acknowledges accusations of sex researchers being perverts and writes about the cringe-factor in researching for the book, which included volunteering as a human test subject for several sex studies. I felt Foucault (so far) skimmed over the hush-hush nature of the scientia sexualis approach (though I admit reading Foucault was a cycle of “ah-ha” moments and mental black-outs five pages later for me). However, I think this uncomfortableness Roach observes supports Foucault’s theory that repression does not share a direct relationship with the level of discussion/discourse. As Foucault points out, the discourse of sex has exploded since the seventeenth century as evident by increased terminology and new topics in scientific sex research in the last few centuries, but we still feel repressed and hold “Victorian-like” ideas in dealing with the topic of sex.
Tags: Confession, Discourse, Foucault, Scientific
