Foucault Excerpt II

"Whence the setting apart of the "unnatural" as a specific dimension in the field of sexuality. This kind of activity assumed an autonomy with regard to the other condemned forms such as adultery or rape (and the latter were condemned less and less): to marry a close relative or practice sodomy, to seduce a nun or engage in sadism, to deceive one's wife or violate cadavers, became things that were essentially different. The area covered by the Sixth Commandment began to fragment. Similarly, in the civil order, the confused category of "debauchery," which for more than a century had been one of the most frequent reasons for administrative confinement, came apart. From the debris, there appeared on the one hand infractions against the legislation (or morality) pertaining to marriage and the family, and on the other, offenses against the regularity of a natural function (offenses which, it must be added, the law was apt to punish). Here we find a likely reason. among others, for the prestige of Don Juan, which three centuries have not erased. Underneath the great violator of the rules of marriage -- stealer of wives, seducer of virgins, the shame of families, and an insult to husbands and fathers -- another personage can be glimpsed: the individual driven, in spite of himself, by the sombre madness of sex."

p. 39