I appreciate Nathan's input, and would like to say that I wasn't alleging that the "new" (a problematic concept by itself, as it is in a way the result of a strong trend that can be traced back to 1890 at least) sexuality model is superior to others. Neither, for that matter, was Foucault, whom I was drawing on, who disagreed with the modern sexual model in two major ways:
A. people tend to fool themselves into viewing sexual expression as an act of rebellion and liberation when they are, in fact, playing into the "rebellion" dialectic and actually further ensnaring themselves. By thinking of frank discussion of sex as a rebellion, they actually reinforce its status as a taboo. By transgressively "breaking the taboo" they are in fact reinvigorating its existence.
B. By obsessively classifying people based on their sexual tastes, it transforms that into an immutable part of someone's identity. The label "homosexual" becomes an inescapable prison in a way the Medieval sodomite never was: "sodomy" is an act one does, and one could (and did) abandon the label by ceasing the act. A "homosexual" isn't defined by what he or she does, but by what he or she is, and it limits their courses of action. Similarly for a heterosexual, the sheer act of definition based on sexual tastes ends up forcing one into a limitation of attraction to 50% of the population. This concept, that one should only be attracted to one of the two sexes, was unknown in the Greek world, and Foucault (and, frankly, I) think that the latter attitude is preferable to the modern liberal attitude of "It's OK to be gay/whatever." Gay rights as it was framed ends up leading to imprisoning people with a label that reduces them to only having access to lovers of one sex, whether the same or the opposite, and actually increased boundaries between the two: "gay" and "straight" become non-overlapping categories. It's the reason why Foucault himself never considered himself gay and fiercely opposed the word in general, despite his love of many men.
Getting to Nathan's point, I agree that shame does, in fact, have a real place in sexual discourse, and one that has too often been denigrated by people that worship the discourse of sexual liberation. Sexuality, when it becomes too loud or too boisterous, can become an actively harmful habit. How many people dismissed the allegations against Dominique Strauss-Khan by saying things along the lines of "that's just how the French are, they have more sophisticated notions of sexuality" etc.? People did, in fact, try to defend alleged rape (that particular case, of course, didn't happen the way originally portrayed, but remember that this is before we knew that) as somehow akin to Mitterand's affairs and whatnot. People defend the systematic misogyny prevalent in, say, the attitudes of a Berlusconi as an example of virile womanizing, then condemn the same tawdry conduct in Egypt.
My main point is that one of the biggest problems regarding sexual discourse is the liberation trap. People who think that they are flouting a societal taboo by talking about sex and do so for the racy thrill of transgression are themselves constructing said taboo every second. The attempts to "shock" and declare proud opposition to cultural taboos are like a fly in a spiderweb: by struggling, you only get yourself more and more trapped. There is no such thing as "liberation," sexual or otherwise. This is by far the most valuable lesson in Foucault, IMO, and one of the reasons he ended up becoming such an enthusiastic supporter of Ayatollah Khomeini in the end...so many people dismiss that chapter in his life as out of place with his message when it really is the culmination of his message. Stop struggling against "repressive" discourse and settle down and the cessation of struggle will help free you.
Granted, I wouldn't advise going
that far.
