To what extent is sexuality is repressed through the proliferation of discourse?

While in small groups today, we considered examples that support the idea that sexuality is repressed through discourse. One that I found particularly interesting was about adding more and more labels for variations of sexual orientation. We discussed how adding labels may feel like sexual liberation and is empowering, but instead labels create more categories that distinguish between sexualities, or rather, highlights “the other,” and emphasizes the necessity of sexuality as an identity. Thus, these labels have potentially begun to rigidly define sexuality as well as how we discuss sexuality. People may have a more difficult time with sexual fluidity if they the discourse compels us to self-categorize. Additionally, people may feel disconnected from sexual discourse if the jargon of the sexuality becomes too removed from the population’s shared vocabulary. In this sense, continuing the discourse on sexual orientation has potentially acted as a form of repression.

Furthermore, we discussed talking about sex in an academic setting, like our class or sex ed in high school (as directed in the workshop). When we talk about sex in an academic setting, we further distance sex and sexuality from emotions. Despite the amount of attention and conversation sexuality is given, we still struggle to comfortably acknowledge one another as sexual beings. Although we may feel we are making progress through acknowledgement of sexuality in an academic setting, in reality we are just adding a brick to the wall that boxes in human sexuality to discrete areas and topics of respectful conversation. Through this academic discourse, we inadvertently remove sexual pleasure from the conversation and society as a whole. This conversation implicitly restricts sexuality to academia, so we condition ourselves to think clinically and anatomically about the subject, further repressing sexuality.

However, given the timing of Foucault’s writings and society’s progressions since, I’m unsure if all “rebellious” discourse is repressive. Are conversations today productive in “freeing” us from the repression or are we still repressing ourselves?

In 1953, “The Sexually Adequate Female” by Frank S. Caprio was published, claiming that women who prefer clitoral stimulation over vaginal stimulation “suffer from frigidity,” thus invalidating women’s sexual pleasure. However, I believe that today’s society has moved against this ideology in recent years. This can be seen in the popularizing and normalizing of women’s sex toys and societal responses to the news. Cosmopolitan magazine publishes many POV articles of women searching for new ways to achieve orgasm. The magazine is known for its sexually forward articles targeted for women, which in turn acknowledge the woman as a sexual being. Furthermore, when popularized news articles like recently when T.I. said that he takes his daughter to the gynecologist annually to check if she is still a virgin, and when DJ Khaled said he would never give his wife oral sex, yet expects oral sex from her, people respond and openly reject these world views. T.I. was discussed on many TV news channels and online magazines in a disparaging light, and Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson responded publicly to the DJ Khaled news stating “Ahem.. *clears throat* As a man, I take great pride in mastering ALL performances.” These responses generalize how our discourse is positively changing how we view women’s sexuality to be more accepting. I struggle to see how this public discourse perpetuates repression. Of course, this is only in respect to women’s sexuality (implicitly heterosexual) and not other sexual and gender identities.

Furthermore, there is an on-going discussion regarding sexual education in the United States. A focus of that conversation is the teaching of abstinence-only education as opposed to a discussion of contraceptives. While in practice not much has changed in the school system, the discourses absolutely promotes a change in our conception of sexuality. Although we are discussing children’s sexuality in an academic context (contraceptives aren’t “sexy”) the discussion itself acknowledges that recreational sex occurs and is normal, which is potentially shifting the discourse to be more accepting of recreational sex, which is a step towards seeing sex as a form of pleasure (bringing our society closer to “ars erotica”).

Ultimately, this blog/thought-exploration has helped me recognize that although repression through discourse is absolutely present, I disagree that all of sexual discourse is a form of repression. We must take a more nuanced perspective regarding the repression of sexuality through the proliferation of discourse, especially taking into account how and in what circumstances we discuss sexuality.

Also, an unrelated question prompted by our class discussion:

How come innocence is often synonymous with an ignorance of sex? Especially since often that “ignorance” is obviously feigned, we expect it from each other, especially children.

In my friend’s high school Latin class, they had read certain Greek and Roman myths, and she had brought up a story including Zeus’ bisexuality, or rather, more accurately, a lack of labeling of his sexuality, and his rampant sexual freedom. We discussed this in depth, since it posed a stark contrast to our current society and experiences, but the conversation died since neither of us were particularly knowledgeable on the subject. We had hoped for more opportunities to explore the topic further and educate ourselves, but, unsurprisingly, in our high school there were no courses offered on this specific topic, nor any sort of psychology or Greek and Roman history course. Thus, I was thrilled when I found this class. This is a topic I’m extremely interested in and have had on the backburner for a long time. Furthermore, my hometown/high school was very hush-hush about sex and sexuality, whereas in my college community, sex and sexuality are common occurrences and gossip. These contrasting experiences give me an interesting perspective on the topic that I look forward to developing further.

Although I generally want to learn more about the topic since I think it is interesting, more specifically, I want to learn about other societies’ perspective on sex and sexuality. This content ideally will make me more aware and respectful of how other communities engage with sexuality, and the value of the history of sexuality and its evolution. By understanding the past, we can hope to understand the present in all its complexity. These personal goals overlap with the course aims, however, there are goals of mine and aims of the class that do not overlap. I hope to apply the knowledge from this class to my personal life and how I process and analyze sex and sexuality, more than just our current American society, which I think is beyond the scope of the class aims, although is clearly adjacent and relevant to the content. Additionally, my goals omit the less content-focused aims of the class, such as developing my authorial voice and writing style. As such, my primary goal this semester will be to “Learn about how sexuality was understood in the ancient Greek world and how those classical conceptions reverberate into our own,” as that is a large goal of mine that is also present in the course aims. Overall, my goals and the courses goals match, and I believe this will be a very rewarding class.

My one reservation is my ability to balance this class’ work with my other courses this semester, but I’m sure I’m just nervous given it is the first week of the semester. In terms of questions regarding the course, I currently have just one: do we need to purchase a hardcopy of The History of Sexuality, or can we use the eBook provided by the Honnold Mudd Library? I’m really looking forward to this class!