[Sown Sexuality, Reaping Power] Chapter 23: Rereading Foucault — The Limits and Possibilities of 'The History of Sexuality'
Did the archaeologist see the future?
Michel Foucault died on June 25, 1984, at the age of 57. He died of AIDS, a disease in which sexuality and death were once again linked. Ironically, he was a thinker who spent his life trying to unravel the relationship between sexuality and power. And the 'History of Sexuality' trilogy he left behind exposed that what we call 'sexuality' is actually a concept produced in the modern era.
However, an archaeologist only digs into the past and cannot foresee the future. How has the power apparatus of sexuality that Foucault depicted transformed in the digital capitalism of the 21st century? What were the things he did not see, could not see, and chose not to see?
In this chapter, we will critically reread Foucault's 'History of Sexuality' to clarify its scope and limitations. Then, from the perspective of 'institutional poetics' that we have been developing, we will explore the possibilities of extending Foucault's theory into the 21st century.
Foucault's Revolutionary Insight: Sexuality Was Not Repressed
The Overthrow of the Repression Hypothesis
The first thing Foucault did in Volume 1 of 'The History of Sexuality', 'The Will to Knowledge' (1976), was to dismantle the popular historical view of 'sexual liberation'.
Popular understanding: Since the Victorian era, Western society has repressed sexuality. The sexual revolution of the 20th century was a liberation from this repression.
Foucault's counterargument: No, modern society did not repress sexuality. Rather, it forced us to speak about sexuality and produced it as a central apparatus of power. The confessional, the psychoanalyst's office, the sexology laboratory—all of these were apparatuses that forced sexuality to be spoken of as 'truth'.
This subversion was shocking. Foucault argued that shouting 'liberate sexuality,' as Marcuse or Reich did, actually meant remaining within the power apparatus.
The Technology of Confession: Power Makes Us Speak the Truth
What Foucault focused on was the technology of 'confession'.
Christian confession: Since the Middle Ages, believers have been obligated to confess their sexual desires and acts in detail to a priest. This was not merely the forgiveness of sins, but a technology for verbalizing, classifying, and managing desire.
Psychoanalysis: Freud's office was a secular version of the confessional. Patients talk about childhood sexual experiences and unconscious desires, and the analyst interprets them. Here, too, sexuality was extracted as 'truth' and accumulated as knowledge.
Sexology: Sexologists like Krafft-Ebing, Ellis, and Kinsey collected and classified vast numbers of sexual cases. In the name of 'science,' they made people talk about their sexuality, recorded it, and distinguished between normal and abnormal.
Foucault's insight is this:Power does not prohibit sexuality; it makes us speak of it. By speaking of it, sexuality becomes a manageable object.
Bio-power and the Management of Population
Another important concept Foucault presented was 'bio-power'.
The modern state developed 'disciplinary power' to manage individual bodies and 'bio-power' to manage the entire population. And sexuality was at the crucial intersection of these two powers.
Individual body: Management of sexual behavior, reproductive function, and health status. The object of abstinence, hygiene, and treatment.
The entire population: Statistical management of birth rates, death rates, and morbidity rates. The subject of population policy, eugenics, and public health.
Sexuality was an individual pleasure, yet simultaneously a target of state population management. Herein lies the peculiar position of modern sexuality.
Foucault from the perspective of institutional poetics: What was missing?
Foucault's blind spot 1: Weak connection to the economy
Foucault vividly depicted the relationship between power and knowledge, but he made surprisingly little mention of the relationship between sexuality and economic capital.
What we have been discussing in this series is that sexuality is not merely an apparatus of power, but also an apparatus of capital accumulation.
Edo-period pleasure quarters: The sex industry was an economic special zone authorized by the Shogunate, where vast amounts of capital moved.
Financialization of 'Papa-katsu': Modern sexual transactions are instantly connected to financial capital through matching apps and cashless payments.
Exploitative structure of OnlyFans: Platform capitalism collects fees from sex workers and generates profit.
Foucault distanced himself from Marx, but as a result, he overlooked the structure of the trinity of sexuality, power, and capital. This is a critical omission that institutional poetics must supplement.
Foucault's blind spot 2: Eurocentrism
Foucault's 'The History of Sexuality' basically deals with Western modern sexuality. Christian confession, psychoanalysis, sexology—all are products of the West.
However, the relationship between sexuality and power is not unique to the West.
Chinese Taoist bedroom arts: These were techniques for connecting sexual intercourse with cosmological order and strengthening the emperor's power.
Indian Tantra: This positioned sexual union as a path to enlightenment and produced religious authority.
