Foucault 01

The History of Sexuality by Michel Foucault 傅柯：性史

Translated by Springhero 雄伯譯

Part One : We “ Other Victorians”

第一章：維多利亞時代另類人

For a long time, the story goes, we supported a Victorian regime, and we continue to
be dominated by it even today. Thus the image of the imperial prude is emblazoned on
our restrained, mute, and hypocritical sexuality.

有一種說法，常久以來，我們都信奉英國維多利亞時代的體制，甚至迄今，我
們仍然繼續受到這個體制的支配。因此，當時大英帝國時代對於性的假道學所表
現的拘謹、避而不談、及假惺惺的形象，依舊被我們津津樂道。

At the beginning of the seventeenth century a certain frankness was till common, it
would seem. Sexual practices had little need of secrecy; words were said without
undue reticence, and things were done without too much concealment; one had a
tolerant familiarity with the illicit.

在十七世紀初，人們對於性似乎都普遍地坦蕩蕩。跟性有關的各種做法幾乎沒有
什麼忌諱，談論到性，不必過份的閃爍其詞，從事性行為，也沒有什麼必要太
多的躲躲藏藏。婚外性行為，人們司空見慣，見怪不怪。

Codes regulating the coarse, the obscene, and the indecent were quite lax compared to
those of the nineteen century. It was a time of direct gestures, shameless discourse,
and open transgressions, when anatomies were shown and intermingled at will, and
knowing children hung about amid the laughter of adults: it was a period when bodies
“ made a display of themselves.

跟十九世紀比較起來，當時對於公開性行為的踰越、淫穢放蕩及傷害風化，規範
的法律是相當鬆弛的。那個時代，人們對於性行為直接坦然，大大方方論述，招
搖踰越，身體解剖圖公開展示，隨意地夾雜性行為的暗示，大人放肆淫笑，也
不避諱小孩在旁。那個時代，身體「展露自己，以為炫耀」。

But twilight soon fell upon this bright day, followed by the monotonous nights of the
Victorian bourgeoisie. Sexuality was carefully confined; it moved into the home. The
conjugal family took custody of it and absorbed it into the serious function. On the

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subject of sex, silence became the rule.

但是不久，黃昏就降臨到燦爛白天，跟隨而來的是，維多利亞時代布爾喬亞小
資產階級沉悶的夜晚。性行為謹慎地被限制，並且被搬遷到家屋之內。結婚的家
庭才能堂而皇之從事性行為，而且還被牽扯到生兒育女的嚴肅功用。至於性的話
題，人們通常心照不宣。

The couple imposed itself as model, enforced the norm, safeguarded the truth, and
reserved the right to speak while retaining the principle of secrecy. A single locus of
sexuality was acknowledged in social space as well as at the heart of every household,
but it was a utilitarian and fertile one: the parents’ bedroom.

父母要做表率，性行為要有夫妻的名份，敦倫的真相則諱莫如深，縱使保有談
論的權利，也得遵照不可外揚的原則。在社會空間及每個家庭的核心，性行為唯
一被認可的空間，是從功用及繁殖後代來考量的空間：父母的臥房。

The rest had only to remain vague; proper demeanor avoided contact with other
bodies, and verbal decency sanitized one’ speech. And sterile behavior carried the
taint of abnormality; if it insisted on making itself too visible, it would be designated
accordingly and would have to pay the penalty.

其餘的事情則隱秘不清，端正的行為要避免外遇跟劈腿，合宜的言詞要謹慎自
己的話語。行房而不能生育會被懷疑夫妻哪一方生理有毛病。假如不能生育被公
開周知，被會認為不能傳宗接代，而必須付出懲罰的代價。

Nothing that was not ordered in terms of generation or transfigured by it could expect
sanction or protection. Nor did it merit a hearing. It would be driven out, denied, and
reduced to silence. Not only did it not exist, it had no right to exist and would be made
to disappear upon its least manifestation—whether in acts or in words.

跟傳宗接代無關，或沒有藉此而顯得光明堂皇的性論述，不可能得到認可或保
護。也無法得到公開的聽聞。這種性的論述將會被驅除，否認，並被迫不可發表
它不僅不存在，而且連存在的權利都沒有。只要稍露跡象，不論是行為或言詞，
都會被迫消聲匿跡。

Everyone knew, for example, that children had no sex, which was why they were
forbidden to talk about it, why one closed one’s eyes and stopped one’s ears whenever
they came to show evidence to the contrary, and why a general and studied silence

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was imposed.

例如，大家都知道，小孩沒有性能力，這就是為什麼他們被禁止談論性，也是
為什麼當小孩逐漸顯示有性的能力時，大家都裝聾作啞，視而不見。更是為什麼
大家一方面視若無睹，又暗中觀察。

These are the characteristic features attributed to repression, which serve to

distinguish it from the prohibitions maintained by penal law: repression operated as a
sentence to disappear, but also as an injunction to silence, an affirmation of
nonexistence, and, by implication, an admission that there was nothing to say about
such things, nothing to see, and nothing to know.

有些明顯的特徵，歸屬給壓抑，可以用來區別它跟刑法所維持的禁止有何不同。
壓抑不但是充當一種要性匿跡不見的宣示，而且命令性要消除聲音，等於是肯
定性的不存在，可是，又暗示地承認，關於性這碼事，沒有可以稱道，沒有什
麼看頭，也沒有什麼好去知曉。

Such was the hypocrisy of our bourgeois societies with its halting logic. It was forced
to make a few concessions, however. If it was truly necessary to make room for
illegitimate sexualities, it was reasoned, let them take their infernal mischief
elsewhere: to a place where they could be reintegrated, if not in the circuits of
production, at least in those of profit.

我們布爾喬亞小資產階級邏輯矛盾的假道學，就是這副德性。可是，它也不得不
做些讓步。它的推理是，既然不合法的性慾望實在有必要讓它們有個宣洩之所，
就眼不見為淨地讓它們到其它地方去翻雲覆雨。既然跟生育子女的繁殖無關的性
蠢蠢欲動，那就跟它們跟生財交易的繁榮合併去幹。

The brothel and the mental hospital would be those places of tolerance: the prostitute,
the client, and the pimp, together with the psychiatrist and his hysteric—those “ other
Victorians,’ as Steven Marcus would say—seem to have surreptitiously transferred
the pleasures that are unspoken into the order of things that are counted.

妓院跟醫院就是這種社會可以包容性論述的地方：妓女、嫖客、老鴇，外加精神
科醫生跟患性歇斯底里症的病人，就是哲學家馬庫色筆下所謂的「維多利亞時代
另類人」。他們似乎偷偷地將可做不可說的性歡樂，挪移到被官方認可的社會秩
序上。

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Words and gestures, quietly authorized, could be exchanged there at the going rate.
Only in those places would untrammeled sex have a right to ( safgely insularized )
forms of reality, and only to clandestine, circumscribed, and coded types of discourse.
Everywhere else, modern Puritanism imposed its triple edict of taboo, nonexistence,
and silence.

有關性的論述跟行為，悄悄地被默許，現在能夠依照實際進行的情況去從事。只
有在那些場所，坦蕩自在的性，才擁有權利存在於安全隔離的現實環境中，才
擁有權利去做某個限度，而且不公開的記錄方式的論述。在其它場所，現代的清
教徒就給性貫徹禁忌、不存在、及不可說等三道敕令。

雄伯譯
32hsiung@pchome.com.tw