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by Brandon Ambrosino; 16 March 2017.
[https://web.archive.org/web/20170316090647/www.bbc.com/future/story/20170315-the-invention-of-heterosexuality].
One hundred years ago, people had a very different idea of what it means to be heterosexual {01}.
Understanding that shift in thinking can tell us a lot about fluid sexual identities today, argues Brandon Ambrosino.
{cont’d after next ...}.
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{01}Editorial Note: The chicanery of the above lede is as egregious as any twenty-first century legacy-media fake-news narrative because the adjective
“heterosexual” (a neoteric medico-legal signifier for what was generically known one hundred years ago as “normal sexual instinct” or “natural sexual instinct”)
first appeared in a non-specialist dictionary only one hundred and eight years ago.
In other words, the vast majority of the “people” in the world
back then—as distinct from specialist physicians, alienists, jurists, and the ilk—did not even know this then-specialist identifier even existed.
Furthermore, as that neoteric medico-legal adjective “heterosexual” first
appeared in a medical dictionary only one hundred and four years ago then the vast majority of physicians—the non-specialist doctors, the general
practitioners, the regular clinicians, and the ilk—would not know it existed, either.
Put succinctly: apart from a diminutive coterie of specialists—psychiatrists, alienists, jurists, and the ilk—the vast majority of
people living “one hundred years ago” had no idea whatsoever as to what
“heterosexual” might mean.
It is therefore quite disingenuous (let alone downright deceitful) for the author of this ʙʙᴄ-hosted
essay—prominently adverted to in that lede as an aspirant eristic ready and willing to argue some shifty thinking they wot of—to be publicly laying claim to some
superior “understanding” drawn from a non seq. inference or conclusion about a nonexistent “shift in
thinking” (which, ipso facto, cannot possibly “tell us a lot” about anything at all)
based upon the readily falsifiable premiss that people of a century past had “a very different
idea” of what that neoteric medico-legal descriptor means.
Yet this vast majority, their understandable agnosy of the neoteric medico-legal designator notwithstanding, were evidentially well-versed regarding its designatum. To wit: what it means in practice to be instinctually feeling a
consistent intuitive attraction to the other sex—a visceral desirability by virtue of the inherent sexual attractability and
allure of that complemental sex—as the world population dramatically increased from an estimated 1.8 billion
“one hundred years ago” to the 7.3+ billion (and still counting) currently alive on March 16, 2017.
Thus a centennium ago people all around the globe with that “normal sexual instinct” intact and
operational—postpuberal peoples with that “natural sexual instinct” activated and functional—had experiential knowledge[*] of what
it means to be sexual in relation to the other sex (the prefix hetero- is from the Greek ἕτερος
meaning ‘other’ or ‘different’) and to even entertain for a moment any notion they had “a very
different idea” of what that means, just because a minuscule specialist clique adopted a single-word medico-legal
appellation for it, is simply risible.
[*]That is, they had a personal, participatory understanding, an
instinctual, visceral intuition, a profound, intimate comprehension, of the dynamic fecundity
inherent to the ages-old instinctive courtship-&-mating plus bonding-&-nesting plus
gestating-&-birthing plus nurturing-&-nourishing plus protecting-&-providing plus
raising-&-maturating procreative process naturally occurring as a norm for the vast
majority of humankind since time immemorial—a majoritarian normalcy self-evident all
throughout the sexually-bipartite animal kingdom in fact—and thusly all the relevant aspects of this
male-female sexual reproductive process which those specialist physicians had colligated under the rubric of that neoteric medico-legal epithet.
In order to verify whether that diminutive number of people—those professionals who actually knew the then-specialist medico-legal
signifier even existed—did indeed have a very different idea of what it meant “one hundred
years ago” any and all readers of this ʙʙᴄ-hosted essay need only
consult the supplementary eleventh volume of the costly yet nonesuch “Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia” of 1909 where the entry for that adjective on page 585 cites Dr. Albert
H. Buck’s 1902 “Reference Handbook of The Medical Sciences”, 2nd. Ed.; Vol. 5; Page 134, as its primary source material (wherein a
sentence beginning with “Normal *heterosexual* intercourse...” occurs, on that page, along with “...enjoying
normal sexual intercourse” and “...normal sexual relations” a little further on, as well as “...natural sexual feelings”
earlier). Viz.:
• heterosexual (het′′ë-rō-sek′
šū-äl), a. [Greek ἕτερος, ‘other’ + Latin sexus, ‘sex’ + -al¹.] Relating to
the opposite sex. (Buck, Med. Handbook,
V. 134 ). ~ (page 585 The Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia; Vol. XI.; editor-in-chief
Benjamin E. Smith, ᴀᴍ, ʟʜᴅ; ©1909).