Coexistence of Japanese Esoteric Buddhism and pleasure quarters: While Kukai's Shingon Esoteric Buddhism affirmed sexual union, the Edo Shogunate simultaneously incorporated pleasure quarters into the economic system.
Foucault dealt with ancient Greece in Volume 2, 'The Use of Pleasure,' and ancient Rome in Volume 3, 'The Care of the Self,' but he did not turn his eyes to the East. This limits the scope of his theory.
From the perspective of institutional poetics, multicultural comparison is what brings the universal structure of sexuality and power into relief. By looking only at the modern West, the universal mechanism of sexuality cannot be seen.
Foucault's blind spot 3: The divergence between his existence as a homosexual and his theory
Foucault himself was a homosexual. And he was deeply involved in BDSM culture within the gay community in San Francisco.
However, in 'The History of Sexuality,' Foucault rarely speaks of his own sexual existence. His theory is abstract and detached from personal experience.
This may have been a deliberate strategy. Autobiographical confession is precisely what gets co-opted by the 'technologies of confession' he criticized.
Yet, there is a contradiction here. While Foucault argues that power and knowledge operate within the body, he did not speak about his own body.
From the perspective of institutional poetics, the divergence between theory and existence becomes a theoretical weakness. This is because institutional poetics questions 'poetics'—that is, how aesthetic language obscures power. And Foucault's own theory may also be a kind of 'poetics' that aestheticizes power relations.
Foucault avoided this self-referential question until the end.
Foucault in the 21st Century: The Apparatus of Sexuality in the Digital Age
From Confession to Profiling
How has the technology of 'confession' that Foucault depicted transformed in the digital age?
Automation of confession: There is no longer a need to speak to a priest or an analyst. Google search history, Twitter likes, matching app swipes—everything is automatically recorded, and sexual preferences are profiled.
Spontaneity of confession: On TikTok and Instagram, people voluntarily engage in sexual self-promotion. This is not coercion, but strategic self-disclosure to gain 'likes'.
Commodification of confession: On OnlyFans, the sexual confession itself becomes a commodity. Through a subscription model, sexual content is continuously produced and monetized.
The confession Foucault saw was unidirectional toward those in power (priests, doctors, analysts). However, 21st-century confession has been decentralized, bidirectional, and financialized.
Here lies a new domain that institutional poetics must complement. The apparatus of sexuality in digital capitalism is more complex, global, and financialized than Foucault ever imagined.
From Biopower to Algorithmic Power
Foucault's theory of biopower was a power through which the state managed populations statistically.
However, 21st-century power has transcended the state.
Sexual surveillance by GAFAM: Google, Apple, Meta (Facebook), Amazon, and Microsoft collect vast amounts of sexual data. This is more detailed and real-time than state statistics.
Selection by matching apps: The algorithms of Tinder and Pairs learn users' sexual preferences and decide who matches with whom. This is a new form of 'sexual management'.
The emergence of AI lovers: AI chatbots like Character.AI and Replika learn users' sexual desires and provide optimized dialogue. Human partners are becoming unnecessary.
Foucault made the 'population' the object of management, but digital capitalism manages individual desires. Here, a new form of power beyond biopower—algorithmic power—is emerging.
The future could not be foreseen: Foucault's limits
Foucault died in 1984. Before the internet, smartphones, social media, and AI—all of these emerged.
The apparatus of sexuality he observed was fundamentally institutional. Churches, hospitals, schools, the state—these institutions managed sexuality.
However, the apparatus of sexuality in the 21st century is non-institutional. Individuals carry smartphones, connect via social media, meet through apps, and converse with AI. Institutions have receded into the background, and the individual has come to the fore.
Yet, this is not 'liberation.' Institutions have not disappeared; they have merely become invisible, penetrating even more deeply. Platform capitalism, algorithmic sorting, data surveillance—new forms of power are appearing as individual 'freedom.'
If Foucault were alive, how would he have analyzed this shift? As an archaeologist, he would have excavated this new stratum. But he is no longer here.
We must take up Foucault's unfinished work.
Expanding Foucault through Institutional Poetics
Theory as poetry
It is unclear whether Foucault himself realized it, but his 'The History of Sexuality' is also a kind of 'poetry.'
Foucault's writing style is academic yet beautiful. He treats concepts as if sculpting them and arranges words as if constructing a building.
However, from the perspective of institutional poetics, a question arises here: Does Foucault's theory itself poetically romanticize sexuality and power?
For example, the concept of 'biopower' converts the violence of population management by the state into abstract theoretical terms. This is for the sake of critique, but it is also a form of romanticization. Violence is called 'power,' and exploitation is called an 'apparatus.'
