ABSTRACT

Western culture was impacted by a kind of development, of hyper-development of the discourse on sexuality, of the theory of sexuality, the science of sexuality, the knowledge of sexuality. Greek and Roman Antiquity, during which sexuality was free, expressed itself without difficulty, and, indeed, developed, or at least gave itself a discourse in the form of an erotic art. Christianity would then have intervened, the Christianity that for the first time in the history of the West, would strongly prohibit sexuality, saying no to pleasure and even to sex. Christianity found a way of establishing a type of power that controlled individuals through their sexuality, conceived as something to be wary of, something that always introduced into individuals the possibility of temptation and of a downfall. But at the same time, it was absolutely not—for then one would fall into radical asceticism—about the refusal of everything that could come from the body as being harmful, as being evil.