Thus a twentieth century layperson, one hundred and eight years ago,
turning to that non-medical dictionary to find out “what it means to be
heterosexual” would see virtually the same wording as the twenty-first century layperson
nowadays sees utilised as part of the adjectival meaning expressed in the 2005 “Webster’s
College Dictionary” (NB.: noun usage of the word “heterosexual” was not common until
fifty or so years later in the 1960s). Viz.:
• heterosexual (adj.): 1. of, pertaining to, or exhibiting heterosexuality; 2. *pertaining to the opposite sex* or to both sexes;
(n.): 3. a heterosexual person. [1890-95]. [emphasis added]. ~ (Webster’s
College Dictionary; ©2005 Random House, Inc).
Interestingly enough, a scant four years after this terse definition for “heterosexual” made
its debut appearance, in the twelve-volume “Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia” of 1909, a noticeably concordant entry, of equal concision,
appeared for the more medically-minded market in the 1913 “American Illustrated Medical Dictionary” on page 430. Viz.:
• Heterosexual (het′′er-o-seks′u-al). Pertaining to the
opposite sex.
~ (page 430, The American Illustrated
Medical Dictionary; 7th ed.; senior author, Dr. W. A. Newman Dorland; editor-in-chief Ryland
W. Green, ᴀʙ; ©1913).
Thus a twentieth century physician, one hundred and four years ago, similarly turning to that medical dictionary to find out
“what it means to be heterosexual”
would see the same wording as the twenty-first century physician
nowadays sees utilised as the first part of the adjectival meaning expressed in the 2004 “Dorland’s Medical Dictionary” (NB.: the “American
Illustrated Medical Dictionary” underwent an eponymous name-change in the 1950s following the death of its senior author Dr. William Alexander Newman
Dorland). Viz.:
• heterosexual (het·ero·sex·u·al) (het″ər-o-sek′shoo-al):
1. *pertaining to the opposite sex*; directed toward a person of the opposite sex, as
opposed to homosexual. 2. one who is sexually attracted to persons of the opposite sex. [emphasis added].
And in the same year, one hundred and four years ago, the “Funk
& Wagnalls Company” similarly published a pithy definition for “heterosexual” (which is virtually
identical to those already-quoted further above) on page 1153 of the revised and enlarged
September 1913 “Funk & Wagnalls New Standard Dictionary of the English Language” (first published in 1893 and 1895 in two volumes). Viz.:
• het″er-o-sex′u-al, a. Pertaining to the other sex.
~ (page 1153, Funk & Wagnalls “New Standard Dictionary of
the English Language”; Dr. Isaac K. Funk, ᴅᴅ, ʟʟᴅ,
Editor-in-Chief; Vol II. Divi to Lyw; The Standard Literature Co., Ltd., Calcutta; ©
September 1913, 1919, 1920, 1923, 1925, 1927, 1929 by Funk and Wagnalls Company, New York;
Printed in the United States).
Additionally, any twentieth century physician purchasing the “American Illustrated Medical Dictionary” one hundred and
two years ago would find the following definition for the nounal form of the adjective
“heterosexual”
(derived via affixing the “-ity” suffix to that base-word) on page 440 of its “revised and enlarged” 8th edition of 1915.
Viz.:
• Heterosexuality (het′′er-o-seks-u-al′it-e). Love or
sexual desire toward persons of the opposite sex. ~ (page 440, The American Illustrated Medical Dictionary;
8th ed.; senior author, Dr. W. A. Newman Dorland; editor-in-chief: Ryland W. Green, ᴀʙ;
©1915).
As none of those dictionary definitions for the adjective “heterosexual” (virtually identical for both layperson and physician alike) give any indication that
“people had a very different idea of what it means to be heterosexual” in those days—and bearing in
mind how this specialist term had first properly[†] appeared in English in a medico-legal tome translated from the German explicitly for
specialist physicians, jurists, alienists, and the ilk, by Prof. C. G. Chaddock (with its more lubricious sections written in Latin to deter potential procurement by prurient
laypersons) in the decade prior to making its public debut in the twelve-volume “Century
Dictionary and Cyclopaedia” of 1909—a review of the primary source material is
required in order to establish the truth of the matter once and for all.
[†]This neoteric medico-legal term improperly appeared six months earlier
in the May 1892 issue of the “Chicago Medical Society Recorder” where it was
erroneously coupled with what was then known as “psychical hermaphroditism”
(a.k.a. bisexualism) in a table of ‘sexual perversions’ on page 198 and thus inadvertently
linked to the “inclinations to both sexes” characteristic properly pertaining
to bisexuals in a small-print footnote—with both blunders being in stark contradiction, of
course, to the therein cited-as-source forthcoming English translation of the seventh edition
of the German medico-legal study “Psychopathia Sexualis” (first published in
1886)—in an essay entitled “Responsibility in Sexual Perversion” (pp.