What institutional poetics asserts is that critical theory can also be a poetic apparatus. We inherit Foucault's methods while criticizing him. But we are also aware of their limitations.
The trinity of economy, power, and sexuality
Institutional poetics places the dimension of the economy, which Foucault overlooked, at the center.
Sexuality → Family Lineage → Power → Capital. This chain is the structure that runs through this entire series.
Foucault depicted the sexuality-to-power part. Marx depicted the capital part. However, attempts to connect the two have not been sufficient.
Institutional poetics completes this connection. Sexual relations are always also economic relations. Sharing the cost of a date, marriage dowries, 'papa-katsu' allowances, OnlyFans subscriptions—all are arenas where sexuality and capital are exchanged.
And the language that justifies this exchange is 'poetry.' 'Love,' 'sincerity,' 'care'—these beautiful words mask economic exploitation.
Foucault exposed the complicit relationship between 'knowledge' and 'power.' Institutional poetics exposes the complicit relationship between 'poetry' and 'capital.'
The Necessity of Multicultural Comparison
To transcend Foucault's Eurocentrism, institutional poetics makes a cross-cultural perspective essential.
As we have seen in this series, the relationship between sexuality and power takes different forms depending on the culture.
Japan: Female sun deities, visiting marriage, male-male love, Esoteric Buddhism, and pleasure quarters—the early realization of sexual diversity and economic integration.
China: The imperial harem, the eunuch system, and foot binding—the extreme concentration of sexual power and the modification of the body.
India: The caste system and marriage, Devadasis (temple prostitutes), and the Kama Sutra—the complex entanglement of sexuality, religion, and social order.
Islam: Polygyny, the hijab, and the harem—the strict control of sexuality and its monopolization by men.
Only by juxtaposing these can we see the universal structure of sexuality and power and its cultural variations.
Foucault's focus solely on the West limited his theory. Institutional poetics takes the entire world into its field of vision.
A Question for the Future: Will the Apparatus of Sexuality Change?
AI and Sexuality: A New Horizon
The greatest change that Foucault did not foresee is likely the emergence of non-human sexual objects.
VTubers, AI lovers, and sex robots—these do not possess human bodies. Yet, people desire them, fall in love with them, and pay for them.
Foucault's theory of biopower was predicated on the biological body. Population management was the management of bodies that are born, grow, reproduce, and die.
However, digital bodies have no reproduction. They have no death. They have no aging.
Does this signify the end of biopower? Or is it the ultimate form of biopower—a purely manageable body liberated from biological constraints?
From the perspective of institutional poetics, this is understood as the emergence of a new form of 'poetry.' AI is a mirror that perfectly reflects human desire. And the platform companies that provide that mirror reap enormous profits.
The apparatus of sexuality has changed. However, the trinity of sexuality, power, and capital remains unchanged.
Is Liberation Possible: Foucault's Wager
Foucault demonstrated that the liberation of sexuality is an illusion. Shouting "liberate!" only means remaining within the apparatus of power.
So, what should be done? Foucault's answer was ambiguous. He spoke of the "use of pleasure" and "care of the self." However, he did not show any concrete practices.
From the standpoint of institutional poetics, we acknowledge that complete liberation is impossible. Sexuality is always entangled with power and capital. This is the fate of humanity.
However, there is no need to despair. What we can do is strip away the poetic ornamentation of institutions and look directly at the reality.
There is no need to insist that 'papa katsu' is not prostitution. It is prostitution. But ordinary romance is also, in a sense, prostitution. A man paying for a date is compensation for sexual services.
We must acknowledge that marriage is not a proof of love. It is an economic contract, a sexual monopoly contract, and a reproductive labor contract.
Acknowledging these things is not despair. Rather, it is waking up from poetic illusions. And upon that, it is about conceiving a better institution.
Foucault began this work. However, he could not complete it.
We will take over that work.
Poetic Fragments
He was an archaeologist of sexuality.
He dug through strata, picked up fragments, and mapped the apparatus.
From the confessional to the clinic, from the church to the state.
Power made sexuality speak and accumulated it as knowledge.
However, he could not foresee the future.
In the digital sea, sexuality becomes data,
AI learns desire, and algorithms sort bodies.
Economics was his blind spot. The West was his limit.
He lived as a homosexual and spoke as a theorist.
Those two never intersected until the end.
We inherit his legacy.
Continuing the archaeology, digging forward into the future.
Sexuality has changed. However, the trinity of sex, power, and capital remains unchanged.
Stripping away the poetry, exposing the structure, and carving out a new horizon.
This is the response to Foucault.
