What are the key points in the development of sexology (research and clinical)? Who helped it along? What is its current status? Are there any comprehensive published histories?
To go one step further, who are we (the followers of this topic or anyone else who cares to answer) and what do we contribute as researchers and practitioners?
I would recommend visiting the Kinsey Institute and Magnus Hirschfeld Archive for Sexology websites, for starters.
www.kinseyinstitute.org
www.sexarchive.info/
Thank you Arin for posting those links. Those are both great sites with a wealth of information. However, given that the topic of sexology has 100+ RG followers and has never had a question, I was really hoping to spark more of a dialogue around some of the key historical points and figures. I am collecting information for an essay that I am writing but I find that this question is often deflected by sex researchers, sex therapists, and sexologists. Why?
What history is published, I find, is rather fickle. Hirschfield is popular but Ellis seems to be mentioned far less. Freud is forever at the forefront, even though he actually did very little in furthering the field of sexology, but Reich and Gross are often only footnotes. Would sexology have taken off in the States had it not been for WWII? What about the uneven popularity of Masters & Johnson versus Hartmann & Fithian? Does this retroactively emphasize biological sexology over humanistic? Did humanistic sexology get swept under the rug because of the sometimes unethical liberties taken by self-proclaimed sex gurus and encounter groups during the human potential movement or was there something else to it?
A comprehensive published history of sexology is "Geschichte der Sexualwissenschaft" by Volkmar Sigusch. It is, however, published only in german in 2008. It covers the history of sexology from its early beginnings in Europe from Mantegazza and Karl Heinrich Ulrichs until the 70s.
I suggest BULLOUGH, V. 'Science in the Bedroom: A History of Sex Research'. There are several other authors, for example: Jeffrey Weeks, Alain Giami, David Halperin (Is there a history of sexuality?); Lanteri Laura, Foucault (les anormaux and the classic History of Sexuality). And Paul Robinson, The Modernization of Sex: Havelock Ellis, Alfred Kinsey, William Masters and Virginia Johnson, although they all cover just some periods of this history.
I think it is necessary to prepare a complete history of sexology, perhaps because no one has a complete picture of the development of studies in sexology in the world.
The pioneers are now recognized, by S. Freud (1905), the Kinsey Report (1948, 1953), W. Masters and VE Johnson (1966, 1970), in HS Kaplan (1974, 1979).
But what other researchers accept?
Without any doubt, W. Reich and his pioneering work: Dialectical Materialism and Psychoanalysis (1929), Sexuality in the social struggle (1930), Mass Psychology of Fascism (1932), The emergence of sexual morality (1934), The function of the Orgasm (1927), The Sexual Revolution (1945).
In Italy, a pioneer of sexuality is that of Luigi De Marchi has launched "a theoretical and cultural" through some of the works, "including Sex and Civilization (1960), Sociology of Sex (1963), sexual repression and social oppression (1964).
De Marchi Italian first prophet of sexual liberation, on the trail of the Reich was the first to connect, in the early 50s, sexuality and politics, sexual rights, and civil rights.
Sexuality, De Marchi was leading all aspects of daily life, understood as a daily audience.
Issues such as eroticism, pornography, the pill, abortion, drugs, divorce, women's liberation, homosexuality etc.. would affect both the intimate sphere, and the social and political sphere.
The research on the clinical level, useful for assessing the functionality and dysfunctionality of sexuality, in which I participated, led to test Sesame (Sexuality Evaluation Schedule Assessment Monitoring, 1996), a differential approach to profile idiographic and psychosexual socioaffettivo, the individual and pair.
I think it depends on your definition of sexuology to provide a complete history. The obvious people who have contributed to the start of research into the topic, I think have been named (e.g. Freud & Masters). However if you see sexualtiy as a broader entity than it is more difficult.
In my research we use the definition of psychosexuality (or psychosexual functioning) as we define sexuality to be more than sexual behaviours and experiences. A good review article on the years 2000 to 2009 has been written by Tolman & McClelland and published in 2011.
Nowaway, it exist 2 kind of history of sexology. One emphasizes the European Roots with Hirschfield in Germany, Ellis in England and Forel in Switzerland before WWII. Another one emphasizes the American roots and insists about Kinsey and Master and Johnson after WWII. But since 90th and the work of Robert Nye, the local specificities are evaluated: “the history of sexuality in context: national sexological traditions”. Let s see aslo the F. Feder books: “Sexual culture in Europe. National histoires”
Although you;re asking for a lot, One book that covers a lot is a book called "Contraception Naturally"which explains the application of coitus interruptus, coitus reservatus, coitus interfemora ,coitus obstructs and prolonged lactation to prevent conception and goes as far back as the Ebers Papyrus to explain the method of using the acacia plant. During the middle ages we find the use of "drinking a solution of iron oxide such as "the water in which the smiths quench their forceps" to prevent conception. Similarly though obviously unrelated White Mountain Apache women used the a pinch of the ash from under their fires to prevent conception.The book can be obtained from Amazon.com. It is thoroughly documented.
Hello, Your question appears to imply that one history of sexology would be possible. Some of the answers are moving away from this idea by suggesting several books but none point out that history is an interpretive discipline and no one history can encompass all perspectives. Furthermore the definition of the word sexology has changed considerably over the past century. I have writen about USA and English postwar sexological investigations into women's sexuality in : Hera Cook, The Long Sexual Revolution: English Women, Sex and Contraception, 1800-1975 Forthcoming ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). Part 3 of this book is about sex manual authors including many of the people you mention. Kind regards, Hera
Interesting question. From the perspective of history of science and sociology of science, a most interesting part of such an enquiry would be: in what way would we accept really old traditions in countries that are easily overlooked. This is a general problem regarding India and China, both being very old cultures. India has a wealth of systematical sexual experience in the tantric tradition. Obviously they did not know what science is like today. But similar to using experience from contemplative traditions in consciousness science, we could use this as data. Often this lacks records partly due to an Indian feature that knowledge was passed on by memorizing and telling, not using scriptures.
If completely exclude this type of old knowledge, we may confine our concepts about sexuality to something modern. We might look into reports that come from non-sexologist sources too, because science was not separated into as many departments in ancient times.
We could consider to include the Kamasutra, the Vijnana Bhirava Tantra
https://ia800800.us.archive.org/7/items/Vijnana-Bhairava-Tantra/Vijnana-Bhairava-Tantra-Sanskrit-Text-English-Translation.pdf
This is probably a more reliable source with a number of references too.
http://www.nature.com/ijir/journal/v16/n5/full/3901195a.html