On Focault...

Whenever I read Foucault, I can't help but have Salt 'N' Pepa's song "Let's Talk About Sex" in my head. At first it is humorous, and a way to alleviate me throughout the reading, but the more I think about it, with a Foucualt-ian analysis, the lyrics are quite telling.

First of all, we all know how important of a discourse hip hop and hip hop culture are in society. ("What is at issue, briefly, is the over-all 'discursive fact,' the way in which sex is 'put into discourse,'" F p. 11). In particular, youth looks a lot to music to find descriptions of reality that they can identify with. How common it is that we can hear a piece of music and be brought back to a certain stage in our lives and beliefs. That said, musicians and lyricists have a lot of power in terms of what type of knowledge they are producing to the public and can choose to be part of hegemonic discourses that perpetuate racist and sexist views, or they can be part of a counter-culture that resists such "norms". ("If sex is repressed, that is, condemned to prohibition, nonexistance, and silence, than the mere fact that one is speaking about it has the appearance of a deliberate transgressions" F p. 6).

Salt "N" Pepa has been part of this subversive group, representing themselves as strong women in both their lyrics, as well as rap style. Though the woman in the song appears to be using her sex to her advantage, nevertheless she is strong and has agency.

"Let's Talk About Sex" lyrics: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/saltnpepa/letstalkaboutsex.html



As the lyrics go, even though people may misunderstand us, we should talk about sex anyways, because that's how life is. And the only way to insure that our point gets across, is to try and try again, learning more every time through our interactions with others. The more perspectives you hear, the more varied your outlook on life is, and you can better understand the experiences of others, also known as the "marketplace of ideas". This line of thinking is in protest to the notion of censorship, that certain things should just be baned from the public. ("...modern prudishness was able to ensure that one did not speak if sex, merely through the interplay of prohibitions... by dint of saying nothing, imposed silence. Censorship" F. p 17).

Don't try to avoid sex because "it keeps coming up anyhow" and we can't stop this "discursive explosion" (F p. 17). The more you try to repress sex, the more you will realize it is every where. Sex sells, we see it on the streets, the television, and the written word. We look in the mirror every day when we dress and think about our bodies and our sex. We wonder what it is the other is thinking when they give a flirtatious glance. What are my child's peers telling her/him about sex that I don't know in a codified "rhetoric of allusion and metaphor" (F p. 17) ?

So where does that leave us? We have a responsibility- as women, men, queers, academics, activists, people who have sex, or don't- to talk about sex. Because if we don't, it will be the hegemonic discourses that define the sexual world. ( sex "had to be taken charge by analytical discourses... sex became a 'police' matter... the necessity of regulating sex through useful and public discourses" F p. 24-25) - i.e. abstinence only education, religion denouncing pre-marital and queer sex, or perhaps our protective fathers (that was a joke).

"Let's tell it how it is, and how it could be. How is was, and of course how it should be." Speak up! Whether it's in the bedroom, to friends, or in the classroom, make your opinion known. Otherwise our experiences will go unheard and be lost faster than we lost our virginity (also a joke).

As our sexualites are fluid, so is our future in terms of our sexual freedoms and who controls the information that is put out there. You bet I'll be there to talk about it and have a say in what is MY sex.

"At issue is not a movement bent on pushing rude sex back into some obscure and inacessible region, but on the contrary, a process that spreads it over the surface of things and bodies, arouses it, draws it out and bids it speak, implants it in reality and enjoins it to tell the truth: an entire glittering sexual array, reflected in a myraid of discourses, the obstination of powers, and the interplay of knowledge and pleasure" (F p. 72).

Michel Foucault The History of Sexuality Vol. 1
Vintage Books, New York
1972-1977