Sexuality and Gender Foucaults Construction of Sexuality

Sexuality and gender: Foucaults construction of sexuality According to Foucaults theory of sexuality, both heterosexuality and homosexuality are constructs, rather than are ideas that are innately part of the individuals genetic makeup or sexuality. Before the 19th century mania for classifying persons and documenting medical disorders, there were only homosexual acts. Now, there are homosexual persons because of the medicalization of the language of homosexuality. Heterosexuality was also created as the mirror-image of heterosexuality. However, although Foucaults theory may initially seem to contradict the idea of being born this way articulated by gay activists today, Foucaults theory is not fundamentally incompatible with the aims of the gay liberation movement. Foucaults theory of sexuality is tied to what he called the repressive hypothesis, which states that modern control of sexuality parallels modern control of criminality by making sex (like crime) an object of allegedly scientific disciplines, which simultaneously offer knowledge and domination of their objects. However, it becomes apparent that there is a further dimension in the power associated with the sciences of sexuality. Not only is there control exercised via others knowledge of individuals; there is also control via individuals knowledge of themselves (Gutting 2008). 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