Weaving her own experience of coming to grips with her lesbian sexual identity into her readings of Michel Foucault's writings on sexuality and power, the author, here, argues that Foucault's texts should be read less for the arguments they advance, and more for their transformative effect.

"Bodies and Pleasures" takes the reader beyond unexplored norms and imposed identities, as it points the way toward a personal politics, ethics, and style that challenges our sexual selves.

Abbreviations
Introduction: Foucault's Impact: Challenges and Transformations
1: Views from the Site of Political Oppression: Or, How I served as an Anchor Point for Power and Emerged as a Locus of Resistance
2: Genealogical Diversions: Wherein the Ascetic Priestess Loses Her Way and Begins to Wander Aimlessly Through Dem Ole Cotton Fields Back Home
3: Why I Shouldn't Like Foucault ... So They Say
4: Disorientation: Or, Beyond Sex-Desire
5: Natural Bodies: Or, Ain't Nobody Here But Us Deviants
6: Self-Overcoming Through Ascetic Pleasures
7: Counterattack: An Ethics of Style
Inconclusion
Notes
Index