Rating: 
Summary: Foucault at work...
Review: This book can be seen as a perfect example of a brilliant mind at work. Foucault surely considered this book as an introductory piece, a draft of brilliantly posed ideas and problems about sexuality as a dispositive, not in the traditional sense of the word that we have all become so acquainted with. This book works in many respects: Foucault succesfully makes his case for an open refusal of the "repressive hypothesis", explaining in a very precise manner why the discourse on sexuality in the XVIII and XIX centuries, far from being shy about it, positively promoted discussion... what he calls a "discoursive explosion". Foucault quite brilliantly introduces the two ways in which sexuality has come to be assumed by the human race: as an art (in ancient Greece) and as a science (in our present era). He also develops his own ideas (ideas that also appear in his courses at the Collège de France, particularly "Society Must Be Defended") about bio-power, disciplinary societies and biopolitical regimes. He successfully questions the fact that we have come to place sex under a veil of secrecy which must be undone... how sex has become the key to our personality, our "identity". The last verses of the book are revealing: how is it that we still consider sex to be liberating when in reality we are always under its gaze, when it really has become a burden to be dealt with? This book is astounding. Maybe not as brilliant as "Discipline and Punish" (which says a LOT about Foucault's creative nature)but certainly a key text toward understanding the problems Foucault tackled in final years of his life. Note: the last two volumes of the History of Sexuality display a shift of focus and a leap back in "history"... you'll have to read the introduction to volume 2, "The Use Of Pleasure", to see what I mean. Still, it all makes sense if you dig deeper into the final developments of Foucault's work.
Rating:
Summary: Review
Review: This is part one in Foucault's three part series on Sexuality. It doesn't have the gripping opening few pages that Discipline and Punish has (quite possibly the most engrossing beginning of any book I have ever read), but it still grabs you. What this volume does have is amazing clarity in the ideas that he presents. The general idea is that society controls sex through how it talks about it and organizes it (this is pretty much the idea in all of Foucault's works) and Foucault examines this power structure of society. How marriage controls sexuality, why there has been such a veritable explosion of discussion about sex in the West since the seventeenth century, why do we believe that talking about sex will make us less repressed about it, etc. Foucault addresses many questions in this work.
I did have some problems with it, however. I'll only mention one or two here. In the closing chapter of the book Foucault discusses the Right of Death and Power over Life. He begins by talking about the Right of the Sovereign to compel to war (Foucault is very anti-War) and how it has changed from wars being waged to protect a sovereign to wars being waged to protect people and ideals and an entire nation. We have this line: "In any case, in its modern form - relative and limited - as in its ancient and absolute form, the right of life and death is a dissymmetrical one. The sovereign exercised his right of life only by exercising his right to kill, or by refraining from killing; he evidenced his power over life only through the death he was capable of requiring (emphasis added). I'm not sure I agree with this statement. Nor am I convinced that history does - and Foucault offers neither text nor argument to support this. He expects us to take it as fact. Gone are theories of divine right and other power structures invoked by sovereign's (taxes, services, "For England", or "For France"). Patriotism isn't only a modern day invention. Joan of Arc drove the English out of France so that France could be it's own nation again. "Power in this instance was essentially right of seizure: of things, time, bodies, and ultimately life itself; it culminated in the privilege to seize hold of life in order to suppress it." The implication is that "Power" has changed (and it has) so that now society (through it's mechanism of discussion and examination) has power even when the "right of seizure" isn't enforceable - or doesn't exist. These themes tend to come out over the course of reading several of Foucault's books, but never does M. Foucault state them so precisely and with such clarity as he does in this volume.
Rating:
Summary: Misinterpretation by Reviewers
Review: This text is perhaps Foucault's most well-known, although it might not be his best. It is an important work, so if you are at all interested in sex as an abstract and organizing principle, this is a must-read. (Note: it is not a history in the proper sense of the term). While not a terribly confusing book, it is WIDELY misunderstood, including by many of the reviewers. First off, do not make the mistake of reading the first section as Foucault's thesis (it may seem that way)--he is presenting the common approach to the issue, one that he will eventually CHALLENGE. "Sex" was never repressed--on the contrary, there has been an explosion of discourses, a productive manifestation of power. Foucault admits that this was partially organized through technologies of confession, normalization, etc.-BUT THAT IS NOT THE MAIN THRUST. The main idea of the text is that there is no commanding, Platonic principle "sex" that we must uncover or saturate ourselves with, and hence, while prudery seems suspect, liberation through "sex" or "sex-desire" is entirely nonsensical, since sex is subordinate to sexuality and not vica-versa. Foucault, with much uncertainty, thereby envisions a different economy of bodies and pleasures, more like the ars erotica, that focuses on the local and individual, with all their multiple possibilities for deeper value and communication. Hence, depite what people make of Foucault's life, this book is more "conservative" that one would imagine... It is ideal for anyone who wants to free themselves from either a deep-rooted fear of sex or the incessant demands sex makes from on high (from the media, etc.) To Foucault, the idea that sex is seen as a requirement for one's deepest sense of being is absurd (and almost comical). A fascinating exploration which you might have to read twice, the History of Sexuality demonstrates Foucault's otherwordly insight. Do not fall into the traps I mentioned--Foucault's purpose here is not to free sex from all controls, but merely from one in particular--the reader is given the freedom to reflect and counter it with a more positive and meaningful grasp of his own sexuality and sexual experience.
Rating: 
Summary: tough read
Review: Tough and complicated, but insightful and original. Filled with examples and historical facts, Foucault places sexuality in a light that is both riveting and thougth provoking. In all honesty, this is a tough read that is mostly geared for the graduate or postdoctorate level. The words are simple, but Foucault's language insists on interpretation and explanation. Have a good Foucault interpreter near you as you swamp through his vast world of literary theory.
Rating: 
Summary: dry as dust discourse on sex but interesting anyway
Review: unlike his idol bataille who did write some very good books that you can read with one hand, foucault on sex is just about as erotic as a discarded coke can. but his method of 'reverse-engineering' a knowledge industry that craves out a human activity or phenomenon and imposes control and power over it is fascinating. he probably overstates his thesis but it is still a lot of food for thought.
Rating:
Summary: On the subject of Truth
Review: Unlike the previous reviewers, I am not ashamed to submit my thoughts about this critical work. Foucault deserves much credit for addressing the underlying operations in the discourse of sex. He emphasizes that power is ever-present in the mechanics of sex, and goes on to explain how sex is more than an act, or an identity, or a gender-class. Foucault suggests that sex is "a problem of truth" (pp.56). He delves into the context in which truth is experienced and produced, so that when we discuss the experience of the sexual sphere, we are contending with an experience of truth made valid by the exposition of our own fears. These fears have been programmed into our social bodies by the powers that thrive on oppression, discrimination, and subject anihilation. Ultimately, this volume carries the power to illuminate the conditions around the experience of truth in action. In our nudity, we bear no cover for our own self-deprication, self-martyrdom; an arrogant body peeled from its social cell now free to learn new conversations of truth and meaning...all through the experience of sex. Fascinating and illuminating, this work paves the way for questions like: If through the naked encounter we proclaim an awareness of truth, we internalize the desire to validate our selves, then what does the introduction of web-cams and internet porn offer, or challenge, this relationship of power, truth and the recognition of meaning?
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