“Confession, the examination of conscience, all the insistence on the important secrets of the flesh, has not been simply a means of prohibiting sex or of repressing it as far as possible from consciousness, but was a means of placing sexuality at the heart of existence and of connecting salvation with the mastery of these obscure movements. In christian societies, sex has been the central object of examination, surveillance, avowal and transformation into discourse.”
from Power and Sex by Foucault
His Futile Preoccupations ..... 