The Event of Sexual Pleasure as De-subjectivization in Foucault and the Kāmasūtra

Abstract

This essay explores the notion of sexual pleasure as it relates to gender identity in the Kāmasūtra in critical engagement with Michel Foucault's works on the history of sexuality. The contrast between ars erotica (art of erotics) in non-western culture and scientia sexualis (science of sexuality) in western cultures played a critical role in Foucault's project. I focus on the event of sexual pleasure as reflected in the notion of raticakra, or pleasure wheel, marked by a loss of the sense of the self or identity, including gender identity, in conjunction with Foucault's observations on pleasure as an event of desubjectivization.