The History of Sexuality

The History of Sexuality

Cover of the first edition of volume 1
Author	Michel Foucault
Original title	Histoire de la sexualité
Translator	Robert Hurley
Country	France
Language	French
Subject	History of human sexuality
Publisher	Éditions Gallimard
Publication date	1976 (vol. 1) 1984 (vol. 2) 1984 (vol. 3)
Published in English	1978 (vol. 1) 1985 (vol. 2) 1986 (vol. 3)
Media type	Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages	168 (English ed., vol. 1) 293 (English ed., vol. 2) 279 (English ed., vol. 3)
ISBN	(vol. 1) 0-14-013734-5 (vol. 2) 0-14-013735-1 (vol. 3)

The History of Sexuality (French: ) is a three-volume study of sexuality in the western world by French historian and philosopher Michel Foucault, in which Foucault examines the emergence of "sexuality" as a discursive object and separate sphere of life and argues that the notion that every individual has a sexuality is a relatively recent development in Western societies. The first volume, The Will to Knowledge (La volonté de savoir), was first published in 1976; an English translation appeared in 1978. The Use of Pleasure (l'usage des plaisirs), and The Care of the Self (le souci de soi), were published in 1984.

In Volume 1, Foucault criticizes the "repressive hypothesis", the idea that western society suppressed sexuality from the 17th to the mid-20th century due to the rise of capitalism and bourgeois society. Foucault argues that discourse on sexuality in fact proliferated during this period, during which experts began to examine sexuality in a scientific manner, encouraging people to confess their sexual feelings and actions. According to Foucault, in the 18th and 19th centuries society took an increasing interest in sexualities that did not fit within the marital bond: the "world of perversion" that includes the sexuality of children, the mentally ill, the criminal and the homosexual, while by the 19th century, sexuality was being readily explored both through confession and scientific enquiry.

In Volume 2 and Volume 3, Foucault addresses the role of sex in Greek and Roman antiquity. The History of Sexuality received a mixed reception, with some reviewers praising the book and others criticizing Foucault's scholarship. The idea that sexuality, including homosexuality, is a social construction is associated more with The History of Sexuality than with any other work.

Three volumes of The History of Sexuality were published before Foucault's death in 1984. The first volume, The Will to Knowledge (previously known as An Introduction in English—Histoire de la sexualité, 1: la volonté de savoir in French) was published in France in 1976, and translated in 1977, focusing primarily on the last two centuries, and the functioning of sexuality as an analytics of power related to the emergence of a science of sexuality, and the emergence of biopower in the West. The work was a further development of the account of the interaction of knowledge and power Foucault provided in Discipline and Punish (1975).