Sexual Politics and Feminist Science

Abstract

26. Tracing the etymology of the term "sexology" is itself a challenge, as descriptors of the fi eld vary across languages. Volkmar Sigusch has identifi ed the Italian physician Paolo Mantegazza as the fi rst sexologist, and noted that although Mantegazza did not use terminology such as sexology or sexual science to describe his work, he did characterize it as belonging to a "science of embraces" ( Geschichte der Wissenschaft , 122). It is fascinating to note that one of the fi rst recorded uses of the English term "sexology" was in the work of a woman, American writer Elizabeth Osgood Goodrich Willard. Though little is known about Willard herself, the very title of her 1867 book, Sexology as the Philosophy of Life: Implying Social Organization and Government, defi nes sexology in a way that highlights an intrinsic element of the scientization of sex: namely, that the study of sex was prompted by social concerns and endeavored to offer solutions. In 1889, the British mathematician, eugenicist, and Germanophile Karl Pearson wrote in his refl ections on the end of the London-based "Men and Women's Discussion Club" that "the possibility of a 'learned society' to collect the facts of sexualogy had entered the minds of some of the men before the club was established"; however, he noted that such a society seemed "unfeasible" in the early 1880s because of "the unknown factor of how women would treat the proposal" (University College, University of London, Special Collections, Pearson Papers, 10/1 Minute Book of Men and Women's Club, Karl Pearson concluding refl ections; undated but ca. June 1889; emphasis mine). However, in his refl ections Pearson added, "Personally I am rather surprised than disappointed in the amount of really good scientifi c work which has been done by the Club, and I feel it is a real loss that the club has taken no actions to collect, reunite and publish for a wider range of students some of the papers-especially the historical-read at its meetings." On the history of the Men and Women's Club, see Bland,

2 Sexualität als Thema der Frauenbewegung

“…328 (Sexual-) Wissenschaftliches Wissen stellte sich als strategisch bedeutsam für die betreffenden Frauen heraus,d as ie in diesem konzeptuellen Rahmen an einem öffentlichen Diskurs über Sexualität teilnehmen konnten, »and not comprise their respectability«. 329 Zugleich verdeutlicht Kirsten C. Leng, dass jene Frauen, die sich in diesem Feld einbringen wollten, mit den frauenfeindlichen Positionierungen ihrer männlichenKollegen umgehen mussten. 330 Und auch Judith Große weist darauf hin, dass diesen Frauen der Status als Sexualwissenschafterinnen weder vonden männlichenKollegen,nochinder entsprechendenHistoriografie zugeschrieben wurde.…”

Historicising ‘Compulsory Able‐bodiedness’: The History of Sexology meets Queer Disability Studies

“…Specifically, recourse to science empowered women sexologists to assert that women's sexual impulses were healthy and natural in an era when health and nature were viewed as unalloyed goods. 12 All of the ideas put forward by women sexologists had implications for women's rights and social reform; many of them have become widely accepted today. In fact, early-twentieth-century German women sexologists offer fascinating precedents for our twenty-first century discussions of non-binary gender subjectivities.…”

“…Thus, many believed that sexual rights and freedoms should only be granted to those whose reproductive consequences would not 'burden' the rest of the population. 33 Notably, health was never medically or explicitly defined. Much like heterosexuality, it was ostensibly delineated by its supposed binary opposite.…”

Forum Introduction: Rethinking the Gendered History of Sexology

“…Highlighting women's contributions to sexology not only acknowledges these women as sexologists in their own right, but also reframes sexology itself as unstable, dynamic, and politicized.' 15 Such work builds on a number of important feminist studies examining women's prominence in the sex reform and birth control movements, particularly in early twentieth-century Germany, Britain and North America. 16 Leng's urging in Sexual Politics that we re-examine 'a priori assumptions regarding who was a sexologist, and about women's role in scientific knowledge production during a period when women's access to post-secondary education and professional positions was uneven' is continued in several of the contributions to the current forum.…”

“…16 Leng's urging in Sexual Politics that we re-examine 'a priori assumptions regarding who was a sexologist, and about women's role in scientific knowledge production during a period when women's access to post-secondary education and professional positions was uneven' is continued in several of the contributions to the current forum. 17 Leng's article, for example, draws on recent queer and disability theory to examine some of the ways in which European women sexologists were implicated, like their male colleagues, in able-bodied and racialised assumptions of 'health' and 'eugenics', while Laura Doan considers the ways in which rethinking models of scientific 'dissemination' in sexological and sex reform contexts can help us to account for a much broader range of women's contributions and activism, while also pointing toward more nuanced ways of conceptualising the gendering and 'popularising' of scientific knowledge in other fields. 18 Gender, as we can see, is thus one of several vectors through which some of the youngest historiography has worked to push our understandings of the boundaries of sexual science, a field that historically has proved difficult to either define or contain.…”