Perhaps one day people will wonder at this. They will not be able to understand how a civilization so intent on develop­ing enormous instruments of production and destruction found the time and the infnite patience to inquire so anxi­ously concerning the actual state of sex; people will smile perhaps when they recall that here were men — meaning our­selves — who believed that therein resided a truth every bit as precious as the one they had already demanded from the earth, the stars, and the pure forms of their thought; people will be surprised at the eagerness with which we went about pretending to rouse from its slumber a sexuality which every­thing — our discourses, our customs, our institutions, our regulations, our knowledges — was busy producing in the light of day and broadcasting to noisy accompaniment. And people will ask themselves why we were so bent on ending the rule of silence regarding what was the noisiest of our preoccupations.

— Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1, 157f.
(via Southern Comfort )