The Science of Truth
In Part Three of The History of Sexuality, entitled “Scientia Sexualis”, Michel Foucault makes one conclusion about the “truth”: “…There has evolved over several centuries, a knowledge of the subject; a knowledge not so much of his form, but of that which divides him, determines him perhaps, but above all causes him to be ignorant of himself” (70). Drawing on his main hypothesis that, rather than sexuality being repressed by the nineteenth century bourgeois society, it was actually thrust into the center of society (via doctors, schools, churches, government, or the household) it seems this societal strive for the “truth”–or some sort of standard definition of sex–has, in the process, taken away our mastery of ourselves. “What if sex in our society… was something that was placed within an unrelenting system of confession,” Foucault asks (61). What if? If there is truth in that, then the confession liberates us, as was established by the Church and reaffirmed time and time again by society. However, the confession has made us all talk with nothing to show for it, “ignorant of ourselves”, disclosing details of our sexualities to conform to the scientific and disciplinary formulas that have been laid out with no room for indiscretion.
In earlier chapters, Foucault discusses the ars erotica, that is, the erotic art that the societies of Rome, China, Japan, India and others adhered to; societies that took pleasure at face value (57). Pleasure was seen as the truth; not in terms of “the permitted and the forbidden”, but rather for its affects on the body and soul; something to be revered as clandestine; not be disclosed to the world (57). In our society, the complete opposite is true: sex is judged by a science that is rooted in our need to confess, a need that has been instilled in our culture since the Middle Ages (58). This confession rids us of our sins and the “true” nature of our sexuality, which no one dared to outwardly have interest in, though a clear societal obsession is evident. So the “truth”, or rather what people did not want to publically admit was the truth, “a blanket guarantee under cover of which moral obstacles, economic or political options, and traditional fears could be recast in a scientific sounding vocabulary”, materialized in medical examinations, confession booths, and talks with friends, cementing the scientia sexualis in our society (55).
This hunger to speak about (apparently) that-which-should-not-be-spoken is exemplified by the farm hand who was sexually engaged with a little girl in Lapcourt in 1867 (31). This case of sexual deviancy from a small village went on to induce judicial interference and became the subject of medical and psychological studies. Later in the eighteen century, marriage also became the subject of the confession, under “constant surveillance” and the “focus of constraints” in society (37). It seems that the need to categorize every sexual behavior and deviance became the way to “truth”: a neat package that can store away the realities of our nature, i.e. the homosexual “was now a species” (43). However, sexuality is ultimately undefinable and infinitely expanding “even where there was no order to fit… into”, a fact seemingly overlooked by those trying desperately to catalogue it (43).
If sex, as in the ars erotica, serves as a guide through which we learn about ourselves and pleasure guides us to “truth”, then our society seems to have veered far off course with the outlined criteria and neat labels ready to bind our deepest, darkest secrets. As Foucault says, “truth does not belong to the order of power,” so the powers that be, the powers to which we surrender, making us seek to rid ourselves of secrets in search of the truth, only make us more ignorant of ourselves and the simple truths that hide out in our pleasures (60).
Tags: ars erotica, confession, identity, pleasure, scientia sexualis, truth
