This essay aims to draw a Jewish countergenealogy to the one traced in Michel Foucault’s famous History of Sexuality, volume 1, to account for JewishChristian tensions unexplored within Foucault’s history. Foucault suggests a connection between Christian pastoral confession and the imperative to tell “everything concerning . . .sex” in psychoanalysis; this essay argues that the outsider status of Jews in relation to this imperative helps account for the distinctively Jewish contributions to the discourse around sex in the modern West.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Naomi Seidman (2026) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context: