Normal enough? Krafft-Ebing, Freud, and homosexuality

Abstract

This article analyses the slippery notions of the normal and normality in select works of Richard von Krafft-Ebing (1840–1902) and Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) and argues that homosexuality became a ‘boundary object’ between the normal and the abnormal in their works. Constructing homosexuality as ‘normal enough’ provided these two key thinkers of the fin de siècle with an opportunity to challenge societal and medical norms: Krafft-Ebing did this through mapping perversions; Freud, by challenging perceived norms about sexual development more broadly. The article submits that the scientific logic presented in Krafft-Ebing’s seminal case study compilation Psychopathia Sexualis and Freud’s early theoretical writings and cases, including Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), was itself haunted by notions of norms and the normal that were not always easy to resolve, and sometimes involved a certain amount of inspired conjecture on the part of both thinkers in order to develop and validate their differing tripartite models of normality. Krafft-Ebing imagined homosexuality as a variation of the normal by generalizing a gay male experience. He also recorded the obstreperous cases of homosexual women based largely inside the clinic but by and large ignored this evidence. Freud inextricably bound homosexuality to normality (and vice versa) by redefining homosexuals as a group to include individuals with unconscious same-sex desire. Doing so allowed him to conceptualize the fear of homosexuality as crucial in the formation of neurosis and psychosis, and at the same time put him at odds with relevant early identity politics.

Introduction: Approaches to Queer Temporalities in German Studies

“…Particular moments, events, and figures in queer cultural history have received sustained scholarly scrutiny over the years as more materials have become available and new methods have provided novel insights. For example, the history of sexology and the high degree of involvement of German-speaking sexologists or sexual theorists-e.g., Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, Richard von Krafft-Ebing, and Magnus Hirschfeld-in the development of homosexual, trans, and other non-normative gender and sexual identities has been formative for queer studies broadly speaking (Bauer 2017;Sutton 2019;Lang 2021). Queer German Studies scholarship has also contributed greatly to analyses of the Holocaust (Ha ´jkova ´2021), history (Marhoefer 2015;Huneke 2022), film (Kuzniar 1999;Baer 2016;Layne 2016;Frackman 2022a The contributors to this special issue seek to extend this long line of inquiry in queer German Studies by calling for sustained engagement with conceptions of queer time in queer German cultural history and media.…”