This article discusses the term erotology, which was applied to medieval Islamicate ‘ilm al-bah (the science of coitus), as well as other world traditions of sexual knowledge, by European sexologists ...of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who contrasted it with their own forms of inquiry into sexual matters in the modern field of sexual science. It argues that the homogenisation and minimisation of all ancient and non-European forms of medical knowledge about sex, even one as substantial as the ‘ilm al-bah tradition, supported a particular story about the origins of sexology's own emergence as a new and unprecedented biomedical and scientific way of knowing, characterised by an opposition assumed between sexuality and religion, by a view of sexual variations as perversions or pathologies, and by a view of Arabs and Muslims as sexually excessive. The article focusses on French, English, German, Austrian, and Italian sources of the 19th century that discussed the history of sexual medicine, relating these accounts to recent attempts to historicise sexology. It considers how forms of colonial hierarchy and exoticist views of non-European cultures impacted the dismissal of ‘ilm al-bah among European sexual scientists and how they may continue to exert an influence on forms of modern historical inquiry that are not attentive to scholarship on medieval Islamicate sexual medicine.
L’unité régionale de soins aux auteurs de violences sexuelles a vu le jour à Lille, en 2009, sous l’impulsion du Docteur Tiphaine Séguret, et sous l’égide de l’Agence Régionale de Santé des ...Hauts-de-France. Elle est hébergée par le Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Lille. Cette unité est née de l’impérieuse nécessité de créer et coordonner des soins spécifiques incluant les dimensions psychocriminologiques et sexocriminologiques, dans une articulation au carrefour de la Santé et de la Justice. À l’origine dédiée aux sortants de prison condamnés pour des infractions à caractère sexuel, cette unité a connu une diversification protéiforme, à mesure de la découverte des nombreux cas de figure et problématiques qui lui étaient confiés. Exerçant aujourd’hui de la pédiatrie jusqu’aux institutions pour personnes âgées dépendantes, l’URSAVS a ouvert la voie à une réflexion de fond sur les méthodes et pratiques de soins spécifiques aux auteurs de violences sexuelles. Ses résultats en matière de prévention de la récidive à cinq ans (1 %) montrent une efficacité durable de son paradigme de soin, rapportée aux statistiques nationales de récidives sur la même durée (15 % pour les viols, 11 % pour les agressions sexuelles, 12 % pour les harcèlements sexuels, selon le ministère français de la Justice).
The regional unit for the care of perpetrators of sexual violence (URSAVS) was established in Lille in 2009, under to the impetus of Doctor Tiphaine Séguret, and under the aegis of the Regional Health Agency of the department of Hauts-de-France. It is hosted by the University Hospital of Lille. This unit was born out of the urgent need to establish and coordinate specific care services including psycho- and sex-criminological dimensions, at the crossroads of mental health service and judicial entities. Originally destined for those who had been convicted of sexual offences and who were being released from prison, this unit has diversified in many ways, as the many cases and problems entrusted to it were discovered. Operating today in the realms of pediatrics, care of the elderly, and including the National Education system, URSAVS has paved the way for a fundamental reflection on the methods and practices of care specific to perpetrators of sexual violences. Its results in the prevention of recidivism after 5 years (1%), demonstrate the lasting effectiveness of its paradigm of care, especially when compared to national statistics on recidivism over the same period (15% for rape, 11% for sexual assault, 12% for sexual harassment, according to the French Ministry of Justice).
Transgender (heretofore shortened to ‘trans’) people remain largely excluded from involvement and leadership in the research conducted with their communities. As a result, few trans insiders (i.e. ...trans people who are also researchers) are ever in the position of designing, conducting, and disseminating knowledge from trans research. As such, social narratives of trans experiences are often inaccurate, lacking nuance, or directly damaging. This paper argues that insider–outsider IO research exists on a value ‘staircase’, moving from no involvement to full leadership. Using this staircase model, the researchers suggest that elevating and empowering trans people to consult in, conduct, and lead trans research benefits both the trans and research communities. Meaningful trans involvement in research provides more in-depth data, builds more constructive rapport with community members, and produces more effective research than the norm of purely outsider research in the field. The paper then details the results from a study of 6 trans women’s experience of undergoing IO-led trans research, with Shoshana as the main researcher and interviewer. The study identified three main themes: ‘The Impact of Trans-Led Research,’ ‘Constructive Approaches to the Research Process,’ and ‘Community-Controlled Narratives as a Priority’. This paper concludes that IO-led research facilitates an empowering research process for participants, communities, and researchers, and that future research in the area should consider trans representation and control as a priority.
As a trans intervention in Victorian studies and historical extension of recent work in trans studies, this article argues that the theorisation of natural laws in mid‐nineteenth century, British ...physiology produces a ‘preliminary cisness’ in Victorian sexual science. By then juxtaposing George Eliot's Adam Bede with work by Herbert Spencer and George Henry Lewes and undertaking a close study of the characters Hetty Sorrel and Dinah Morris, this article suggests that Eliot offers social sympathy as a non‐cis, epistemological alternative to the ethical risks of pre‐cis sex.