185-210) by a prominent alienist of the era, Dr. Jas. G. Kiernan, M. D., Fellow of the Chicago
Academy of Medicine. Although the 25-page essay includes a notation (at the foot of its title
page) of having been duly read before the Chicago Medical Society on March 7th 1892—whereat
none of the august membership dutifully gathered paid sufficient attention (or else were
grievously uninformed of neoteric terminology) such as to correct this egregious category
error—it seems unlikely the addendum footnoted prolifically in this part of the essay
(wherein the inadvertently linked “inclinations to both sexes” characteristic
was buried amongst all the fine-print at the foot of the next page) were also read-out. Rather
entertainingly, this inadvertent and patently erroneous coupling of ‘heterosexuality’ with
‘bisexuality’ nonetheless resulted in an all-encompassing inclinations-to-both-sexes type
of debut entry for ‘heterosexuality’ in a fledgling medical dictionary, in 1900, by a
lackadaisical editor-in-chief (an alert editor-in-chief of the 1933 Oxford English Dictionary drolly
depicted it as a “misapplied” definition) and
which perversive misapplication was copycatted by the slothful editors-in-chief of at least
two non-medical dictionaries in 1913 and 1923).
Thus, it was one hundred and twenty-five years ago that neurologist
Prof. Charles Gilbert Chaddock, MD (1861-1936) published his authorised translation of the
medico-legal study “Psychopathia Sexualis” (the seventh, enlarged and
revised, edition) in November 1892—which itself was first published one hundred and
thirty-one years ago in Germany, in 1886, by the Austro-German neurologist and
psychiatrist Professor Dr. Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing (1840-1902)—wherein the
hyphenated adjective “hetero-sexual” appears twenty-three times, with the meaning everyone is familiar
with today fluently contextualised (and typically serving as a benchmark against which words such
as ‘abnormal’, ‘unnatural’, ‘degenerate’, ‘perverted’, etcetera, could be duly
referenced), as the following short extract from an online version of that English
translation, with its key-words highlighted for accentuation, admirably illustrates. Viz.:
• [Dr. Krafft-Ebing]: “For the
presumption of acquired contrary sexual instinct {i.e.,
‘non-congenital bisexualism’ & ‘homosexualism’}, it is important to prove the existence of *hetero-sexual
instinct* {i.e., ‘heterosexuality’} before the beginning of solitary or mutual onanism
{i.e., ‘autoeroticism’ or ‘mutual masturbation’}. In general, the acquired cases are characterised in
that:—
1. The homo-sexual instinct appears secondarily, and always may be referred
to influences (masturbation, neurasthenia, mental) which disturbed *normal sexual
satisfaction*. It is, however, probable that here, in spite of powerful sensual libido, *the
feeling and inclination for the opposite sex* are weak ab origine {i.e., ab initio; ‘from the beginning’}, especially in *a spiritual and aesthetic sense*.
2. The homo-sexual instinct, as long as inversio sexualis {i.e.,
‘sexual inversion’} has not taken place, is looked upon, by the individual affected, as
vicious and abnormal, and yielded to only faute de mieux {i.e.,
‘for lack of better’ or ‘for want of a better alternative’}.
3. The *hetero-sexual instinct* long remains predominant, and the
impossibility of its satisfaction gives pain. It weakens in proportion as the homo-sexual
feeling gains in strength.
On the other hand, in congenital cases (a) the homo-sexual instinct
is the one that occurs primarily, and becomes dominant in the vita sexualis{i.e., ‘sexual
life’}. It appears as the natural manner of satisfaction, and also
dominates the dream-life of the individual. (b) The *hetero-sexual instinct*
fails completely, or, if it should make its appearance during the life of the individual
(psychosexual hermaphroditism) {i.e., ‘bisexualism’},
it is still but an episodical
phenomenon which has no root in *the mental constitution of the individual*, and is essentially but a means of
satisfaction of sexual desire.
The differentiation of the above groups of congenital contrary sexuality
from one another, and from the cases in which the anomaly is acquired, will, after the
foregoing, present no difficulties. The prognosis of the cases of acquired contrary sexual
instinct is, at all events, much more favourable than that of the congenital cases.
In the former, the occurrence of effemination—the mental inversion of the
individual, in the sense of perverse sexual feeling—is the limit beyond which there is no
longer hope of benefit from therapy. In the congenital cases, the various categories
established in this book form as many stages of psycho-sexual taint, and benefit is probable
only within the category of the psychical hermaphrodites {i.e.,‘bisexuals’}, though
possible (vide the case of Schrenk-Notzing) in that of the urnings {i.e., ‘homosexuals’}...”. [curly-bracketed
inserts and emphases added; italics in original]. ~
(pp. 319-320, “Psychopathia Sexualis” by Dr. Richard von Krafft-Ebing;
translated by Dr. Charles Gilbert Chaddock, 1884; F. A. Davis Co., Philadelphia & F. J.
Redman, London).
