303
In confessing, we give power to
“experts” (priests, therapists, doctors)
to judge, punish, and correct us. The
confessor suffers an endless cycle of
shame, guilt, and more confession.
See also: Michel Foucault 52–55; 270–77 ■ Norbert Elias 180–81 ■
Arlie Hochschild 236–43 ■ Karl Marx 254–59 ■ Jeffrey Weeks 324–25
FAMILIES AND INTIMACIES
psychology, have increasingly
dominated our ways of thinking
about gender and sexuality.
These knowledges are a form of
“discourse”—ways of constructing
knowledge of the world that create
their own “truths.” Incitement to
discourse, says Foucault, began
in the West four centuries ago.
The Christian Church’s emphasis
on “sins of the flesh” in the 17th
century led to a greater awareness
of sexuality, and to the rise in
the 18th century of “scandal”
books—fictional accounts of illicit
sexual behavior. The discourse
culminated in the 19th-century
science of sex that created modern
sexuality—from being an act, it
was transformed into an identity.
The confession
With the advent of psychiatry and
psychology at the end of the 19th
century, the Christian ritual of
confession—admitting to sins and
seeking penance from a priest in
order to regain the grace of God—
became reconstructed in scientific
form. Revealing sexual habits
and desires was seen as a way
to unearth the “authentic” self.
According to Foucault, the
confession has become one of
the most valued ways to uncover
“truth” in our society. From being
a ritual, it has become widespread
and is now part of family life,
relationships, work, medicine, and
policing. As Hungarian sociologist
Frank Furedi posits, confession
now dominates personal, social,
and cultural life, as evident in
reality TV shows and in social
media platforms such as Facebook
and Twitter.
Healthy relationships, we are
continually assured, require truth-
telling. Thereafter, an “expert” (a
therapist or doctor, for example) is
required to reveal our “authentic”
self. The compelling promise of the
confession is that the more detailed
it is, the more we will learn about
ourselves, and the more we will
be liberated. A person who has
experienced trauma is often told
that retelling the experience will
have a curative effect. But this “will
to truth” is a tactic of power, says
Foucault, that can become a form
of surveillance and regulation.
Confession, he claims, does not
reveal the truth, it produces it.
Foucault’s work has had an
immense impact on feminism
and studies of sexuality since the
1980s. In particular, his ideas have
influenced British sociologist
Jeffrey Weeks, who uses Foucault
to unearth the ways in which
legislation has served to regulate
gender and sexuality in society. ■Therapy culture
The Hungarian sociologist
Frank Furedi, emeritus
professor of sociology at the
University of Kent, UK, argues
that we are obsessed with
emotion in the modern age.
Experiences and emotions
that were once thought
normal, such as depression
and boredom, are now
believed to require treatment
and medical intervention.
We read constantly about
sports stars’ addictions and
celebrities’ sex lives. And in
order to heal, the emotionally
injured are encouraged to
share their pain with others,
to ignore the boundaries
separating public and
private. To seek help
publicly—through a revealing
autobiography, for example—
is seen as a virtue in a
therapeutic culture. Emotions
have come to be seen as
defining features of identity
and we are encouraged to
understand them as being
indicators of illness. This
phenomenon, Furedi argues,
is intensely disabling.
Ironically, the supposedly
“therapeutic” culture leaves
society feeling vulnerable.Everything had to be told...
sex was taken charge of,
tracked down.
Michel Foucault