When we had a discussion about repressive hypothesis, most of the students in the class agreed that discourses about sexuality are silenced and well-refined, here in United States. Foucault asserts that the western society is based on confessions of Victorian Era, not from Bourgeois society of the seventeenth century. These confessions motivated people to confess about things from their misconduct on sexual activities to even having thoughts about sexuality. Eventually, these confessions became the made people think that sex is bad and secretive and cause of repressive hypothesis. Yes. This is understandable reason for western society to have repressive hypothesis.
What about all the other countries where sex is repressed? For example, most of Asians are not comfortable talking about sex publically and definitely not comfortable dealing with it with easy manner. I talk to many friends who born, spent most of their childhood in Asia and came to America for college educations. Apparently, growing up in Asia and moving to USA with very opened and liberated culture, they experience extreme confusion. I personally lived in Korea till seventh grade and got middle school and high school education in America. But I remember the initial shock I got from such a different culture and I do still get a shock from certain aspect of the culture; especially, aspects on sexuality. Many Asian parents refuse showing love for each other, some parents even refuse to hold hand in front of people. Those parents work consciously not to show affections for each other in front of people, especially their kids. I think because the power that is operating on the society forces the image that kid should not be aware of anything that is “close” to sex and it is parent’s responsibility to hide it well.
This phenomenon is very similar to repressive hypothesis in western societies. However, Asian countries adopted catholic not long ago and are not used to whole “confession” yet. Most people have religions like Buddhism and Hinduism, that are far from catholic and Christianity. Then what are the causes of repression of sexuality in Asian countries? I am not sure the causes of this but it is definitely different kind of power (confession) that operates in the Western society.
Moreover, Repressive hypothesis insist that people should talk about it more openly and frequently to challenge the repressiveness (However, Foucault disagrees with the idea). However, I do not think Asian countries are even aware that the sex is repressed. Therefore, they are not even thinking about making any action or resolution for this phenomenon. (I think they are quite comfortable of their life style) Is it really necessary for the society, for both Asian and western, to realize the power and challenge it? That should be the points we should think about.
Eastman Concept of Power Blog 
December 18, 2014 at 2:05 am |
This is a very interesting point because it’s true that at some point, when we are children, we are completely unaware that sex exists. There comes a time in maturity when a child becomes aware of his/her own sexuality – however when there is no discussion of sexuality the adolescent must accept what the social norm is in context of society. If an adolescent notices that there is very little discussion of sexuality then whatever feelings that are experienced are subdued, then the individuals own feelings/thoughts on the subject would be removed as well as there are no contextually/culturally acceptable forms of talk about it.