Sexy Sex

The concept of  sexuality, what is sexuality? and how do we define it? and how does it operate as a repressive or dominant machine in society?
 I began my search to define the concept of sexuality through good ol' Google, many of the sites that appeared in my search  struggled to define the term, the AmericanPsychological Association suggest that "Sexuality has three stages: Desire is an interest in being sexual. Excitement is the state of arousal that sexual stimulation causes. And orgasm is sexual pleasure's peaking.". Although the APA have a strong discourse and power in the area , their definition seemed to lack the complexity of the concept for me.

Through the Lecture on sexuality in week 4 we explore the idea of sexuality and the interrelations between the concepts of sexuality, gender and sex, and how power operates within these relationships much like the wedding cake example from Liam Leonard in week 2.

so back to the question earlier how does sexuality operate as a repressive machine within society?
Well my main focus to attempt to answer my question will be through Foucault and his theory on sexuality from his book "the History of Sex" mainly because I found his theory interesting. Foucault believes that sexuality was not used as an identity marker before discursive practices of sexuality were placed upon it, sexuality did not exist as an identity until it was categorised and labelled. Unlike the Repressive theory that many people, previously including me, thought Foucault was using to describe how sexuality operated in society, Foucault's book actually is a critique of this theory. He discusses the idea that there is no true or real sexuality and that sexuality is completely dictated and created by discourse. This to me didn't make much sense at first how can someone who has agency over their body have their sexuality a part of their identity created by the discourses surrounding them without questioning why. Foucault states this is due to the identities created around sexuality in the 18th century, that created mechanisms for the power/knowledge relationship focused on sex and sexuality. These include the hysterization of women and their bodies, the pedagogization of children's sex, a socialization of procreative behaviour and the psychiatrization of perverse pleasure.
The way these identities worked was through micropolitics as Deleuze termed, or as some of you may know the concept of ideological state apparatus. Unlike repressive state apparatuses in which the repressive theory was based, micro politics work through the ideologies of the culture in the society, instead of a behaviour being illegal it may instead be 'frowned upon' or not be appropriate and described as taboo.

As you may already experience in your own life when something is a little bit naughty or taboo it makes it some much more exciting and makes you want to test those lines and boundaries, this is why Foucault called micropolitics a productive mechanism.

I'm going to leave it there but I want to leave you with a video from one of my favourite shows on NatGeo called Taboo.
These desires are classed as taboo due to the fact that it doesn't involve the hetero normative sexuality and I think it is interesting who has the discourse to talk about this taboo.

A blog I read as I was writing this was Foucault's Nostalgia? by John Protevi