Histories of Sexology: Between Science and Politics

Series Editors’ Preface
Preface
Contents
Notes on Contributors
1 History of Sexology and Theories of Sexuality: An Introduction
Sexologies: Between Global and Local
From Sexuality to Sexology and Back
The Circulation and Hybridization of Epistemic Paradigms
De Certeau on Psychoanalysis and Historiography
Foucault and Medicalization
Lantéri-Laura and the Medical Appropriation of Sexual Perversion
The Sexual Sciences: Popular Opinion, Pornography, or Science?
References
Part I Political and Ideological Translations and Appropriations
2 Sexology’s Unexpected Progressiveness in the Cold War East: Shaping People’s Sexual Selves, Creating Socialist Societies
Female Orgasm in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s
Abortion in Poland
Open Marriage in Hungary
In Conclusion
References
3 “Humanitarian Hedonists” as Sex Educators: The Medical and Political Work of Fritz Brupbacher (1874–1945) and Paulette Brupbacher (1880–1967)
Sex Education and Sexual Reform as a Medical and Political Program
The Socio-Hygienic Motive for Sex Education
The Role of Sexuality in Human Life
Humanitarian Hedonism as a Guiding Concept
References
4 ‘Healthy’ Relationships: Feminism and the Psy Disciplines in the Political History of Sexual Violence in Contemporary America
The Feminist Politicization of Sexuality—And Its Discontents
Rape as a Strategy of Oppression
Redefining Rape
A Mental Health Approach to Violence—And Its Efficacy6
Feminist Psychological Knowledge
Feminist Care
The Numbers of Violence
The Price of Institutional Success
References
5 Saving Sexual Science: Kinsey and American Religious-Conservative Politics
Religious Conservatism and Sexual Science
Kinsey’s ‘Homosexual Agenda’
Attacking Kinseyan Sexual Science
The Campaign for Heteronormative Sexual Science
Concluding Remarks
References
6 Medicine and the Paradox of the Decriminalization of Homosexuality in Switzerland: Toward a New System of Coercion (1940–1960)
The Scope of the New Criminal Code
A Particularly Long Drafting Process
A Paralegal System of Repression
The Use of Castration
The Growing Authority of Medical Expertise
The Pathway to Sex Change
References
7 Politics, Religion, and Sexuality: Psychoanalysis and Sexology in the Brazilian Publishing Market in the First Decades of the Twentieth Century
The “Sexual Question” at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century: A Breeding Ground for Both Sexology and Psychoanalysis
The Early Development of Sexology and Psychoanalysis in Brazil
Sexology and Psychoanalysis in the Brazilian Publishing Market
Conclusion
References
Part II Circulation, Hybridization and Bodies of Knowledge
8 Shaping the Erotic Body: Technology and Women’s Sexuality in Late Nineteenth-Century American Medicine
Form: The Corset, the Sphygmomanometer, and the Sewing Machine
Reform: The Corset, the Bicycle, and Erotic Possibilities
Technology and Outer Beauty
Conclusion
References
9 “Lack of Clarity” and “False Premises”: Partnership and Translations in Impotence-Related Petitions for Marriage Annulment in Nineteenth-Century Spain
Trying Impotence-Related Petitions for Marriage Annulment
Sexual Impotence According to Canon Law and Medical Science
Experts in Court: A Variety of Positions and Perspectives
Testimonies, Defense Speeches, and Questioning: Moments of Communication and of Translation
Tensions and Partnership
Masturbation: Mortal Sin, Morbid Vice
“Lack of Clarity” and “Wrong Premises”x
Conclusion
References
10 Popular Medical Books and Defloration: Shaping Femininity and Masculinity in the Nineteenth Century
From Girl to Woman: Defloration as a Crucial Event in women’s Lives
The Anatomo-Clinical Perspective and the Invention of the Hymen Paradigm
A Medical Discourse Legitimizing and Reproducing the Social Order
Which Feminine Identity Does Defloration Produce?
From Wilting to Flourishing: The Miracle of Defloration
Is Defloration a Virilization?
A Crucial Event in the Shaping of Masculinity as Well?
Being Gentle, but Vigorous
The Consequences on Individual Representations of Masculine Identity
References
11 Girl or Boy? The French Birth of the Word Sexologie (1901–1912)
Studying the History of Sexology
Histories of Theories About Sexuality
A History of Carnal Practices
The Genealogy of French Sexology
The “Morals of Generation”
Emergence of the Word “Sexuality” in France
“Voluntary Procreation”
“Sexuology”
The Oracle of the Sexes
Fair Weather for Occultism
The “Gonocritic Art”
Sexology, a Branch of Astrology
Few Children
Regeneration and Neo-Malthusianism
“Conscious Generation”
Sexology, a Branch of Eugenics
Sexology After World War I
Epilogue
References
12 Marie Bonaparte and Female Frigidity: From Physiology to Psychology
A Woman’s View of Female Frigidity
The Etiology of Frigidity
Bonaparte’s Surgical and Psychoanalytical Legacy
References
13 Hernani de Irajá and the Early Years of Brazilian Sexology
Meeting Irajá
A Brief History of Brazilian Sexology: The “Golden Years”
Short Biography6
Irajá’s Sexological Works
Censorship and Obscenity in Hernani de Irajá and His Works
Racism and Eugenic Theory8
Marriage and Divorce in Irajá’s Works
Final Considerations: So What Happened to Dr. Irajá?
References
14 The Pornographic Object of Knowledge: Pornography as Epistemology
Reading the Microdots: Encoding, Decoding, and the Epistemology of Erotic Cinema
History and the Perverse Dynamic: The Sexual Imaginary as Digital Archive
References
Part III Inventions of Deviant “Others”
15 African Hypersexuality: A Threat to White Settlers? The Stigmatization of “Black Sexuality” as a Means of Regulating “White Sexuality”
Introduction
An Excessive and Immoral Sexuality in Africa?
Polygamy: The Social Consequence of Physiological Excesses
Interracial Sexual Relationships: A Corrupting or Beneficial Sexuality?
References
16 Sexological Discourses and the Self in Rachilde’s Monsieur Vénus (1884) and Radclyffe Hall’s the Well of Loneliness (1928)
Monsieur Vénus and the Birth of Inversion
A Plea for Tolerance? Analyzing Inversion in The Well of Loneliness
Concluding Thoughts: The Negotiation of Inversion in Rachilde and Hall
References
17 The Various Stages of the Alphabet Soup: From Sade to Modern Times
Introduction
Sade
Activists and Doctors on Male Love and Perversions
World League for Sexual Reform
Fifties and Sixties
The Origins of the Alphabet Soup
The Explosion of the Variations
Non-Coital (or Sodomitical, Noital)
References
18 The Origins of the Theory of Sexual Fetishism: Articles by Charcot and Magnan (1882) and Alfred Binet (1887)
The article by Charcot and Magnan on “the inversion of genital desire” (1882)
Binet’s article on “fetishism in love” (1887)
Conclusion
References
Part IV Conclusion
19 Sexology and Sciences of Sex as an Observatory for Political Histories of Science
The Subjectivity Problem—From ‘Disturbing Practices’ and ‘Dirty Work’ to ‘Disrupting Science’ and Its ‘Boundaries’
De-Eroticizing the Practice of the Sciences of Sex in the Nineteenth to Mid-Twentieth Century: Novelty, Permanence or Re-Actualization?
Nature or Culture? Sciences or Studies? Return of Sexology’s Subjects as a New Political and Epistemological Position
Perspectives on the Return of Science’s Excluded Subjects
References