Preview of the Next Chapter
Chapter 24: What Marx Could Not Say — A Theory of the Sexual Mode of Production
Marx exposed the secrets of capitalism. However, there are things he did not speak of. His relationship with the housekeeper Helene Demuth. The concealment of his illegitimate child. Engels' complicity. The history of sexual exploitation is buried in the basement of the Marx household.
'Capital' discussed the reproduction of labor power, but remained silent on the sexual and domestic labor of the women who carried out that reproduction. Breaking this silence and constructing a theory of the sexual mode of production—that is the task of the next chapter.
Rereading Marx, seeing what he did not see. Speaking of what he did not speak of. This, too, is the work of institutional poetics.
References
Major Works of Foucault (Japanese Translations)
'The History of Sexuality' Related
Michel Foucault (1986) 'The History of Sexuality Vol. 1: An Introduction', translated by Moriaki Watanabe, Shinchosha
Michel Foucault (1986) 'The History of Sexuality Vol. 2: The Use of Pleasure', translated by Hajime Tamura, Shinchosha
Michel Foucault (1987) 'The History of Sexuality Vol. 3: The Care of the Self', translated by Hajime Tamura, Shinchosha
Michel Foucault (2020) 'The History of Sexuality Vol. 4: Confessions of the Flesh', translated by Yasuyuki Shinkai, Shinchosha
Other Major Works
Michel Foucault (1975) 'Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison', translated by Hajime Tamura, Shinchosha
Michel Foucault (1975) 'History of Madness', translated by Hajime Tamura, Shinchosha
Michel Foucault (1974) 'The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences', translated by Kazutami Watanabe and Akira Sasaki, Shinchosha
Foucault Research Books (Japanese)
Moriyaki Watanabe (1986) 'Translator's Afterword', in 'The History of Sexuality Vol. 1: An Introduction', Shinchosha
Yasuyuki Shinkai (2020) 'Translator's Commentary', in 'The History of Sexuality Vol. 4: Confessions of the Flesh', Shinchosha
Koji Hirose (2000) 'After Foucault: For a Genealogy of Governmentality', Jimbun Shoin
Tatsuya Higaki (2006) 'Philosophy of Life and Power', Chikuma Shobo
Masaya Chiba (2022) 'Introduction to Contemporary Thought', Kodansha Gendai Shinsho
Sonoe Shigeta (2011) 'The Direction of Foucault's Wind: A Genealogy of the Modern State', Seidosha
Theoretical Books on Sexuality and Gender
Marxist Feminism
Chizuko Ueno (1990) 'Patriarchy and Capitalism: The Horizon of Marxist Feminism', Iwanami Shoten
Engels (1884=1965) 'The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State', Iwanami Shoten
Contemporary Feminism and Queer Theory
Judith Butler (1999) 'Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity', translated by Kazuko Takemura, Seidosha
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (2001) 'Epistemology of the Closet', translated by Naomi Tonooka, Seidosha
Studies on Japanese Sexual Culture
Yoshihiko Amino (1986) 'Heterodox Kingship', Heibonsha
Sanae Hattori (1991) 'Mothers and Children in the Heian Period', Chuko Shinsho
Junko Saeki (1987) 'A Cultural History of Courtesans', Chuko Shinsho
Yuko Tanaka (2002) 'Love in the Edo Period', Shueisha
Mikihito Ujiie (1998) 'Bushido and Eros', Kodansha
Sexuality and Platform Capitalism in the Digital Age
Eva Illouz (2019) 'Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation', translated by Megumi Serizawa, Chikuma Shobo
Nick Srnicek (2020) 'Platform Capitalism', translated by Takashi Nomura, Jimbun Shoin
Sexology and Sexual Minority Studies
John D'Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman (2003) 'Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America', translated by Tetsuya Motohashi, Akashi Shoten
Jeffrey Weeks (1996) 'Sexuality', translated by Manabu Akagawa, Kawade Shobo Shinsha
Biopower and Population Management
Andreas Bernard (2015) 'The Weight of Life: A History of Ideas on Biopolitics and the Self', translated by Hiromi Matsui, Ibunsha
Maurizio Lazzarato (2021) 'Signs and Machines: Capitalism and the Production of Subjectivity', translated by Masaaki Sugimura, Akashi Shoten
History of Sexuality and Comparative Cultural Studies
Eastern Erotic Arts
Robert van Gulik (1961=2008) 'Sexual Life in Ancient China', translated by Shōhachi Nakamura and Yoshi Watanabe, Ryūkei Shosha
Western History of Sexuality
Philippe Ariès and Georges Duby (1985-1987) 'A History of Private Life' (5 volumes), Misuzu Shobo
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