Abstract
Throughout the 19th century, German medical, scientific and legal scholars found themselves puzzled and engaged by the diverse forms of human sexuality. Psychiatrists like Richard von Krafft-Ebing interested in explaining deviance encountered scientifically trained advocates for emancipation like Magnus Hirschfeld, and the result was the new – if unstable – discipline of sexual science. Because they based arguments for social intervention on knowledge of nature and the body, the field’s proponents – like the advocates of eugenics and racial hygiene – argued that they were biologists. After 1900, this mutual biological engagement of sexual science and eugenics revealed itself in overlapping debates between the proponents of both fields.
Document Type
Article
Source Publication
Endeavour
Version
Accepted Version
Publication Date
1-1-2008
Volume
32
Issue
2
First Page
64
Last Page
69
Rights
© 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Recommended Citation
Amidon, K. S. (2008). Sex on the brain: The rise and fall of German sexual science. Endeavour, 32(2), 64–69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.endeavour.2008.04.004
Comments
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