Introduction

Deleuze's understanding of pleasure as a mode of capture and his claiming of desire as a mode of production build on a rather disparate tradition of theories of sexuality. Therefore, it is necessary to approach his oeuvre with an eye to his ideas about pleasure and desire by identifying key moments of influence. Our point of arrival is an explication of how the relationship between desire and pleasure in Deleuze is illuminated, enhanced or problematised by the rich tradition of writing on which it is built. Deleuze's philosophy of desire in general demands attention to how both cultural artefacts and philosophical theories produce problematic relations between desire and pleasure. His two most central interlocutors are Foucault and psychoanalysis. These two are central enough, not just to Deleuze's philosophy but to conceptions of sexuality more generally, to warrant some space of their own at the beginning of this study, and while this chapter will be devoted to the study of the former, the latter will be analysed in the following chapter.