The highlighted words situated in their context amply convey, even though
it be but a short excerpt, how “the hetero-sexual
instinct” is thought of as “normal sexual satisfaction” inasmuch it
is not only
“the feeling and inclination for the opposite sex” but is especially distinguished by having
“a spiritual and aesthetic sense” as well (i.e., not just carnal and concupiscent) and specifically has its
root in “the mental constitution of the individual” (i.e., this newly-named other-sex sexual proclivity of the citizenry at large is not just an appetitive or animalistic lusting).
Ergo, it is amply evident there be no “shift in thinking”
from what it meant to be “heterosexual” either for people
“one hundred years ago” or even earlier (i.e., one hundred and twenty-eight years ago, in fact).
As there is no shift to understand vis-à-vis what being “heterosexual
” meant, then, correspondingly, there is no such understanding to “tell us a lot about fluid sexual
identities today”, either.
Which is not at all surprising because—apart from those “fluid sexual
identities” being characteristically prevalent amongst peoples who are *not* of the
fecundous other-sex sexual predisposition anyway—that selectively-diffusional fluidity has more to
do with the lability of those multifariously
sexualised identities (those many and varied incorporeal personae known indistinguishably as “sexual orientation
identity” in sociologese and by an ‘alphabet-soup’ of initials colloquially) being the trend
du jour than anything else.
By virtue of being raised in the late 1940s and early 1950s the clarifier
and critic furnishing explanatory clarifications and critical commentaries in these editorial notes—i.e., the writer typing these words—has firsthand experience
of how the citizenry-at-large (i.e., society-in-general) is quite capable of operating and functioning sans these sexualised identities. Furthermore, it is
still within the living memory of a significant proportion of the culture generally—in peoples raised in the 1920s and 1930s and thereafter—as to how society
operated and functioned just as well (if not, and arguably so, even better) in those decades before these purposely self-sexualised identities first began to
deliberately court public attention, dubbed “coming out of the closet”, amongst peoples who were not of the fecundous other-sex sexual predisposition in the
mid-1970s and early 1980s for group-solidarity socio-politico reasons (such as public awareness and public acceptance human-rights campaigning).
Whether or not these aeriform
latter-day entities—these identities who can and sometimes do “shift and evolve” in daily life—will persist as an enduring if not endearing feature of the
culture-at-large, now those objectives have been largely if not wholly achieved, remains to be seen of course. The citizenry-at-large a.k.a.
society-in-general (i.e., the vast majority of the population), who tend to be reserved and reticent about matters sexual—sometimes to the point of
prudery (such as the “Victorian Era” for instance)—and automatically take exception to such in-your-face sexualisation of self-identity, are typically
indifferent to or resistant of any equivalent sexualised self-identification for themselves.
This fashionability is also not surprising, either, arising as it does—via an infective groupthink autosuggestibility—out of the discourse determinism inherent to those latter-day sociological theory-of-knowledge schools
(such as ‘historical relativism’, ‘cultural relativism’, ‘social constructionism’, ‘gender feminism’, ‘identity politics’, ‘queer theory’,
and the ilk) profusely seeding the issues du jour for the present generation.
In a way it is almost comical—mayhap in a ‘black-humour’ kind of way—how sociological theory-of-knowledge schools, which seek to explain how social
and/or cultural influences also construct realities for non-woke peoples, are nescient
when it comes to the self-same socio-cultural influences having thereafter reflexively added yet another layer of
complexification to their complex of realities (to the bafflement of many of the woke peoples
as evidenced by their discombobulatory declamations).
To elaborate on this further complexification (albeit with droll
prolixity): all what has been achieved, essentially,
is to add stratification with many a ramification to personification and identification
through classification, declassification, reclassification and cross-classification (plus
qualification and quantification via typification and codification)—reflexively spawning a
multi-layered diversification and complexification from reification and reunification (with
much transmogrification and mystification per favour many a falsification and justification
thus requiring clarification and edification through amplification and magnification via
modification and rectification, and, consequently, purification comprising of exemplification
and indemnification) rather than vivification and revivification through simplification and
nullification—to an already complexified matter.
All drollery aside: it is patently obvious, then, that the author of this ʙʙᴄ-hosted essay
“argues”, in vain as the “idea”
which people one hundred and thirty-one years ago had—that miniscule number of specialist physicians, alienists, jurists, and a
smattering of laypersons—of what it means to be “heterosexual”
is evidentially in accord with the meaning everyone is familiar with today.
And, upon due reflection, it could never have been otherwise as all what had happened was that the fecundous other-sex
sexual predisposition of the citizenry at large—which the generic phrases “normal sexual instinct” and “natural sexual
instinct” referred to—acquired a one-word signifier as a by-product of the hybrid word “homosexual”[*]
being coined for persons of a same-sex sexual persuasion in the late 1860s as a secular substitute for the then-prevalent ‘sodomy’ and
‘sodomite’ and/or ‘sodomist’.
