The Perverse Implantation Summary

Deconstructing Michel Foucault's The Perverse Implantation
In The Perverse Implantation, Michel Foucault argues that while the majority of discourse on sexuality prior to the 18th century focused solely on marriage, discourses on sex increasingly became more concerned with those who were outside the bond of marriage, namely, children, homosexuals, the mentally ill etc. Foucault then points out three major arenas where the exercising of the power to make distinctions in sexuality are actually encouraging and proliferating sexual perversion, rather than repressing it. Throughout his argument, he explores questions such as “What is the purpose of codifying a sexual norm?” and illuminates the reader on why we ought to abandon the repressive hypothesis.
Foucault opens his critical essay by refuting the idea that the increase in discourse on sex has been directed at constituting a “sexuality that is economically useful and politically conservative” (37). Instead, he claims that this era has been an “age of multiplication” featuring a dispersion of sexual perversions (37). Essentially, he provides details of the context in which this conversation occurs.

Instead, the intense focus on child sexuality is used as a tool to examine sexuality in general. He mentions that the “target expanded, subdivided, and branched out” (42), in reference to ever more people being subjugated to the power of societal norms. Bringing children into the discourse effectively brings in parents, teachers, doctors and the like into the conversation as well simply due to the fact that there are supposed dangers associated with child sexuality. Contrary to the popularly held belief, the spotlight on child sexuality is a way to move the study of sexuality through many societal barriers at once and permeate many different realms of society with the