From Sigmund Freud to Michel Foucault: a study on sexuality

The studies on sexuality have been numerous over time, from the first analysis of the nineteenth century psychiatry to the accurate remarks of Michel Foucault. Psychoanalysis has taken much interest on sexuality, above all has tried to detect all forms of repression of libido society wielded on the individual since his early life. Following a period of repression of sexuality and of highly restrictive rules of conduct, according to many analysts including Herbert Marcuse, the Society has changed position on this topic adopting a whole new attitude, after 1968, more permissive and tolerant about the sexual practices of individuals. The scholar Michel Foucault has identified in the dichotomy between ‘alliance device’ and ‘sexuality device’ the evolution of the relationship of the social fabric with the sexuality. A relationship that form being highly prescriptive and limiting was becoming encouraging of the practices and of the general decriminalization, favoring a pervasive, imperceptible and invasive sexualization, for a hedonistic transformation of the existence based on consumption.