The "sexual cause"
 

"Tomorrow sex will be good again" (7)
 
a way of placing sex "on the agenda for the future," making it into a kind of "cause" (6)
 
To elaborate: "the sexual cause" (p. 6)--"the demand for sexual freedom, but also for the knowledge to be gained from sex and the right to speak about it" becomes "associated with the honor of a political cause"
 
pressing for "a discourse in which sex, the revelation of truth, the overturning of global laws, the proclamation of a new day to come, and the promise of a certain felicity are linked together"
 
though Foucault notes that one could interepret this as a manifestation of "the same old prudishness," that we need these "valorizing correlations" before we are willing to participate in liberated sex discourse
 
Foucault notes that we are eager to speak about sex in terms of repression, because it gives us a self-gratifying "opportunity to speak out against the powers that be, to utter truths and promise bliss, to link together enlightenment, liberation, and manifold pleasures; to pronounce a discourse that combines the fervor of knowledge, the determination to change the laws, and the longing for the garden of earthly delights" (7)

> from Michel Foucault's The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1 (1990)

> tagged with #politics, #sexuality

> created Jun 12, 2025 at 2:57:25 PM


> part of unfinished everything


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unfinished everything is an original work / ongoing project (1997-present) by jeremy p. bushnell

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