[*]homosexual (hō-mō-sek′šū-äl), a. [Gr. ὁμός,
the same + L. sexus + -al¹.] 1. Of or pertaining to the same sex or to individuals of the same sex.—2. Relating to
homosexuality; [e.g.]: “In one of our cases, homosexual impulses were a feature of degeneracy”. (Med. Record,
June 13, 1903, p. 925). ~ (pp. 596-597, “The Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia”; Vol. XI.;
editor-in-chief Benjamin E. Smith, ᴀᴍ, ʟʜᴅ; ©1909).
Indeed, the very first time the word ever appeared in print anywhere in the world—in Germany
one hundred and thirty-seven years ago when the second edition of “Entdeckung der Seele” (‘Discovery of the Soul’) was published
by biologist Professor Dr. Gustav Jäger in 1880—both the word “Heterosexualität” and its synonymic
“normalsexual” featured in the very same paragraph. Viz.:
• ”Ich glaube nämlich hinreichenden Anhalt dafür gefunden zu haben,
um sagen zu können {i.e., ‘I believe I have found sufficient evidence to be able to say’}: Von 1 Million
Männer sind 900 000 *normalsexual* {i.e., ‘out of one million men, nine-hundred-thousand are sexually normal’;
i.e., ‘heterosexual’}, und 600 000 davon können unser Geschlecht gesund und legitim fortpflanzen {i.e., ‘and
six-hundred-thousand of them can healthily and legitimately procreate our species’}, dagegen 300 000 wenigstens die Freuden der
*Heterosexualität* geniessen, in der sie naturgemäss leben {i.e., ‘while three-hundred-thousand enjoy the
pleasures of the heterosexuality in which they naturally live’}, wenn auch der Staat und die Gesellschaft selber daran Schuld ist,
dass ihnen diese 300 000 keine legitimen Früchte tragen {i.e., ‘even though the state and society themselves are to
blame for the fact these three-hundred-thousand do not bear legitimate fruit’}.—Mag diese approximative Statistik auch noch so
fehlerhaft sein, sie giebt uns jedenfalls einen Standpunkt, die ganze Frage endlich einmal zu übersehen und einen plastischen Begriff
von ihr zu gewinnen {i.e., ‘No matter how erroneous these approximate statistics may be, they give us a point of view
which allows us to finally survey the whole question and to gain a clear conception of it’}. [emphases added;
curly-bracketed translations inserted]. ~ (page 255, “Entdeckung der Seele” by Prof. Dr. Gustav Jäger; 3rd
Ed. ©1884; Ernst Günthers Verlag, Leipzig).
Even though “Heterosexualität” {=‘heterosexuality’} had only
this one appearance, above, the synonymic “normalsexual” {=‘sexually normal’; i.e., ‘heterosexual’}
appears in the book a total of twelve occasions all told (four times in the grammatical form of “Normalsexuale”;
three times in the form of “Normalsexualen”; two times as “Normalsexualer”;
plus once each as “Normalsexual” and “normalsexualen”).
Also, “Normalsexualität” {=‘normal sexuality’} appears
three times and “Normalsexualismus” {=‘normal sexualism’} features once.
And it was from the above publication that Dr. Krafft-Ebing obtained both
the word “Homosexuale” and its antipodean “Heterosexuale” to use nine years later in the 4th edition of his
“Psychopathia Sexualis” medico-legal study which he published one hundred and twenty-eight years ago in 1889.
Just as the Munich psychiatrist Dr. Albert Freiherr von Schrenk-Notzing (1862-1929) did five years
hence, for example, one hundred and twenty-three years ago in his “Therapeutic Suggestion in Psychopathia Sexualis” of October,
1894—also translated into English by Prof. Chaddock in 1895—wherein he detailed the success such
therapeutic suggestion had, in numerous cases of “contrary sexual instinct”, as referenced parenthetically in the last sentence of that
brief excerpt from “Psychopathia Sexualis” already quoted.
As did the German psychiatrist Dr. Albert Moll (1862-1939), for that matter, in his 1891
“Les perversions l’instinct génital” one hundred and twenty-six years ago and his “The Sexual life of the Child” one hundred and
five years ago when translated into English in 1912 by Dr. Eden Paul
(reprinted in 1921).
Mr. John Addington Symonds, ʙᴀ (1840-1893) also utilised this neoteric terminology when he privately published—in order to obviate potential prosecution
due to being of an infecundous same-sex sexual predilection—his “A Problem in Greek Ethics” one hundred and thirty-four years ago
in 1883.
Mr. Symonds had an extensive correspondence with Dr. Henry Havelock Ellis (1859-1939) regarding a book they had agreed to
co-author (eventually published one hundred and twenty years ago in 1897, four years after his death, as “Studies in the Psychology of
Sex”). What follows is an excerpt from a letter, written one hundred and twenty-five years ago in 1892, wherein the word “heterosexual” represents the benchmark against which the word “Urning”
(another neoteric word to represent a male of an infecundous same-sex sexual predilection) can be differentiated as an abnormality or divergence
from (i.e., from “the average” as below). Viz.:
• “Dear Mr. Ellis, I have read Moll’s book {i.e., the German psychiatrist Dr.
