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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Per Foucault, what does our tone of voice tell us when we speak about sexuality?
(a) That we long for more understanding and help.
(b) That we are ashamed of our sexuality.
(c) That we derive sexual pleasure from it.
(d) That we feel we are being subversive.

2. The innate power structure of the confession leads to which of the following?
(a) Truth takes effect not on the receiver, but on the one from whom it comes.
(b) It's truth is not guaranteed by authority figures, but by the speaker.
(c) All of the above.
(d) The sexual discourse comes from below in the power structure.

3. Per Foucault, what was the affect of power exercised over sex?
(a) It subjugated the lower classes.
(b) It caused an increase in religious ferver.
(c) It confined sexuality to the home between married couples.
(d) It created polymorphous sexualities.

4. Which of the following would Foucault NOT agree was a result of sexual discourse?
(a) Legal sanctions against minor perversions were multiplied.
(b) A norm of sexual development was defined.
(c) The fact of speaking about sex became more important than the moral imperatives imposed.
(d) Sexual irregularity was annexed to mental illness.

5. What does Foucault NOT say about western society?
(a) It is on the brink of a sexual revolution.
(b) It speaks verbosely of its own silence.
(c) It denounces the powers it exercises.
(d) It promises to liberate itself from the laws that have made it function.

6. What is scientia sexualis?
(a) The science of mastering the act of sexual pleasure.
(b) Procedures for telling the truth about sex which are adapted from confession.
(c) The biological science of reproduction.
(d) The study of aberrations, perversions, and other forms of alternate sexualities.

7. What does Foucault say distinguishes the last three centuries?
(a) A general prudishness of language.
(b) The wide dispersion of devices and institutions that were invented for speaking about sex.
(c) Massive censorship.
(d) A uniform concern to hide sex.

8. What does Foucault say about the parallel sciences of the biology of reproduction and the medicine of sex in the nineteenth century?
(a) Their theories were looked at with skepticism by the general public.
(b) They operated in similar fashions.
(c) The information generated by one would cause advances in the other.
(d) There was no exchange between the two.

9. The medical examination, the psychiatric investigation, the pedagogical report, and family controls can be said to be characterized by which of the following?
(a) The effective practice of removing sexual impetus.
(b) The domination of authority figures and the repression of sexual practice.
(c) Anxiety and domination.
(d) Perpetual spirals of pleasure and power.

10. Which of the many great innovations in the techniques of power in the eighteenth century was inextricably interwoven with the discourse on sex?
(a) Serfdom.
(b) The partnership between church and state.
(c) The emergence of population as an economic and political problem.
(d) The concentration of wealth and education.

11. What does Foucault say happened when there was the apparent "silencing" of sex in discourse?
(a) Attendance at religious institutions spiked.
(b) There was a discursive explosion of institutionalized sexual discourse.
(c) There was a marked increase in sexual predation and violence.
(d) People became less informed and were more easily subjugated.

12. What does Foucault NOT say was true about the science of sexuality before Freud?
(a) It stirred up people's fears about the consequences of sexualities.
(b) It concerned itself primarily with aberrations and perversions.
(c) It was devoted to strictly pursuing truth.
(d) It wasn't very rational or scientific.

13. Which of the following is NOT one of the doubts Foucault expresses against the "repressive hypothesis?"
(a) Is sexual repression a historical fact?
(b) Is the analysis of the repression of sexuality a component of the repression itself?
(c) Is sexual repression undone by discourse?
(d) Does the repression of sexuality lead to a concentration of power?

14. Which of the following can NOT be said of the medicalization of the sexually peculiar?
(a) It presupposed proximity.
(b) It was an analytical practice devoid of pleasure.
(c) It required an intimate exchange of discourse.
(d) It entailed examination and insistent observation.

15. What is the "discursive fact?"
(a) The need people experience to discuss illicit subjects.
(b) The tendency of discourse to enlighten.
(c) The liberation attained through discussion.
(d) The way in which sex is put into discourse.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why is the author of "My Secret Life" an interesting example in Foucault's argument?

2. What does Foucault say has happened to sexual discourse?

3. What were the two places of tolerance to arise as a result of the confinement of sexuality?

4. What effect did the classification of perversions have?

5. Which of the following statements would Foucault NOT agree with?

(see the answer keys)

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