I was very intrigued by Foucault's "perpetual spirals of power and pleasure" (45). I read this section as an explanation of how in gaining a dominant control over the sexuality of individuals and populations, power repurposes basically erotic pleasures and uses them for its own means of control. I was unsure whether to read this as intentional or a side effect, maybe the only way to make these methods of power sustainable: by tying them back into basic human pleasures. Foucault identifies both: "The pleasure that comes of exercising a power that questions...[and] the pleasure that kindles at having to evade this power" (45). So thus, paradoxically, the methods of control over sexuality become sources or surrogates for the pleasure of the same type that they try to repress: it is hard to construe the "capture and seduction" (45) as much different than some so-called perversions which would seem to be outside the sexual norm. Foucault himself touches on this on page 47: "Modern society is perverse, not in spite of its puritanism..".

This section also reminded me of Pynchon's treament of Captain Blicero and his cohorts in Gravity's Rainbow . At the time I was confused as to basically why all the BDSM, and sort of wrote it off as a no-brow pastiche kind of thing. Reading this, however, puts things into a different light. I wonder now if Pynchon wasn't maybe trying to get at this idea of the way that networks of sexual control are actually making use of what seem to be 'deviant' and marginalized sexual drives which typically manifest themselves in the practices of bdsm-style kinky sex. By silently legitimating the pleasure of submission through the ritual of confession, and of the constant and complex interpenetration of the body by imperatives to conform to sexual norms, power networks stimulate these seemingly perverse aspects of human sexuality in their operation. Based on Pynchon's constant preoccupation with paranoia as an almost but never entirely reductio-ad-absurdum of reason and logic, I wonder if he might not be gesturing towards a similar fetishization there as well: a subordinace of more seemingly natural and organic processes of knowing to reason, and a decidedly though silently sexual pleasure derived thereof. I would point to the descriptions of Gottfried's encapsulation in the S-Gerät and its launch as an example of this. Any thoughts on the way this plays out in our own society? As a conversation starter, I would venture to suggest that the corporate environment itself demands a certain fetishized subordination to rituals and power structures as well.