A masturbação nos livros didáticos de ciências: uma análise a partir dos conceitos de biopolítica e de dispositivo da sexualidade

Abstract

This study results from Foucault's interpretation (1988) on the pathologization of the young masturbator, in the mid 18th century, that would have had an outstanding role in the construction of the device of sex pedagogical practices. Furthermore, the link between biopolitcs and device concepts of sexuality in the last pages of The will to Knowledge worked as an important beacon towards the objective of this investigation: understand the changes in the sense webs about masturbation, by setting a parallel between the 1990's textbooks and the bibliography that records the sense webs produced in the previous centuries (FOUCAULT, 2010, COSTA, 2004). Thus, we analized the Sciences textbooks according to Foucault's precepts of discoursive formation and discourse concepts. On the other hand, the biopolitcs concept results from the assumption that from Modern times onwards the population category becomes a fundamental theoretical operator in the power/knowledge interface, and that sexuality would be one of the aspects that rule people's lives. The normality sense assigned to masturbation in the analyzed publications is linked to health issue, instead of disease, which shows a change in the truth regime in the last century. In that period, the discoursive formation of psychology stepped up as an important authority as it assigned a healthy aspect to sex. The association of masturbation with the male body was diminished in the 1999 issue, which added, besides the female perspective, the historical aspect in the process of signification of the practice.