As the sources I scour about sexuality increase, so does my understanding of the broad problems surrounding the history of sex. However, as my increased understanding, or rather, exponentially growing interest and grasps at the general ideas, grows, more questions seem to arise, the answers to them become seemingly more and more out of reach. […]
Regarding the deployment of sexuality, Foucault discusses four strategies that, beginning in the 18th century, were used to distinguish the working relationship of knowledge and power of sex. The very first, the “hysterization of women’s bodies”, focuses on the woman and how mentally and physically she became a symbol of the scientia sexualis of the […]
“Keep away from whores and all loose women. KEEP AWAY FROM WHORES!” said a pamphlet given out to soldiers during World War I. This pamphlet was ancillary to a pro-kit that was also distributed in order to prevent further outbreaks of venereal diseases. It contained a tube of ointment, a cloth with soap, a cleansing […]
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 […]
Earlier this week on NPR’s Fresh Air host Terry Gross interviewed Randi Epstein about her book Get Me Out, chronicling the history of childbirth. Gross and Epstein discuss some of the reasons why so many women died before modern medicine.
