Psychopathia Sexualis

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A striking feature of Krafft-Ebing’s and Moll’s treatment of sexuality was that they vacillated between the normal and the abnormal, thereby blurring this dichotomy. Their approach fluctuated between the labelling of sexual variations as pathology and the recognition of the individual’s particular and unique desires. At first, reproduction was Krafft-Ebing’s touchstone for the boundary between normal sexuality and pathological perversion. 52 However, as his work progressed and expanded, this basic assumption lost its weight. In his ongoing discussion of the main perversions, and also in Moll’s explanatory framework, the differentiation between the normal and abnormal appeared to be not so much qualitative and absolute but rather quantitative and gradual. Sadism, masochism, inversion and fetishism were not only categories of perversion but also concepts that described extremes on a graded scale of normality and abnormality, and which explained aspects of normal sexuality. Krafft-Ebing explained, for example, that sadism and masochism were inherent in normal male and female sexuality, the former being of an active and aggressive and the latter of a passive and submissive nature. 53 (Of course this reflects stereotypical thinking on masculinity and femininity, but that does not alter the fact that he, to a certain extent, started to ‘normalise’ sadomasochism.) Fetishism was also ‘part and parcel‘ of normal sexuality, Krafft-Ebing and Moll argued, because the individual character of sexual attraction and, connected to that, monogamous love, was grounded in a distinct preference for particular physical and mental characteristics of one’s partner. 54 This was in line with the assertion of the French psychiatrist, Alfred Binet, who had coined the term ‘fetishism’ as a perversion and believed it to be at the heart of sexual attraction. 55

The central argument of this article is that the modern notion of sexuality, as we experience and understand it today, took shape in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, especially in the works of the psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing (1840–1902) and the neurologist Albert Moll (1862–1939). This modernisation of sexuality was closely linked to the recognition of sexual diversity, as it was articulated in the medical–psychiatric understanding of what, at that time, was labelled as sexual perversion. 1 Krafft-Ebing’s basic classification saw another remarkable change in the mid-1890s, as he shifted attention away from the traditional distinction between procreative and non-procreative acts to the relational, affective dimension of sexuality. This shift meant that he focused increasingly on the dichotomy of heterosexuality and homosexuality as the basic sexual categories. His use of the term heterosexual, meaning sexual attraction between a male and a female free from a reproductive goal – and as such initially considered as a perversion – marked a shift away from the procreative norm. In one of his last publications on sexual perversion he identified other perversions as derived sub-variations of the more fundamental hetero–homosexual division. 62 Such a view can be found right from the beginning in Moll’s Die Conträre Sexualempfindung, in which he argued that perversions occurred equally among hetero- and homosexuals. 63 Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing (August 14, 1840 – December 22, 1902) was an Austro-German psychiatrist. He published extensively on hypnosis, criminology, and sexual behavior.

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Richard von Krafft-Ebing was born as the eldest of five children to Friedrich Karl Konrad Christoph von Krafft-Ebing, a high-ranking official in the Grand Duchy of Baden. Following Michel Foucault’s influential Histoire de la sexualité: La volonté de savoir (1976) [ History of Sexuality: The Will to Knowledge], several scholars have associated the emergence of psychiatric knowledge on sexuality with medical colonisation, replacing religious and judicial direction with scientific authority and restraint. 20 By differentiating between the normal and the abnormal, and by stigmatising deviance as illness, thus the argument runs, the medical profession, as the exponent of ‘biopower’, was not only constructing modern sexual categories and identities, but also controlling the pleasures of the body. Some historical studies, however, suggest that the disciplining effects of medical interference with sexuality may have been overemphasised. 21 Like other doctors, Krafft-Ebing and Moll indeed surrounded sexual deviance with an aura of pathology, and they echoed nineteenth-century stereotypical thinking on gender and sexuality in general. However, psychiatric theories, not least those of Krafft-Ebing and Moll, were far from static and coherent: their work embodied several ambiguities and contradictions. It cannot be regarded only as a disqualification of sexual aberration. Their publications were open to divergent meanings, and contemporaries – among them many of their patients, correspondents and informants – have indeed read them in different ways. Since Krafft-Ebing and Moll presented themselves as impartial, as well as humanitarian experts, and argued against traditional moral–religious and legal denunciations of sexual deviance as sin and crime, individuals approached them to find understanding, acceptance and support. Several of their patients and correspondents suggested that their works, which were illustrated with numerous case histories, were an eye-opener and had brought them relief. These publications not only satisfied curiosity about sexuality and made sexual variance imaginable, but might also be viewed as an endorsement of non-conformist desires and behaviours. The case histories, which included many (auto-)biographical accounts, letters and intimate confessions of perverts, revealed to readers that such sexual experiences were not unique. 22 Krafft-Ebing's conclusions about homosexuality are now largely forgotten, partly because Sigmund Freud's theories were more interesting to physicians (who considered homosexuality to be a psychological problem) and partly because he incurred the enmity of the Austrian Catholic Church when he psychologically associated martyrdom (a desire for sanctity) with hysteria and masochism. [18] Crystal, David (1994). The Cambridge Biographical Dictionary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 536. ISBN 0-521-43421-1.

