Ft @FuckTheory

Counterhumanist ethology. The avant-garde of affect.

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5/8/14

The "repressive hypothesis" is a myth, Foucault says in the very first pages of the History
of Sexuality.
"Then we will answer Foucault's call to end the repression of our true desires!" the queer
intellectuals staunchly assert.
"Did they not hear me, or are they just stupid?" one imagines Foucault asking Deleuze in a
smoke-filled afterlife.
"Michel, you speak too clearly, and those who speak too clearly can never hope to be
understood." Deleuze carefully cleans his long nails.
peu"You were saying the same fucking thing in Anti-Oedipus. Anti-Oedipus inspired the
History of Sexuality. You think anyone understood YOU?"
"No," Deleuze retorts calmly. "But in obscurity one is misunderstood by few, while those
who speak too clearly are misunderstood by many."
"Did you see that boy Leo and I picked up after the Patti Smith Group concert in
Berkeley?" "Michel."
"We were all wearing leather, it feels so good to finally wear leather in public after all these
years." "Michel."
"The boy was fisting me while Bersani was fisting him and then I starte-" "MICHEL."
"Sorry. I got carried away."
Deleuze sighs, lights another cigarette, even though there are three half-smoked ones in the
ashtray on the table.
They smoke in silence for a few minutes. "There are no revolutions in the history of
sexuality," Deleuze finally says.
"I know that," Foucault retorts. "You don't think I know that? Forces and discourses apply
reciprocal pressure across the longue dure."
"I'm only a year younger than you, Gilles. Don't talk to me like I was Alain Badiou."
Foucault's voice has a slightly petulant edge now.
"You WERE a year younger than me. We're both dead now." Foucault says nothing. He
knows better than to argue with Deleuze about temporality.
Another lingering silence. "OK, so what do I do about the queers, Dr. Subtilis?" Deleuze
arches an eyebrow. "Dr. Subtilis, c'est bon."
"Alors, I would say tell them to read Hoc-" "OMG don't even." "Tell them to read Hocqu-"
"GILLES!" "Tell them to read Hocquenghem."
"There are no revolutions in the history of sexuality," Deleuze repeats, placidly. "We do not
yet kn-"
"-know what the body can do. Yeah yeah. But some of us know a lot more about what it can
do than others. Doesn't that push a limit?"
Foucault's getting warmed up. Fuck temporality; when it comes to bodies he's back on
home turf. Biopower, fuck yeah.
"Your very own Spinozist ethics necessitate an a priori value to adequate knowledge of the
body. Sexual exploration leading to intuition."
Deleuze stares at the wall. "Adequate knowledge, yes. But knowledge in and of the self,
with no inherent social meaning or value."
"Who said anything about inherent? Sex is always contingent, we both know that. No vinyl
fetishists before the invention of synthetics."
"It's always a problem of categories. Always categories. The framing of the process by
which intuitions become concepts." Deleuze pauses.
Deleuze knows he shouldn't, but he can't help himself: "Or didn't you learn anything from
all those years you spent reading Sein & Zeit?"
"Wow. You know what, wow. I'm glad Badiou interrupted your fucking seminar with his
macho Maoist horseshit."
"Calm down, Michel. What people fail to grasp is that there is only continuity in processes
and principles, never in categories themselves."
"The idea of the minor will always remain minor, but no possible content of that category
will retain that value transhistorically."
"Sexuality is not sex. Ass-fucking will always remain ass-fucking, but the relation of act to
social identity is inherently unstable."
"Simply put, for the idea of repression to have any meaning, there must be a possible future
in which man-on-man assfucking is normative."
Deleuze stubs out the end of his cigarette, adding it to the small mountain of filters and
cinder already collected in the ashtray.
"Come on, Michel," he says. "Let's go. I don't want to be here when Sartre and Beauvoir
arrive for their afternoon game of Battleship."
He leaves the room without looking back. Foucault pauses, frowns, then gets up to follow
him. [FINIS]
Thank you, thank you. I have exhausted my words, I'm going to the gym.