Early sEXologists
Henry HAVELOCK ELLIS (1859-1939) Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910)
RICHARD VON KRAFFT-EBING (1840-1902) Leah schaefer (1920-2013)
SIGMUND FREUD (1856-1939) Niles Newton (1923-1993)
tHEODOOR Hendrik VAN DE VELDE (1873-1937) Helena wright (1887-1982)
ALFRED CHARLES KINSEY (1894-1956) mary jane sherfey (1918-1983)
Henry Havelock Ellis (1859 - 1939)
Henry Havelock Ellis was an English Victorian physician, writer and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He was one of the last and most influential challenger of attitudes toward human sexuality, who presented concepts of individual and cultural relativism which underlie the most significant sex research today. As counselor and physician, he studied the sex lives of his contemporaries on a personal level, recording his findings in a series of volumes: Studies in The Psychology of Sex, which he published and revised between 1896 and 1928. He summed up his findings in one sentence; everybody is not like you, your loved ones, and your friends and neighbors.
Ellis observed human sexuality from an objective point of view rather than judging it. He saw it as variant expressions of a common human impulse and was one of the few researchers who achieved such scientific objectivity. He also introduced reforms in the sexual education of children, in adult attitudes toward sex, and in attitudes toward sexual variations.
Having described things objectively as they are, he went on to draw ethical conclusions. The whole body of his work is infused with a sense of human values.
Richard von Krafft-Ebing (1840-1902)
Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing was an Austro-German psychiatrist. He published extensively on hypnosis, criminology and sexual behavior. His most famous work, Psychopathia Sexualis (1886), was and remains one of the main vehicles for spreading the doctrine of sex as a disease from generation to generation.
In Krafft-Ebing's Germany as in Victorian England, most people had what they thought was a very clear concept of "healthy" or "normal" sexuality. A "normal" young man is attracted to a "normal" young woman. She reciprocates the feeling. They fall in love, marry, and live happily ever after. Krafft-Ebing's main interest in life was the countless ways in which actual men and women vary from this Victorian norm.
Most of Psychopathia Sexualis is concerned with four broad categories of variation - fetishism, homosexuality, sadism and masochism. He illustrated each with numerous case histories which he had collected from his own patients who were defendants in criminal courts, and data taken from earlier medical literature, and from medical colleagues who did not dare to publish sexual materials under their own names. His case histories were pseudo-scientific, including a stress on "hereditary taint" on "moral degeneracy," and masturbation as a cause of almost everything unpleasant.
Some therapists still keep a copy of Krafft-Ebing on their shelves and refer to it on occasion. Two new editions were published in the united States in 1965 and remains available online.
Henry Havelock Ellis was an English Victorian physician, writer and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He was one of the last and most influential challenger of attitudes toward human sexuality, who presented concepts of individual and cultural relativism which underlie the most significant sex research today. As counselor and physician, he studied the sex lives of his contemporaries on a personal level, recording his findings in a series of volumes: Studies in The Psychology of Sex, which he published and revised between 1896 and 1928. He summed up his findings in one sentence; everybody is not like you, your loved ones, and your friends and neighbors.
Ellis observed human sexuality from an objective point of view rather than judging it. He saw it as variant expressions of a common human impulse and was one of the few researchers who achieved such scientific objectivity. He also introduced reforms in the sexual education of children, in adult attitudes toward sex, and in attitudes toward sexual variations.
Having described things objectively as they are, he went on to draw ethical conclusions. The whole body of his work is infused with a sense of human values.
Richard von Krafft-Ebing (1840-1902)
Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing was an Austro-German psychiatrist. He published extensively on hypnosis, criminology and sexual behavior. His most famous work, Psychopathia Sexualis (1886), was and remains one of the main vehicles for spreading the doctrine of sex as a disease from generation to generation.
In Krafft-Ebing's Germany as in Victorian England, most people had what they thought was a very clear concept of "healthy" or "normal" sexuality. A "normal" young man is attracted to a "normal" young woman. She reciprocates the feeling. They fall in love, marry, and live happily ever after. Krafft-Ebing's main interest in life was the countless ways in which actual men and women vary from this Victorian norm.
Most of Psychopathia Sexualis is concerned with four broad categories of variation - fetishism, homosexuality, sadism and masochism. He illustrated each with numerous case histories which he had collected from his own patients who were defendants in criminal courts, and data taken from earlier medical literature, and from medical colleagues who did not dare to publish sexual materials under their own names. His case histories were pseudo-scientific, including a stress on "hereditary taint" on "moral degeneracy," and masturbation as a cause of almost everything unpleasant.
Some therapists still keep a copy of Krafft-Ebing on their shelves and refer to it on occasion. Two new editions were published in the united States in 1965 and remains available online.