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Peter
Owen Publishers, 2005, 240pp, 0 7206 1219 5, £13.95
On Foucault...
In 1975 he was
lecturing in Berkeley, California, and again frequenting the bathhouses
of and other SM establishments in San Francisco. From the mid-70s, all
sexual acts between consenting adults were deemed lawful in California,
and the gay community in San Francisco was growing. Gay bars, gay clubs
and even gay communities were being established. Some bathhouses had
‘orgy rooms’ for the experience of multiple sexual contacts between
strangers. Here Foucault could experience the generation of sexual
pleasure with strangers, with the freedom given by anonymity. He was
particularly interested in the ‘leather’ scene, and was astounded to
find a culture devoted to casual sex and drugs. He wanted to explore
ways in which sexual pleasure could be found other than through the
genitals, in what he termed the ‘desexualisation of pleasure’. He was
fascinated by the body and its many possibilities for pleasure. It was
also important for him to get away from a sense of subjective identity,
and explore how to fabricate pleasure simply with the body. He also
describes having had a profound experience while high on LSD overlooking
Death Valley, California. In fact, Foucault was so impressed with the
effect of the hallucinogenic drug that he commented ‘The only think I
can compare this experience to in my life is sex with a stranger.’ Not
the sort of comment one might expect from a Professor of the Collége de
France!
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