Albert Moll’s 1891 “Les perversions l’instinct génital”
already adverted to further above}, & quite agree with you that the treatment of
the subject is the most sensible we have. All the points I wish to argue in my treatise against the purely psychiatrical theory have been put with
directness & force. His chapter on aetiology & his treatment of the hereditary hypothesis are good. But I do not see how he can go so far
without admitting that the abnormality is not of necessity a disease. (...). Also, I think that his analogy between sexual abnormality &
disorders of the digestive apparatus (p. 209) involves a fallacy. The hysterical people who eat sealing wax & pencils distinctly hurt their
stomaches. The Urning {= ‘homosexual’}, if he is permitted to indulge his instinct, obtains the same relief &
feeling of refreshment as the *heterosexual* does; he does not hurt but benefit the organ. Also the digestive function is not in the same
intricate & intimate rapport with the emotion & imagination, the spiritual side of us, as the sexual is. That alone constitutes a radical
difference, a differentia, it precludes reasoning by analogy from the organs of nutrition. Moll has practically cut the ground away under his own
feet by the last sentence on p: 189 “Fast nür vom teleologischen’ u.s.w” [‘Almost only from the teleological, etc.’]. With the progress of
scientific analyses & speculation, the assumed morbidity of sexual perversion is thus being gradually excluded. Its abnormality, or divergence
from the average, will remain self-evident...”. [emphasis added]. ~ (page 229,
“John Addington Symonds (1840-1893) and Homosexuality: A Critical Edition of Sources”, by Sean Brady; 31 May 2012,
Springer).
Moreover, the very first time the word “Heterosexuale” ever
appeared on paper anywhere in the world—in Berlin one hundred and fourty-nine years ago when
Herr Károly Mária Kertbeny (1824-1882) wrote a private letter dated the 6th of May 1868 to Herr Karl Heinrich Ulrichs proposing the hybrid term
“Heterosexuale” as a corollary to having first coined “Homosexuale” (as a secular replacement for the
then-prevalent ‘sodomy’, ‘sodomite’ and/or ‘sodomist’) plus two unsuccessful words for bestiality and autoeroticism—the “idea” its inventor had of what it means to be “heterosexual”
is attested in two anonymously-circulated pamphlets soliciting the decriminalisation of sodomy he had privately printed in 1869 wherein he used
the word “Normalsexualität” to represent the benchmark against which the word
“Homosexualität” could be properly differentiated (rather than the
word “Heterosexualität” else it too would have a 148-years-old print history).
Yet, despite all this easily found and readily available primary-source evidence to the contrary, the author of this
ʙʙᴄ-hosted essay insists that “people had a very different idea of what it means to be
heterosexual” back in those days—as per that click-bait lede strategically placed immediately under this essay’s mala
fide title—and its author purportedly “argues” in the 3,391-word article
which follows how “understanding that shift in thinking” (which never
actually occurred) can tell those attention-seeking modern-day
personas, those
personators who are *not* of the fecundous
other-sex sexual predisposition anyway, who increate ‘shape-shifter’ style identities, a lot about their apparitional lability even though, of course, nowhere in those 3,391 words is any such “understanding”
ever evinced by this aspirant arguer.
The question which commands attention is this: how could the aspirant eristic—a freelance writer of numerous published
articles—have shot themself in the foot so critically, and on the ʙʙᴄ website no less, before their essay even commences?
Rather easily, it turns out, insofar as the title of this patently ill-researched essay—(namely:
The Invention of ‘Heterosexuality’ further above)—is virtually identical, scare quotes notwithstanding, to the title of
an article published more than a quarter of a century ago in the 1990 “Socialist Review 20” (pp. 7-34) by Mr. Jonathan Ned Katz, entitled The
Invention of Heterosexuality which, when expanded into a book-length screed, was published under the same title in 1995 by Dutton (an
imprint of Dutton Signet, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc.) and reprinted in 2007 by the University of Chicago Press.
Suffice is it to say upfront that Mr. Katz has, amongst other vagaries, come unto such doyen status in the
realm of “social constructionism” as to be pedestalled by his peer-group in ...err... in ‘The World According To
Wikipedia’. Viz.:
• “Jonathan Ned Katz (born 1938) is an American historian of human sexuality who has focused on
same-sex attraction and changes in the social organisation of sexuality over time. His works focus on the idea, *rooted in social
constructionism*, that the categories with which we describe and define human sexuality are historically and culturally specific, along with the
social organisation of sexual activity, desire, relationships, and sexual identities. (...). His historical work focuses on same-sex and different-sex
relationships, and changes in *the social construction of sexuality* over time...”. [emphases
added].
