Read the above reading on European Sexology and then answer these prompts. Keep in mind the prompts are critical thinking prompts, meaning some of the questions may be trick questions or not straight-forward. These are still graded pass/fail though. As long as you put in good effort and demonstrate you've done the reading you'll get full credit for it.The total reading response should be around 1.5-2 pages double spaced
-Who were three early sexologists and what did their work focus on?
-Why did the sexologists work individually, why didnt they communicate with one another? How did this help or hurt their work?
CBofMH_v20_no1 International Sexual Reform and Sexology in Europe, 1897-1933 NICHOLAS MATTE Abstract. This paper looks at the relationship of sex reformers and sexology to social reform in Europe in the 20th century prior to the outbreak of World War I. It considers a variety of emerging sexual classification systems and national reform efforts, with special attention to Magnus Hirschfeld and the Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin, which was destroyed by the Nazis in 1933. It argues that during this time period the international connections between individual reformers and sexologists developed into a transnational network that was able, to a certain extent, to protect and encourage the rights of sexual minorities both within and beyond national borders. Résumé. Cet article étudie les relations des réformateurs du sexe et de la sex- ologie à la réforme sociale en Europe au 20e siècle avant le déclenchement de la Première Guerre mondiale. Il prend en considération une variété de systèmes de classification sexuelle émergente et d’efforts de réforme nationale, avec une attention spéciale à Magnus Hirschfeld et à l’Institut pour la Science sexuelle de Berlin, qui a été détruit par les nazis en 1933. L’auteur affirme que durant cette période, les rapports entre les réformateurs individuels et les sexologues se sont développés dans un réseau transnational que était capable, jusqu’à un certain point, de protéger et d’encourager les droits des minorités sexuelles, tant à l’intérieur qu’au-delà des frontières nationales. Sexology as a field became especially important in Europe, but also throughout the world, in the early 20th century. Not only did it create many of the terms and concepts we continue to use as the basis for understanding human sexuality (and especially sexual minorities), it also created a space in which social reformers could argue for equal rights and fair laws for people marginalized on the basis of what we Author, position CBMH/BCHM / Volume 22:2 2005 / p. ??-?? Nicholas Matte, Doctoral Student in History, University of Victoria. CBMH/BCHM / Volume 22:2 2005 / p. 253-270 would now call their sexual orientation or gender identity. Although many aspects of its development occurred in Germany, it was a move- ment which developed across national borders, a fact which became extremely important during World War II when the European crisis would significantly impact the work of sexual reformers in almost every country involved in the movement, but most especially Germany, where much of the important work housed there was destroyed by the Nazis. This paper, then, will seek to document the development of the inter- national network established by the Sexology movement between 1897, when Magnus Hirschfeld formed the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee to petition a repeal of the infamous paragraph 175 of the German penal code which criminalized “unnatural sexual acts” between men, and 1933, when the Nazis raided the Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin. Towards this end, I will briefly outline some key developments in contemporary sexual theories (with special emphasis on theories of sexual minorities) as background to the movement’s emergence as both a scientific field and an arena for international sexual reform. I will then introduce the cultural and legal contexts from which the movement emerged and in which it was also required to develop. The variety of international circumstances played a major role in encouraging participants of the Sexology move- ment to become active and establish a sense of authority that could secure social understanding of those aspects of sexual life that they considered important. I will then look at some of the major collaborations and con- flicts that emerged between individuals, between and within groups and institutions, and between the movement and various states. Important collaborations included the creation of many international bodies and forums that would significantly support as a material base the continua- tion of sexual reform and research beyond that which would have been possible if it had been limited to a national movement. Finally, I will look briefly at Magnus Hirschfeld’s world speaking tour and the Nazi Raid of the Institute in 1933, shortly thereafter. KEY THEORETICAL DEVELOPMENTS Many individuals contributed to the theorizing of sexology in the late 19th century. Among them, several schools of thought emerged. They can all, to a certain extent, be traced to Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, who, between 1864 and 1879 published 12 volumes on his theories about the origins and nature of what he called Uranism.1 These pamphlets were largely based on his own personal experience of coming to terms with his sexuality. While he originally published under a pseudonym, he sub- sequently became a public activist for sexual minority rights by using his real name, which allowed many others to contact him and gave him the opportunity to refine his theory to account for aspects which were 254 NICHOLAS MATTE outside of his own experience. Ulrich’s theory was that there existed a third sex, comprising what he called “Urnings.” He believed that these Urnings were men with female souls, and based on his knowledge of early embryology, he posited that embryos had two “germs,” one that determined sex and one that determined sexual attraction.2 In the case of the Urnings, these two germs