Foucault, who showed the shift from a theological discourse on the flesh to a medical discourse on sex, only unravels a new social and cultural ‘encoding’ of a pre-existing object

In the series 'sources in perspective' ´ Editions BHMS publishes text anthologies, preceded by a historiographic introduction and a critical apparatus. This volume edited by Patrick Singy, philosopher and historian, gathers together ninety-eight letters or extracts of letters sent to Dr Tissot, an introduction on the history of sexuality, a glossary and a bibliography. This anthology should be put into the context of the project conducted by S. Pilloud, M. Louis-Courvoisier and V. Barras which provided to the general public, as scans available online, the entire corpus of medical letters (1436) sent to the great Swiss doctor and conserved in the cantonal library and University of Lausanne. The choice made by Patrick Singy in this corpus focuses on letters where the disease which motivates consultation involves the sexuality of the patient, directly or indirectly. Certain letters are reproduced in full, others are only quoted for a few lines. All are preceded with a note providing, when available, information on the date, location, author, patient, Tissot's reaction (diagnosis, comments) and the letter's location in the Tissot archives collection. The letters collected here illustrate the thesis that Patrick Singy develops in the introduction. According to him, the historiography of sexuality suffers from a recurrent defect: it postulates the idea of a 'natural' sexuality, un-historical, only the control and expression of which would be subjects of history. This postulate (also found in the history of emotions) places the historian in the position of 'defender of sexual liberation', devoted to denouncing medicine, which is seen as oppressive. Even Foucault, who showed the shift from a theological discourse on the flesh to a medical discourse on sex, only unravels a new social and cultural 'encoding' of a pre-existing object. Patrick Singy proposes to distinguish in the history of sexuality three discourses, more or less porous and successive, which correspond to both concepts and practices: the discourse on the flesh, relying on the confession; the discourse on semen, relying on the medical consultation, and the discourse on sexuality, relying on the psychoanalytic cure. The discourse on the flesh, essentially Christian, is based on a sexual norm, conjugal and reproductive heterosexuality. Its main objective is to determine the degree of culpability of sexual acts that deviate from this norm and the role played by willingness. It is a question of sin. In this discourse, for example, involuntary nocturnal pollution is relativized. The discourse on sexuality, which appears …