Symonds was the driving force behind Sexual Inversion, the first medical book about homosexuality in English. Not a doctor himself, but being a homosexual, Symonds developed his identity as a member ...of the Victorian upper-middle class, shaped by the norms of the time, as he told his story in his correspondence and his posthumous Memoirs. He attempted to repress then conceal his homosexuality to the world and to his own eyes, trying to conform to what his father and society were expecting from him, that is to say to be an exemplary and ‘productive’ member of Victorian society (and therefore a husband and a father), even if that meant having to sublimate his desires until he could no longer do so and ‘was finally born to himself’. He then developed an ideal conception of relationships between men, and found that satisfying his sexual needs was a way of living a life worth living that would no longer make him sick as he was trying to suppress this part of himself. Reading Sexual Inversion through the lens of his autobiographical writings allows us to see a posthumous portrait of Symonds on the path to acceptance and eventually vindication of his natural homosexuality.
Sexual scientists must choose from among myriad methodological and analytical approaches when investigating their research questions. How can scholars learn whether sexualities are discrete or ...continuous? How is sexuality constructed? And to what extent are sexuality-related groups similar to or different from one another? Though commonplace, quantitative attempts at addressing these research questions require users to possess an increasingly deep repertoire of statistical knowledge and programming skills. Recently developed open-source software offers powerful yet accessible capacity to researchers wishing to perform strong quantitative tests. Taking advantage of these new statistical opportunities will require sexual scientists to become familiar with new analyses, including taxometric analysis, tests of measurement variability and differential item functioning, and equivalence testing. In the current article, I discuss each of these analyses, providing conceptual and historical overviews. I also address common misunderstandings for each analysis that may discourage researchers from implementing them. Finally, I describe current best practices when using each analysis, providing reproducible coding examples and interpretations along the way, in an attempt to reduce barriers to the uptake of these analyses. By aspiring to explore these new statistical frontiers in sexual science, sexuality researchers will be better positioned to test their substantive theories of interest.
In a comparative cross-sectional study Norwegian sexology practitioners have been studied in 2001 and in 2011 concerning professional background, sexology training, therapeutic approaches and ...clinical sexology problems. The Norwegian sexology professional group is small and the Norwegian Association of Clinical Sexology counted around 150 members in 2011. In 2001, a two-year half time further education program in sexology counselling started at the university of Agder. Since 2001, 164 sexology counsellors have been educated from this program. The objective of the study was to understand how these changes might have influenced the field of sexology in Norway. The participants in the 2011 study are significantly different from those who responded in 2001. More female sexology practitioners have entered the field. There are more respondents with a social and health bachelor degree, and fewer physicians and psychologists among the respondents. The participants use a wider range of therapeutic approaches, but not significantly more sexology treatment methods. The problems the participants see are in many ways similar in 2001 and 2011, but they report overall more problems from their female clients and more relational problems and problems with sexual desire from their male clients in 2011. Based on the importance of interdisciplinary work, described by the biopsychosocial model, the authors recommend recruitment of different professional groups, and the importance of maintaining the interests of psychologists and physicians and other experienced professionals in the field of sexology in Norway.
This book brings together an exciting new archive of queer and trans voices from the history of sexual sciences in the German-speaking world. A new language to express possibilities of gender and ...sexuality emerged at the turn of the twentieth century, from Sigmund Freud’s theories of homosexuality in Vienna to Magnus Hirschfeld’s “third sex” in Berlin. Together, they provided a language of sex and sexuality that is still recognizable today. Queer Livability: German Sexual Sciences and Life Writing shows that individual voices of trans and queer writers had a significant impact on the production of knowledge about gender and sexuality during this time and introduces lesser known texts to a new readership. It shows the remarkable power of queer life writing in imagining and creating the possibilities of a livable life in the face of restrictive legal, medical, and social frameworks. Queer Livability: German Sexual Sciences and Life Writing will be of interest to anyone who wants to learn more about LGBTQ+ history and literature. It also provides a fascinating insight into the historical roots for our thinking about gender and sexuality today. The book will be of relevance to an academic readership of students and faculty in German studies, literary studies, European history, and the interdisciplinary fields of gender and sexuality studies, medical humanities, and the history of sexuality.
This study situates Henry Havelock Ellis’s sexological research within the nineteenth-century evolutionary debates, especially the discussion over sexual selection’s applicability to humanity. For ...example, Ellis’s monograph on sexual behavior,
Sexual Inversion
(1897), treated inborn homosexuality as a natural variation of evolutionary mechanisms. This book was situated within a longer study of human sexuality in relation to evolutionary selection. His later works dealt even more directly with Charles Darwin’s concept of selection, such as
Sexual Selection in Man
(1905). Through
Sexual Selection in Man
, Ellis asserted that sexual attraction stemmed from a physical cause rather than an innate aesthetic sense. I argue that Ellis’s best-known historical publications, including his work on sexual inversion, were intended to intervene in the contemporary evolutionary debates. This analysis also identifies a specific point where evolutionary theory informed the foundation of sexology as a scientific discipline.
