4. “The sodomite had been a temporary aberration; the homosexual was now species.” Explain what Foucault means by this remark with reference to the nineteenth century process he calls “the medicalisation of the sexually peculiar”. At the heart of the statement and references contained in the title are illustrations of how power is expressed through normative discourse in Western capitalist society. The process of how an act once termed ‘sodomy’ became transformed into the term ‘homosexual’ is fundamental to the nature of power in general and to the mechanism of discourse specifically. Foucault draws our attention to domains of discourse that are characterised by establishing quantifiable knowledge as truth, which society affords positions of authority, such as the medical profession. This authoritative mechanism was an instrument that was applied to an existing system of sexual relation governance resulting in a control-dynamic between power, knowledge and sex. The medicalisation of sexuality through discourse spawned a categorisation of the individual as determined by their sexual identity in a process of transforming experience into knowledge, knowledge into truth, and truth into reality. Foucault’s reference to the ‘sexually peculiar’ draws our attention to the delineation between the procreative model of relationships and all other pleasure-centred sexual acts. The child-bearing relationship’s sexual activities were regulated and protected at the exclusion and vilification of all others. Through the 17th and 18th centuries the

power of discourse shifted from the morality-regulation by the church to the industrial sensibilities of institutions such as the medical community. With a normal category of sexual behaviour outlined, the abnormal, ‘peculiar’ set could could be singularly defined and categorised. As Foucault declares, this