Books by Mickel Foucault ‘Madness and Civiliation: A History of sanity inthe Age of Reason “The Onderof Things: An Archaeology ofthe Huma Sciences “The Archacology of Knowledge (and The Discourse on Language) “The Bit ofthe Clini: An Archaeology of Medial Perception 1, Pere Rive, having laughtred my rote, my site, and my ‘othe... A Cat of Paice inthe Nineenh Cntiry Discipline snd Punish: The Birt ofthe Prison “The History of Sexuality, Volumes 1,2, b3 erclise Babin, Being the Recety Discovered Memnirs of Nietenth- ‘Century French Hermaphrodite Powerknowedge: Selected Interviews and Other Weings, 1972-1977 The History of Sexuality Volume I: An Introduction by Michel Foucault Translated from the French by Robert Hurley a Vintage Books {ADivision of Random House, Inc. "New Yorkosraae Books oon, MARCH 1990 Engl ion Copyright ©1978 by Rando Howe, Ie Aight eserves ner and Pa American Copia Convento. Pied in the Une Sines by Random Howse, I, New Yr, ann Cana by Rando ot of Caaa Li ie, Tro. Oral published in ance La Vl sr by Bos Gains Pate. Copight © 1976 by Eons Gall- mar, Ft American ein pied by Pate Books, a ‘Sono Random louse ne, a vents, 178 Gost scaowlegment mateo Dowleay & Company, I forpermision reprint acer tom poem y Gite Auge Durer Artur Sopeataerin The Metphyseaf he Lave of the See, fom The Wit Live: Seed Wines of Artur Soper etl by Rit Taylt, Lier of Congres Catling in baton Da Toe bitoy of nut “eon of Hie ea soi (CONTENTS. 1. An oon. 1. SexeusonsMisior-—Collced wrk. Tie, Ora Fee 1980 0.47” 79.2460 ISBN0679.72469.9 (8) Macfie United Stes of Ameria scrcost Contents Pant one We “Other Victorians” — 1 Part Two The Repressive Hypothesis 15 Chapter 1 The Incitement to Discourse 7 ‘Chapter 2 The Perverse Implantation 36 PART THREE Scientia Sexualis 51 Pat Four The Deployment of Sexuality 75 Chapter 1 Objective 81 Chapter 2 Method 92 Chapter 3 Domain 103 Chapter 4 Periodization 115 Pant Five Right of Death and Power ver Life 133, Index 1612 Method ‘Hence the objective is to analyze a certain form of knowl: edge regarding sex, not in terms of repression or law, but in terms of power. But the word power is apt to lead to a ‘number of misunderstandings—misunderstendings with re- spect to its nature, its form, and its unity. By power, I do not ‘mean “Power” as a group of institutions and mechanisms that ensure the subservience of the citizens of a given state. By power, I'do not mean, either, a mode of subjugation Which, in contrast to violence, has the form of the rule. Finally, I do not have in mind a general system of domi- nation exerted by one group over another, a system whose effects, through successive derivations, pervade the entire social body. The analysis, made in terms of power, must not assume that the sovereignty of the state the form of the law, of the over-all unity of a domination are given at the outset; rather, these are only the terminal forms power takes. It seems to me that power must be understood in the first instance as the multiplicity of force relations immanent in the sphere in which they operate and which constitute their own organization; as the process which, through ceaseless strug- ales and confrontations, transforms, strengthens, or reverses them; as the support which these farce relations find in one ‘nother, thus forming a chain or a system, or on the con- | teary, the disjunctions and contradictions which isolate them from one another; and lastly, as the strategies in which they 92 The Deployment of Sexuality 93 take effect, whose general design or insittional erytalliza- tion is embodied in the state apparatus, in the formulation of the law, inthe various social hegemonies. Power's condi- tion of possiblity, or in any case the viewpoint which permits, ‘one to understand its exercise, even in its more “peripheral” dffects, and which also makes it possible to use its mech- anisms as agri of intelligibility ofthe socal order, must not ‘be sought in the primary existence of a central point, in a unique source of sovereignty from which secondary and de- scendent forms would emanate; it isthe moving substrate of force relations which, by virtue of their inequality, constantly engender states of power, but the latter are always local and Unstable, The omnipresence of power: not because it has the privilege of consolidating everything under its invincible nity, but because itis produced from one moment to the ‘ext, at every point, or rather in every relation from one point to another. Power is everywhere; not because it em- braces everything, but because it comes from everywhere ‘And “Power,” insofar as itis permanent, repetitious, inert, and self-reprodueing, is simply the over-all effect that ‘emerges from all these mobilities, the concatenation that rests on each of them and secks in turn to arrest their move- ‘ment. One needs to be nominalistc, no doubt: power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; itis the name that one atrib- ttes toa complex strategical situation ina particular society. Should we turn the expression around, then, and say that politics is war pursued by other means? If we still wish to ‘maintain a separation between war and politics, perhaps we should postulate rather that this multiplicity of force rela- tions can be coded—in part but never totally—eithe inthe form of “war,” or inthe form of “polities; this would imply two diferent strategies (but the one always liable to switch into the other) for integrating these unbalanced, heterogene- ‘ous, unstable, and tense force relations.