In 1886 Krafft-Ebing published Psychopathia sexualis, the work for which he would become best known. In effect this was a catalogue of case histories of abnormal sexual fantasies and practices drawn from numerous sources. Although intended as a manual for the medical and legal professions it soon gained a wider readership, and as one edition followed another more and longer case histories were included, and a greater proportion of the cases described were Krafft-Ebing's own. To some extent the book itself generated the case histories, as patients read it and were moved to correspond with its author, and sometimes visit him. The work ultimately ran to 17 German-language editions, and was translated into at least 5 foreign languages (earliest English edition 1892). Norbert Weiss: Das Grazer Universitäts-Klinikum: Eine Jubiläumsgeschichte in hundert Bildern. KAGesVerlag, Graz 2013, ISBN 978-3-9502281-5-1, S. 55.A part of his research was focused on examining the relationships between psychiatry and criminal law. Already during his time in Strasbourg, he published his Fundamentals of Criminal Psychology, followed in 1875 by his first major work, Textbook of Forensic Psychopathology. Of the many publications he released, some of which saw multiple editions and became widely known, notable are his Textbook of Psychiatry (1st ed. 1879) and his most famous work Psychopathia Sexualis (1st ed. 1886), which through numerous, constantly expanded new editions, became the standard textbook on sexual pathology (see also: Sexology) of the 19th century. In 2006, an independent film based on the book was made in Atlanta; the film was titled Psychopathia Sexualis. [3] Editions [ edit ] Harry Oosterhuis: Stepchildren of nature. Krafft-Ebing, Psychiatry, and the making of sexual Identity. University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2000, ISBN 0-226-63059-5. paradoxia, sexual excitement occurring independently of the period of the physiological processes in the generative organs

Many of Krafft-Ebing's manuscript notes are associated with case histories. Others are organised thematically (neurasthenia, hypnosis, electrotherapy etc), or are extracts from works by other specialists. Likewise the correspondence in the collection often relates to particular recorded cases, but there are separate groups of letters to and from family, friends, colleagues, publishers and university officials: these include some 43 letters by Krafft-Ebing to his grandfather, Anton Mittermaier, a lawyer, 1864-66, and photocopies of letters to his parents written from Italy, 1869-70. There is also a file of letters from members of the German Imperial family. By offering scripts on which individuals could model their life history, Krafft-Ebing’s and Moll’s case histories also linked individual introspection and social identification. Using the respectable forum of medical science, perverts began to voice experiences and desires which, until then, had been unknown or denied existence in public discourses. The sexological writings of Krafft-Ebing and Moll reflected and, simultaneously, also promoted the emergence of a new experience of sexuality that was intrinsically bound up with the appearance of new kinds of individuals and their grouping into rudimentary sub-cultural communities, of which several of their clients, especially homosexuals, testified. 93 They not only voiced a comfort of togetherness, but some of them also expressed a critical awareness of the social suppression of deviant sexualities, and thus the seeds of sexual emancipation were sown. Although they were still few in number, they prominently figured among Krafft-Ebing’s clients and correspondents. 94Kupferschmidt, H (1987), "Richard von Krafft-Ebing's "Psychopathia sexualis". Pornography or professional literature?", Schweiz. Rundsch. Med. Prax. (published 12 May 1987), vol.76, no.20, pp.563–9, PMID 3306869 Leahey, Th. H. [1991] 2000. A History of Modern Psychology. Englewood Cliff, NJ. Prentice Hall. 3rd edition. ISBN 0130175730 Peter Weibel, ed. Phantom of Desire, Visions of Masochism. Essays and Texts, pp. 36–38. Graz: Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum. ISBN 3-936298-24-6