In Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality, he acknowledges how sex and sexuality have been taboo topics in Western culture, but how he feels the topic was never truly repressed. He additionally explains his skepticality of the “repressive hypothesis”-the belief that discussing sex has been socially rejected throughout the last few centuries. Foucault wants to discredit the ideas that society has repressed and discouraged sexuality since the early 1600’s, and that sex had been something that was forbidden to talk about. To Foucault, the answer he seeks is not whether the “repressive hypothesis” is true or not, but how it was created and why. Why do we see talking about sex as a rebellion? Why do we talk so frequently about how we cannot talk about sex? Foucault sees a deeper intent beneath that-a will for more knowledge or power. One of Foucault’s main points is shown in John Harvey Kellogg’s Plain Facts for Old and Young. Kellogg was known to have a great opposition against any sort of sexual expression, yet he devotes the majority of his writings towards speaking about topics of sexuality. Therefore, Foucault’s ideas are proven valid based upon Kellogg’s Plain Facts for Old and Young.
Foucault believes that the discussion of sex and sexuality is indeed taboo, but not outright repressed, as much of the public has believed. If it were truly repressed, then Kellogg’s writings would have been completely publicly rejected, as in the book he discusses his beliefs about sex and disdain for any form of sexual expression. Kellogg, a doctor, was known to be a man who was deeply pro-sexual abstinence and anti-masturbation, he was very much for sexual repression of all kinds. He believed that sex for pleasure was ultimately a sin. He thought that romance novels could corrupt young girls, and that eating certain foods would intensify sexual desire. Kellogg would even go to extremes such as mutilating the genitals of people he believed were “chronic self-abusers”. So, the fact that he wrote a novel about sex and the “dangers” of pleasure is quite paradoxical in a sense.
Contrary to the “repressive hypothesis”, Michel Foucault believed that discourse on sexuality in fact escalated during the time period (the seventeenth century through the mid-twentieth century), that was said to be more sexually repressive in nature. Around the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as reported by Foucault, society actually took a particular interest in sexuality, in what they considered to be “perverted”, such as the mentally ill and homosexuals. During the later part of this period, John Harvey Kellogg published Plain Facts for Old and Young, which is a novel warning people about the dangers of sexual “sins”. This holds true with Foucault’s theory that discourse on sex did proliferate during that particular time period. Although Kellogg was avidly discouraging sexuality and was expressing his disgust with people that committed sexual “sins”, his novel was still discourse fully about sex and sexuality. This discourse would simply not exist and would not have been spread through the public if society then was purely, exclusively repressive.
To the untrained eye, it would seem that Foucault’s primary area of focus is sexuality itself. But, Foucault’s main interest lies in people’s motivation for a certain kind of knowledge, particularly to do with sex and sexuality, and the power within it. The repressive hypothesis can create a Marxist way of thinking- societal repression of all things sexual throughout history could be part of a larger problem-the class struggle of wealth and power. Foucault theorizes that the desire to control and limit discourse on sexuality and sexual expression is simply a desire for power and control over others. This additionally could apply to Kellogg’s works and beliefs- his desire to inhibit and repress people’s sexual freedom stems from his underlying appetite for ultimate power over others.