The History of Sexuality, Vol. 3: The Care of the Self (Vintage) [ペーパーバック]

This is my favorite volume in The History of Sexuality. In The Care of the Self, Foucault traces the shift towards a greater concern over sexual praxis which initiated a more severe ethical code from the one found in the Greek antiquity of his The Use of Pleasure. It is here that Foucault shows us the seeds of moral anxiety that would permeate later Christian sexual ethics. However, Foucault makes clear that this is not the sexuality found in the Christian era--there are still several substantial differences.

So what is the nature of the changes presented in this volume? First is the newfound and pivotal concern for the self nearly absent in the writing examined in the preceding volume. The Greeks seemed concerned for the self only insomuch as an untamed, desirous self would have no right to rule over others within the domestic or political sphere (Use 70-72). These political conceptions of the good, moderate citizen, in conjunction with any special birthrights, were to dominate the life of the individual men (I use this word literally) who would make up a Greek city (Use 72). But within the first two centuries of our own era, there was a new concern for the self and a general disconnection of its relation to the political sphere (Care 67-68). It was through the care of the self that one would discover how to relate to the political realm, and this would be regardless of class strata or other "external" difference (Care 87-94). In many ways, the development of more personal practices of the self would more definitely shape the greater moral code--this code would be more relativized, more individualized.

But this would certainly not mean that men could absolutely develop their own ethical code without regard to the discursive features of the period. It was not absolutely relative to the individual in question. The second theme, thus, was a shift in emphasis in practices related to the body, boys and marriage. In all of these realms, there was an increasing idea of the frailty of the fiber--morally and physically--of the self. For instance, the Greek's valorization of sexual moderation shifted nearly to idealization of sexual abstinence in Roman writings (122). What was once an anxiety over the effects of too much sexual activity became an anxiety over sexual pleasure generally--due very visibly to the new emphasis on the care of the self for the self's own sake (123).

Within this thematic of shifting values the question of marriage and of relations with young men was re-cast. Marriage became a much more personal institution; the idea of love, mutual care and fidelity began to dominate discourse on marriage. Where before the husband was not expected to have sexual relations exclusively with his wife (Use 180), it was now a weakness if he did not (Care 175). Marriage was idealized as the most perfect, most complete formulation for sexual relation. Therefore, Foucault writes, when the love of young men was posed, it would often be contrasted with this more "perfect" marital relation and held against a valorization of intentional virginity--ideally meant until the more excellent marital union might be realized (228-32). The love of young men became a weakness of the self in this ideational restructuring.

This is perhaps where I would call into question Foucault's hermeneutical method. While he makes it very clear that he is only analyzing an elite medico-philosophical discourse from the period (235), he does not mention exactly what this means: what he is leaving out. Martial's Epigrams, for instance, was a contemporaneous personal exposition into as many sexual acts and practices as one might imagine. Further, Garland's poetry from the same period speaks of a love for a boy held above any other love one might find in the earthly realm. Foucault can only (albeit convincingly) speculate that the early Roman discourse he is uncovering matriculated into the formation of the Christian Roman Empire (235), and that it was not, for instance, an inconsequential reaction to the varied "decadences" one might find in these other literary works. There is simply not a lot of methodological certainty about why or how this elite and small conversation between philosophers and medics diffused itself so completely into the later empire.

Nonetheless, I still think that this is the most exciting volume of Foucault's history. Its presentation is more complex and subtle then the almost schematically frigid The Use of Pleasure, and its articulation is more intentional and deliberate than the broad strokes of the Introduction. Moreover, this volume, I believe, shows us the very first seeds of the discourse that would eventually insist on an essential sexuality revelatory of the truth of the self: the idea of sexuality we all live with today.

in the 2nd volume the reader learned that `the obligation to keep the use of pleasure within the bounds of marriage was a way of exercising self-mastery, a mastery made necessary by one's status or authority one had to exercise in the city.'

in volume 3 foucault discusses the shift from the greek city states to the rise of hellenistic monarchies and the empire of rome. the prominent texts consulted by foucault were mainly written by the stoics, seneca, epictetus, and plutarch, and galen, when the body in particular is discussed. the consulted texts are of practical application, beginning, in the 2nd century, with artemidorus' the interpretation of dreams, a book of which foucault wrote, `exemplifies a common way of thinking ... which will allow a measure of what may have been uncommon and in part new in the work of philosophical and medical reflection on pleasure and sexual conduct that was undertaken in the same period', of the second sophistic.

`the ethics inspired by stoicism, are in order to satisfy the specific requirements of the relation to oneself, not to violate one's natural and essential being, and to honor oneself as a reasonable being that one must keep one's practice of sexual pleasure within marriage and in conformity with its objectives.'

however, the problematic of boys as the object of erotic desire rises again, and foucault relates the story, the affairs of the heart, attributed to lucian. theomnestus, in jest, proposes the question, which is the better love choice, boys or women. the debaters, who take the question seriously, are charicles, a lover of women, and callicratidas, a lover of boys. foucault describes `the debate between the love of women and the love of boys' as `the confrontation of two forms of life, of two ways of stylizing one's pleasure, and of the two philosophical discourses that accompany these choices.' callicratidas wins the debate by citing the duplicity and falsity of women who use cosmetics to hide physical flaws, whereas claiming that boys, possess a natural beauty and engage in relationships with men that can develop into true friendships. theomnestus accuses callicratidas of falsely winning the debate by linking his argument to philosophy and eliminating physical pleasure, what foucault describes as `a fundamental objection to the very old line of argument of greek pederasty, which, in order to conceptualize, formulate, and discourse about the latter and to supply it with reasons, was obliged to evade the manifest presence of physical pleasure.'

though historically, the argument for the love of women seems, for a moment, to win out, and the emphasis shifts from the man and the woman who will care for his household and, eros, his erotic relationship with boys outside the household within the larger world marks the new erotic, to the boy and the girl who makes her entrance as the virgin of the first romances,. It's much easier to follow the history of sexuality from this point to the romances described in, among other books, denis de rougemont's love in the western world than it is to get to `the principle of a perfect conjugal fidelity that is in the pastoral ministry,' an unconditional duty for anyone concerned with his salvation, the subject of a 4th volume foucault, unfortunately, did not live to finish.

All Volumes Reviewed: Is this the work of Michel Foucault, the author of "Order of Things," "Discipline and Punish," and "Archeology of Knowledge?" Surely, this must be a hoax. Foucault is notoriously provocative, keenly insightful, and always virulent. So what happened here? Hardly much of a history, anything but provocative, entirely pedestrian, already outdated, and woefully incomplete. Accessibility is not a problem, unlike "Archeology of Knowledge," but truly lacking in information, perspective, and relevance. Compare, for example, this trite and superficial reading with Compton's expansive and exhaustive "Homosexuality and Civilization." After all, Foucault was gay and into sado-masochism. The two are incomparable. A complete waste of time (since I was sure Foucault had something quixotic to write over three volumes), but hope never materialized into reality. Key theme: Sex is a power relation. Maybe for Foucault and his preoccupation with S&M, but some men, gay and straight, find romantic love, passion, intimacy, tenderness, and yes, by golly, love-making culminates in the sex act. How did we get it wrong? PASS.