ABSTRACT
The subject of this chapter, the history and development of ‘marital’ sex therapy, might easily be seen within commonsense versions to represent one of the ways in which, during the course of the twentieth century, a particular realm of interpersonal problems was liberated from the shrouds of secrecy, anxiety and repression. Some accounts of the development of sex therapy and the knowledge base which underpins it therefore emphasize a sea change from thinking about sexual activity as procreation, to seeing it as recreation, and give considerable prominence to the extent to which this new science is capable of increasing the sum of human happiness. In a recent self-help guide, Masters, Johnson and Kolodny, for example, make the following claim:
…we believe that learning about sexuality in an objective fashion will enable our readers to examine important sexual issues-some intensely personal, some social, some moral-and emerge with deeper insights into themselves and others. We also believe that sexual knowledge can lead to reasoned, responsible inter-personal sexual behaviour and can help make important personal decisions about sex. In short, learning about sexuality is an invaluable preparation for living. (Masters, Johnson and Kolodny, 1987:4)
As the quotation from Michel Foucault illustrates, however, there is also a darker interpretation to be made of these accounts, which emphasizes that a new and apparent openness about sexual matters may mask structures of power and knowledge, which combine to exert new and more closely delineated forms of social and psychological control. My task in this chapter will therefore be to offer a critique of the liberal perspective, by showing, firstly, that ‘marital’ sex therapy has from the outset had an explicit purpose in seeking to shore up and buttress both the institution and relationship of marriage and secondly, that sex therapy has contributed to a wider discourse in which the sexual behaviour of individual subjects has become the object of scientific enquiry, leading to an expansion in the surveillance of sexual attitudes and practices. Accordingly, whilst the notion of ‘treating’ sexual problems might appear on the one hand as an example of sexual emancipation, it may also be seen as further extension of sexual and bodily regulation by what Donzelot (1979) calls the ‘psy’ forces. I shall illustrate this argument by detailed reference to the growth of ‘marital’ sex therapy within one organization, the National Marriage Guidance Council (since 1988 known as Relate).1