were in conflict. Ulrichs later refined his theory to include a fourth sex (for female Urnings, which he called Enin- gins). He also argued that Urnings were not attracted to each other, but to Dionings, men with male souls. He argued that sex between Urnings and Dionings should be allowed, and the thrust of his theorizing was towards legal reform. Ulrichs, himself a lawyer, had been disbarred from practising law once he was known to be an Urning3 and was forced to flee to Bavaria when Hanover was taken over by Prussia in 1866.4 While Ulrichs was not active during the high period of Sexology as an international movement, nor was he himself a medical professional, he did, nevertheless, have contact with others who would respond to and adapt his ideas within the movement. For example, in January of 1879, Richard von Krafft-Ebbing, the influential Viennese professor of psychi- atry, wrote to Ulrichs: The study of your writings on love between men interested me in the highest degree… since you… for the first time openly spoke about these matters. From that day on, when—I believe it was in 1866—you sent me your writings, I have devoted my full attention to this phenomenon, which at the time was as puz- zling to me as it was interesting. It was the knowledge of your writings alone which led to my studies in this highly important field.5 This important contact between Ulrichs and Krafft-Ebbing gave the sub- ject of same-sex attraction and gender ambiguity a crucial voice within the newly emerging field of psychiatry. Richard von Krafft-Ebbing’s study of deviant sexualities would come to be extremely influential in legal and social interpretations of a variety of sexual proclivities. While Ulrichs had based his theories in large part on himself, Krafft-Ebbing was not only not attracted to other men or otherwise gender variant, he was a scientist working with asylum populations in the context of degen- erationalist thought, which imagined mental illness to be rooted in a diseased nervous system. In his own theorizing, Krafft-Ebbing distin- guished between moral failing and sickness. He argued that some peo- ple were genuinely attracted to members of the same-sex as part of a degenerative condition associated with underdeveloped bodies, and he considered the possibility of damage to the genitals to be the cause of sex and gender variance.6 His model tended to centre around desire rather than pleasure, and he classified four types of sexual perversion: homo- sexuality, fetishism, sadism and masochism;7 in addition, he theorized that there were four kinds of inborn homosexuality: a continuum from International Sexual Reform and Sexology in Europe, 1897–1933 255 “psychosexual hermaphrodisy,” to androgyny, as well as 3 types of learned homosexuality.8 Krafft-Ebbing also sought to define a rational taxonomy of sexuality in general, and his major contribution to Sexol- ogy’s theoretical background was his extensive case histories, which, by the 12th edition of his Psychopathia Sexualis, numbered over 300.9 Like Ulrichs, many people contacted Krafft-Ebbing after he began publishing on sexual deviance. They often argued that his theory of degeneracy was inaccurate and offensive. Others requested his help in becoming cured of their disease. Ulrichs himself, while admired by Krafft-Ebbing, complained that doctors such as Krafft-Ebbing only became familiar with people in asylums and thus represented Urnings to the world in a faulty light.10 But while Krafft-Ebbing was largely restricted to the formal medical model in which he practised, others blurred the boundaries of medicine in order to effect social and legal change and ensure that sex- ual minority or gender variant people were not looked down upon by society generally. Havelock Ellis, a British physician, was one such person. Having mar- ried Edith Leeds, an outspoken lesbian, and himself having had several close male friends who were attracted to men, he was adamant that inversion, as he called it, was a natural anomaly that should be accepted. He believed that the basis of inversion, or eonism, as he also sometimes called it, was to be found within the endocrine system.11 While he disagreed about the existence of a third sex, (because he thought of transvestitism as a largely heterosexual matter), he did agree with the distinction between inverts, whose tastes were congenital, and homo- sexuals, whose were acquired.12 He believed that human beings were all bisexual and that differences were simply a matter of degree, not kind. Believing that there was some truth to be taken from all theories, unlike most of his contemporaries, Ellis also placed importance on the role of love, for example, arguing that sadists and masochists associated love with pain.13 The main focus of Ellis’ theorizing on sexuality was to make more acceptable the variety of sexual practices which existed, although he himself often avoided controversy and therefore tended to write more about the congenital rather than the acquired forms of homosex- uality. He was very important, nevertheless, as an agitator for sexual reform, as we shall soon see. Magnus Hirschfeld, a doctor and reformer in Berlin, held views more consistent with Ulrichs’ original “third sex” theory. Hirschfeld believed that there was a continuum of gender and sex between male and female, and developed the term Sexuelle Zwischenstufen (“sexual intermediary”) to describe people who were attracted to members of the same sex or otherwise gender variant. He came to further distinguish between homosexuals and transvestites (the term for which he coined in 1910), and later expanded his theory to include a definition of transsexuals.14 256 NICHOLAS MATTE International Sexual Reform and Sexology in Europe, 1897–1933 257 Hirschfeld’s motto “per scientiam ad justiam” (“through science to jus- tice”) reflected his firm belief that science could provide the opportunity for fair treatment of all. Like Krafft-Ebbing, he used extensive case his- tories and consultations to develop his theories, (although Hirschfeld had a much wider pool from which he