ABSTRACT
The study of human sexuality in Western cultures was primarily rooted and developed within the medical profession during the early twentieth century (Foucault, 1976/1981). The history of the scientific and psychological focus on sexuality is brief in comparison to other disciplines. An early pioneer was the English physician Henry Havelock Ellis, whose studies in human sexuality were published in a seven-volume series, Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1897-1928), with six volumes published from 1897 to 1910. Until 1935, his works were restricted from the general public and legally available, in many places, only to members of the medical profession (Brome, 1979). Ellis saw sex as a natural human instinct and challenged notions that masturbation caused illness or insanity (Foucault, 1976/1981). Freud is also considered a pioneer in the advancement of theories of sexuality with his discussions of libido, erogenous zones, homosexuality, and infantile sexuality (1905/1953c). Ellis and Freud broadened society’s range of ideas about sexual behavior and were able to expand our foundational views of sexual energy, desire, and female sexuality (Crandall, 2003). Both men owe significant acknowledgments to an earlier nineteenth century pioneer in psychiatric research on human sexuality, Richard von Krafft-Ebing (1840-1902). He conducted controversial studies on sexual deviance that were published in his book Psychopathia Sexualis (1886/2011), which was referenced in the works of Ellis, Freud, and Jung.
Krafft-Ebing’s landmark studies, originally published in 1886, collected more than 200 sexual histories. Although he suffered considerable backlash from the moralists of the Victorian age, he saw the publication of his book through 12 editions (Klaf, 2011). In the preface to his first edition, Krafft-Ebing (1886/2011) recognized the tremendous risk and responsibility involved in documenting sexual perversions and deviations:
