Discuss how you understand what Foucault is saying about the operation of power-knowledge in relation to the formation of “homosexual” as a category.

Foucault (in)famously argued that the category of “the homosexual” came into being a particular period in history – that the homosexual “became a species” in relation to medical and psychiatric institutions. He draws on notions of both “confession” and “power-knowledge” to suggest that there was no such way of thinking about or knowing the “the self” as a homosexual before that time (and by implication, outside of a particular cultural and historical context). Discuss how you understand what Foucault is saying about the operation of power-knowledge in relation to the formation of “homosexual” as a category. Are there other sexual or gender-related categories that you think could be understood in a similar light? Or do you take issue with Foucault’s insistence that sexual subjectivity (understanding oneself as a particular “kind of person” vis a vis aspects of sexuality) is a product particular kinds of historically bound and institutionalized discourses? Explain your position.

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