Foucault raises the interesting paradox that faces our society: sex as something that is secret and taboo, yet discussed everywhere with everyone. We are a "prude" people that talk about sex in order to make it more prude. Society has managed to "hide sex in plain sight" -see where I got my title from :) . Sex is "not a thing which stubbornly shows itself, but one which always hides, the insidious presence that speaks in a voice so muted and often disguised that one risks remaining deaf to it." (35) The fact that sex is in every movie we see, in every commercial, on the back of every t shirt, and constantly in our faces, numbs us to the fact that it is sex we are talking about. As long as we don not explicitly say sex, which would garnish whispers and giggles, we can talk about it as much as we would like. "A policing of sex: that is, not the rigor of a taboo, but the necessity of regulating sex through useful and public discourse." (25) Its so obvious as long as you know where to look.
On a completely unrelated note, what in god's name is "the game curdled milk"? (31) Apparently it is common and played by some old dude with a seven year old girl...
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=19365
-- I don't think is quite appropriate, but this is what 5 minutes of research led me to.
I agree that sex is everywhere in our society now hidden in forms that are not directly recognizable. "Hidden in plain sight" is a great way to describe this! It is something we can understand in our culture, although literally sounding very contradictory. We are definitely numb to the incessant underlying sexuality of everything in the media unless it is explicitly thrown in our faces. It is in this slyly hidden nature that sexuality is made so prominent in our society.
And I don't want to know what the game "curdled milk" entails.
While I agree with you guys that sex is indeed everywhere, there is something in the power of the actual word "sex" -- as Foucault calls attention to on page 17-- that really gets heads to turn. I vividly remember being a kid (like 10 or 11) and I was and riding in the car with my friend and her mom . . . Marvin Gaye's song, "Sexual Healing" came on the radio and my friend's mom quickly changed the station, ironically, to the Rolling Stone's "Let's Spend the Night Together." Curious that "sexual healing" got the axe, but "let's spend the night together" was allowed to play.
I think this really demonstrates Foucault's point that there is power in the very word "sex." If the song had not been so explicitly about sex, would my friend's mom have changed the station with such haste??