And, of course, the “social construction of gender” (‘gender’ as in
“sexual identities” as per social constructionism and not as grammatical categories) also garners
its own narrative in ‘Wikipedia World’.
• “Social Construction of Gender. The idea that *gender difference is socially constructed* is a view
present in philosophical and sociological theories about gender. (...elided...). The roots of the social constructionist
movement in psychology are related to *the criticism of the objectivism* assumed by positivist/ empiricist concepts of knowledge
(...elided...). The focus on power and hierarchy [in that criticism of objectivism] reveals *inspiration stemming
from a Marxist framework*, utilised for instance by materialist feminism, and Michel Foucault’s writings on discourse. Social constructionism,
briefly, is the concept that there are many things that people “know” or take to be “reality” that *are at least partially, if not completely,
socially situated*. (...elided...). Emerging from *the criticism of objectivity*, social constructionism
challenges concepts of knowledge put forward by positivism, which postulates the externality of reality and that empirically-proved truths are
mind-independent. (...elided...). Thus, social constructionists focus on how meaning is created and suggest that
*knowledge is not only a social product, but a product of a specifically situated society*; various accounts of reality depend on place and
time (...elided...). Social constructionists *question the Western idea of an autonomous individual* who can
draw a clear line between the self and the society. (...elided...). The *differentiation between gender and sex*
did not arise until the late 1970s, when researchers began using
“gender” and “sex” as two separate terms, *with “gender”
referring to one’s self-identity* and “sex” referring to one’s chromosomal makeup and sex organs...”.
[emphases
added].
Although the word ‘gender’ has been interchangeable with the word ‘sex’ for more than half a millennia—vide:
“the use of gender in the sense ‘sex’ is over 600 years old” (Webster’s College Dictionary)—such usage had
essentially remained the preserve of grammarians. In 1955, however, this grammatical term was press-ganged by a monstrous self-styled [quote] “fuckologist” [unquote]
for an entirely different rôle which gender feminists (as distinct from equity feminists) seized upon in the 1970s. Viz.
• “Sexologist John Money (1921-2006) introduced the terminological *distinction between
biological sex and gender as a role* in 1955. Before his work, it was uncommon to use the word gender to refer to anything but grammatical
categories. However, Money’s meaning of the word did not become widespread until the 1970s, when *feminist theory* embraced the concept of a
distinction between biological sex and *the social construct of gender*. (...elided...). He proposed and
developed several theories and related terminology, including gender identity, gender role, gender-identity/ gender-role, and lovemap. He also
changed the word “perversions” to “paraphilias[*]” and the word “sexual preference” to “sexual orientation”,
striving towards less judgemental descriptions...”. [emphases
added].
[*]As the online “Merriam-Webster Dictionary” cites 1925 as the first known usage of
“paraphilia” in
print then this Wikipedian ipsedixitism requires the monstrous Dr. John William Money, who was born in 1921, to have been a precocious preschooler; a four-year-old child
prodigy, no less!
The technical term “paraphilia” was actually coined by Herr Friedrich Krauss, in 1904,
seventeen years before the monstrous Dr. Money was even born. Viz.:
• “The word paraphilia was coined in 1904 by the Austrian ethnologist Friedrich Salomon Krauss.
He used it to describe all kinds of variants of sexual behaviour that did not serve the purpose of procreation {e.g., same-sex
sexuality}. The proliferate author and psychoanalyst Wilhelm Stekel was the one who spread the world [sic] to the English language and reserved
it for a special kind of “perversion”⁽*⁾. In those days, sex crimes and pathological sexual behaviours were still
labelled with the term “perversion”, and, later, with the term “sexual deviance”. In 1980, the term “sexual deviance” used
in DSM-I (1952) and DSM-II (1968) was replaced by the term paraphilia (DSM-III 1980) and is still used in DSM-V (2013)”.
⁽*⁾In the December 1922 ‘Forward’ to his “Der Fetischismus” (1923; Urban & Schwarzenberg, Berlin)
Dr. Wilhelm Stekel, 1868-1940, explained his nomenclature. Viz.:
• Für Leser, denen meine neue Nomenklatur, die nun in dem ganzen Werke einheitlich durchgeführt
wird, unbekannt ist, teile ich mit, daß überall “Parapathie” für “Neurose”, “Paralogie” für “Psychose” und “Paraphilie” für “Perversion” steht
{=‘For those readers who are unacquainted with my new terminology as it is uniformly carried out in these volumes, I may say that
“parapathy” stands for “neurosis”, “paralogia” for “psychosis” and “paraphilia” for “perversion”}.
