Society and sexuality awaiting the barbarians and history of sexuality In our modern minds reside two very different ways in which we approach the topic of sexuality. The conceptual structure of modern society, to some extent, has developed from past notions about the body. We can see that, starting from our historical roots, issues surrounding sexuality have been addressed through mutual feelings of desire and disgust. The relationship between these two opposing feelings arises from a dual sense of our awareness of our sexuality. One direction we are headed is to view any sexual content as socially digressive. The other goes to the opposite extreme. Sexuality is something that is talked about constantly, but usually not openly. We are also, in a sense, drawn by our sexuality to feel desire for our "other side," the side we don't show to many other people. Both poles represent aspects of a spectrum on which we all lie, drawn to both extremes simultaneously. The fact that we fall somewhere on that scale in the first place points to another reason beyond the reach of immediate family. The situation we find ourselves in as individuals of modernity is an arena of pre-constructed rules and regulations regarding our sexuality. The doctrine of sex in our world has been determined by the actions and thoughts of past generations. We rely on their conceptual machinery to generate our meaning in the world. The duality between desire and disgust, in relation to sexuality, is something that has been passed down to us through generations of social learning. In his book The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault presents evidence indicating the connection between... .center of paper ......interest in the topic as a hidden part of human existence. The dual mechanism of distancing and the desire to personally experience something serves to formulate the way we see our sexuality. Through the creation of this binary relationship, we as a society have been taught that there are parts of ourselves that are off-limits in normal discussion. To go beyond these lines is to travel into realms that allude to “perversion” or the experience of an “alternative lifestyle.” This social creation tells us that some parts of our personality are ones we shouldn't explore, even though we might be pushed to do so. It is because of these drives, which exist in all of us, that we are forced to deal with ourselves and what it means to be part of our society. Works Cited: Coetzee, JM 1980 Waiting for the Barbarians Harmondsworth, Pinguino.