 The book begins with a repudiation of the “repressive hypothesis,” the idea that sexuality in the Victorian era was repressed and discourse on it silenced. Foucault claims that repression did not characterize the primary attitude of modern society towards sex; rather, sexuality became the object of new kinds of discourse—medical, juridical and psychological ­– and that discourse on it actually increased. Sexuality was inextricably linked to truth: these new discourses were able to tell us the scientific truth about ourselves through our sexuality.