In the ‘Foreword to the Second Edition’ of his “Onanie und Homosexualität” (1st Ed.: 1917, Urban &
Schwarzenberg, Berlin) Dr. Wilhelm Steke was emphatic that the term “parapathy” (i.e., ‘neurosis’) was applicable to infecund same-sex
sexuality. Viz.:
• Vorwort zur zweiten Auflage. Die vorliegende Auflage enthält einige wichtige Ergänzungen und mehrere neue
Beobachtungen. Seit der Publikation der ersten Auflage, die eine so freundliche Aufnahme gefunden hat, hatte ich Gelegenheit, viele Homosexuelle beiderlei
Geschlechtes zu sehen und zu analysieren. Ich konnte meine Erfahrungen vertiefen, ohne an meinen Schlußfolgerungen rütteln zu müssen. Ich kann nur wiederholen,
was ich schonin der ersten Auflage gesagt habe: *Die Homosexualität ist eine Seelenkrankheit (Parapathie)* und ist heilbar!
{=‘Foreword to the second edition. The present edition contains some important additions and several new observations. Since the publication of the first edition,
which has received such a friendly reception, I have had the opportunity to see and analyse many homosexuals of both sexes. I could deepen my experiences without
having to shake my conclusions. I can only repeat what I said in the first edition: *Homosexuality is a mental illness (parapathy)* and can be cured!’}.
[emphases added; NB.: “Seelenkrankheit” = lit. soul-sickness].
English translations of his “Onanie und Homosexualität” were published by James S. Van Teslaar in 1922 as
“Bi-Sexual Love; The Homosexual Neurosis” and “The Homosexual Neuroses”. Viz.:
Mr. Katz himself, self-identifying as a “radical social constructionist
” of the “Karl Marx”
variety, readily admits of being encouraged by his nonnormative cohort to similarly posit the “historical relativity” of sexual
behaviours—plus identities, meanings, categories, groups, and institutions, as well—and makes no bones about having “altered” his personal history by his “political activity
and organisation” in conjunction with his “vision of a valued
future” (albeit under unavoidably essentialist “circumstances given
by the past” which, being “within specific historical
settings” both temporally and spatially, are indeed inclusive of “some
essential, universal eroticism and gender” and not merely suggestive of same) despite it all being, effectively, a
formula-for-living indistinguishable from a cunning plan à la ‘Baldrick’, of “Blackadder” infamy, via empowering a fantasised future to spawn a
supposititious
past through the agency of radical politico-organisational activists (and thereby formulaically incapable of ever determining where they are
presently at). Viz.:
• [Mr. Katz]: “Radical social constructionists, myself among them,
posit the historical relativity of sexual behaviours, as well as of identities, meanings, categories, groups, and institutions.
(...elided...). It’s particularly unsettling, I think, to speak of
heterosexual history, for that history challenges our usual, implicit, deterministic assumption that heterosexuality is fixed, timeless, biological,
synonymous with the conjunction of female and male organs and acts. To the contrary, I argue, heterosexuality (like homosexuality) has an
unheralded, various past, and an open undetermined future. To paraphrase Karl Marx, *women
and men make their own sexual and affectional history*. But they do not make this history just as they please. They make it under the circumstances
given by the past and *altered by their political activity and organisation, and their vision of a valued future*. Erotic and gender
relationships are always under construction and reconstruction within specific historical settings.
In the last sentence, let us note, I fall back into a mode of speech suggesting the
existence of some essential, universal eroticism and gender always being reconstructed. Such is the power over our minds of essentialist thought that I
know no way to avoid it. (...elided...). My social constructionist hypothesis
does not, by the way, suggest that heterosexual or homosexual feelings are less real, profound, or legitimate because they are socially constructed,
simply that they are not omnipresent, not a biological fate...”. [emphases added].
(pp. 180-181, “‘Homosexual’ and ‘Heterosexual’: Questioning the Terms” by Jonathan Ned Katz; 1997, NYU Press, New York).
The groupthink on display in that
supposititious“posit” by those radical social constructionist postulators is
somewhat reminiscent of a certain passage in Mr. Rudyard Kipling’s 1894 ‘Jungle Book’ where the Bandar-log (the monkeys) all shout, twenty at a time, “we all
say so, and so it must be true” and “this is true; we all say so” to Mowgli (the man-cub) who, even though sore, sleepy and hungry as he was, could
not help laughing whilst saying to himself “certainly this is dewanee, the madness” (i.e., hydrophobia; a.k.a. rabies) as his head spun with all
the noise.
Lastly, the very fact that the aspirant arguer has this social constructionist-sourced essay of theirs published on the
ʙʙᴄ website demonstrates just how successful Herr Rudi Dutschke’s 1967 catch-phrase “der lange Marsch durch die Institutionen” (‘the
long march through the institutions’)—as endorsed by Mr. Herbert Marcuse in his 1972 book “Counterrevolution and Revolt” (Beacon Press, Boston)—really
has been thus far.
Alors! La matrice! Tentacules à gogo!
(End Editorial Note).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
• An examen of “The Invention of ‘Heterosexuality’” Part Two.
• An examen of “The Invention of ‘Heterosexuality’” Contents.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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