Sexuality dispositive

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Sexuality dispositive is an expression coined by Michel Foucault , which describes a complex of communicative practices and patterns as well as actions, objects and classifications with which people define themselves through sexuality (subject formation) or are defined. The model of sexuality dispositiv shows how the individual subordinates his sexual inclinations, his lust and his sexual behavior to certain norms, controls his sexuality, classifies it in certain forms (e.g. heterosexuality , homosexuality , masturbation ), accepts these or excludes others accordingly how, in the same way, individuals and their sexuality are the subject of corresponding discourses , attributions and classifications - that is, subjects of powerful relationships.

Sexuality occupies a central position within Foucault's theory of social power.

According to Foucault, the sexuality dispositive not only affects the individual, but also controls the population ( bio-power ).

Origin of the term "sexuality dispositive"

Foucault developed the concept of the sexuality dispositive in his work The Will to Know (1977). With the 'sexuality dispositive' he wanted to expand and refine his instruments for analyzing power relations compared to conventional models in such a way that the power relationships, their intentions and strategies become clear on the objects of these analyzes. Thus there is the possibility of "escaping" the forms of "political thinking (s)" of his time, which refer to the "system of sovereign and law " and are "fascinated" by it.

Foucault raises objections to the “ repression hypothesis ”, which he does not want to evaluate as false, but rather it is “to be located in a general economy of the discourse about sex.” He wants “the regime of power - knowledge - pleasure in its functioning and in its reasons ” , which cannot be explained by simple cause-and-effect chains or the tracing back to a“ great power ”: “ Instead of all the infinitesimal violence against sex, all confused looks at it and all the shells behind which one makes him unrecognizable to ascribe "to" the one great power, the cancerous proliferation of discourses about sex should be immersed in the field of diverse and flexible power relations. "

Theoretical prior understanding

The term 'dispositive'

According to Foucault, a dispositive consists of a variety of rules, statements, practices and institutions; it organizes and controls power relations by stimulating discourses that generate a certain knowledge that influences the way people think and behave towards themselves and towards the world. This knowledge flows back into the dispositive (e.g. in confession ), which ensures that power can turn into knowledge and knowledge into power. A dispositive can thus be described as a complex of conditions that lead to certain statements being accepted as false or true.

Foucault's understanding of power

Compared to the external modes of action of power, Foucault places the inner penetration of the power relations that constitute the individual to a subject in the foreground: “Compared to the idea of ​​a repressive power that restricts the individual and his sexuality, which always suppresses that must take for granted, Foucault develops a polycentric model of a productive power that permeates and constitutes the modern individual and his body. The analysis of power is therefore not an end in itself, but aims to examine the way in which and through which the individual transforms himself into a subject and recognizes and constitutes himself as the subject of a 'sexuality' ”.

The central importance of sexuality

According to Foucault, in social power relations, sexuality serves on the one hand to discipline the body and on the other hand to regulate the population ( bio-power ). Here, sexuality functions as a hinge in which these two forms of power (disciplining the body of the individual and regulating the population) are coupled. Thus, "sexuality is constituted as physical behavior that is accessible to discipline techniques, on the other hand, due to the procreation associated with it, biological processes of the population are ascribed to it". The dispositive forms a productive interplay of discursive and institutional (non-discursive) elements.

The concept of 'sexuality dispositive'

Talking about sex discourse and discourse strategies

For his analysis of power relationships, Foucault does not use economically oriented methods, such as historical materialism . Talking about sex not only contains “economic effects” (prostitution, therapy clinic), but a discourse “in which sex, the disclosure of the truth, the reversal of the world, the announcement of a future day and the promise of happiness are in a relationship ”. This discourse supports the occidental form of the sermon: “A great sexual sermon - which has its astute theologians and its popular pulpit speakers - has been pervading our societies for several decades, scourging the old order, denouncing hypocrisy and singing about the right of the immediate and the real; it makes us dream of a new Jerusalem ”.

Sexuality is not suppressed by modern power relations, but is nevertheless subject to prohibitions: Foucault regards this as "a tactical component of a discourse strategy to make sex morally acceptable and technically useful". The prohibitions thus influence the talk about sex and give it a "touch of revolt, the promise of freedom and the near age of another law" (Foucault, 1979). According to Foucault, the desire to talk about sex is influenced by suggesting liberation.

Talking about sex is at the heart of Foucault's power analysis. In order to understand the power-knowledge relationships and forces created in this way, the focus for him is not what is said about sex, but that sex is talked about and who and where talks about sex and how what is said is collected and archived and spread. In doing so, he puts his focus on the "discursivization" and not on the positions and opinions about sex as conventional power theories had in mind.

Power, knowledge and sexuality

Foucault defines power very broadly and closely related to knowledge as “knowledge power”. It is formed from the various discourses on sex (speaking about sex; confession; scientific preoccupation with questions of human reproduction, discourses on procreation and heredity, family, sexuality) and forms the control instrument together with institutions (university, church, state) of a truth dispositive, the sexuality dispositive. The "scientia sexualis", under which Foucault sums up the scientific occupation within European civilization with the topic of sexuality, is of central importance for the emergence of these knowledge-power discourses about sex.

Questions

With the help of the sexuality dispositive, Foucault wanted to develop an instrument for analyzing social power relations. It is not a question of why a particular system or state structure needs to "establish knowledge about sex [or] produce true discourses about sex" . Nor is it about the question of "which law was the basis for the regularity of sexual behavior and the uniformity of speaking about it." Instead, for this new form of analysis, he is concerned with the questions:

  • "What are the very immediate, the very local power relations that are at work in a certain historical form of the enforcement of truth (around the child's body, in the sex of women, in the practices of birth control, etc.)?"
  • "How do you make these types of discourses possible and, conversely, how do you use these discourses as a basis?"
  • "How does the play of these power relations with one another become the logic of a global strategy that, in retrospect, takes on like a uniformly wanted policy?"

Sexuality as a "pathological area"

A "pathological area" of sexuality also emerges as a special form (through discursivation). This makes it accessible for control and regulation and for a distinction between “normal” and “deviant” sexuality. This makes it possible to make sexuality accessible to institutions such as science and medicine and their experts. There is a power relationship between the expert and the individual. The differentiation into "deviating" offers the possibility of intervention - e.g. B. through therapy - on sexuality: “Firstly, pathology establishes constant control and regulation of sexuality and, secondly, a differentiation of sexuality into a“ normal ”and a“ deviant ”sexuality. The deviant sexuality is u. a. handed over to the field of medicine, examined there by experts and finally subjected to therapeutic and normalizing interventions ”.

Interventions can be perceived by the individual as a self-discovery process if sexuality is not only viewed as behavior, but also as a core being of the individual: “These interventions work all the more effective, the more they are connected to the individual's self-discovery processes. This connection presupposes that sexuality within the power relations is viewed not only as the behavior of the individual, but especially as its essence. "

The sexuality dispositive as a network of power relationships is shown, for example, in a conversation with the medical experts: “The conversations with the medical experts are, on the one hand, part of medical diagnosis and therapy, and on the other hand, a kind of self-discovery process for the individual. An essential part of this self-discovery process is the practice of the confession, which initially mainly concerned the sexual desires of the individuals. In the practice of the confession, the medical expert reveals a previously hidden knowledge about the sexual desires, in which from now on the cause of deviations and diseases are seen. The individuals continue to believe that they recognize themselves through their confession. In doing so, they constitute an identity for themselves in the process of confession. "

The confession is similar to the mechanisms of confession . Just as “the act of speaking to an expert suggests a kind of purification that is supposed to help heal them. […] The practice of confession connects the technologies of regulation and standardization with the effects of power on individuals; they virtually penetrate the individuals. "

Reception and effect

The will to know , in which Foucault developed the sexuality dispositive, “is considered one of the founding texts of the gender and queer theory ” around Judith Butler .

literature

  • Michel Foucault: Dispositive of Power: About Sexuality, Knowledge and Truth. Merve, Berlin 1978, ISBN 3-920986-96-2 .
  • Michel Foucault: The will to know (= sexuality and truth 1). Translated from the French by Ulrich Raulff and Walter Seitter. Frankfurt 1987, ISBN 978-3-518-28316-5 (original title: Histoire de la sexualité. Vol. 1. La volonté de savoir. Gallimard, Paris 1976).
  • Kathrin Braun: Human dignity and biomedicine. On the philosophical discourse of bioethics. Frankfurt / New York 2000, ISBN 3-593-36503-0 (especially on the meaning of the confession in the sexuality dispositif).
  • Dorothe Obermann-Jeschke: Sexuality and the rule of normality . In the same: eugenics in transition. Continuities, breaks and transformations. An analysis of the history of discourse (= Duisburg Institute for Language and Social Research (Ed.): Edition DISS , Volume 19). Unrast, Münster 2008, ISBN 978-3-89771-748-0 (Dissertation University of Duisburg-Essen, 2007, 277 pages).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Michel Foucault: The will to know. Frankfurt 1987, p. 97.
  2. ↑ a b Michel Foucault: The will to know. Frankfurt 1987, p. 18.
  3. ↑ a b Michel Foucault: The will to know. Frankfurt 1987, p. 98.
  4. ↑ Dispositiv ( Memento from May 25, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) - Matthias Rothe and Wojtek Nowak
  5. ↑ a b Gerald Posselt: productive differences: forum for difference and gender research Vienna, October 6, 2003
  6. ↑ a b c d Obermann-Jeschke 2008, p. 40
  7. ↑ a b Michel Foucault: The will to know. Frankfurt 1987, p. 17.
  8. ↑ a b c d Obermann-Jeschke 2008, p. 41
  9. ↑ Michel Foucault: The will to know. Frankfurt 1987, p. 22 f.
  10. ↑ Michel Foucault: The will to know. Frankfurt 1987. p. 29.
  11. ↑ Michel Foucault: The will to know. Frankfurt 1987, p. 97 f.
  12. ↑ Obermann-Jeschke 2008, p. 41: For the practice of the confession, Obermann-Jeschke refers to Kathrin Braun, 2000.