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Saturday 15 April 2023
11.00 - 13.00
E-14
SEX09
Latin Sexologies: Beyond the Northern Science of Sex
B23
Network:
Sexuality
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Chair:
Alessio Ponzio
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Organizers:
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Discussants:
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Chiara Beccalossi :
Beyond the Binary: Scientific Thinking about Sex 1900-1950
In the last decade, the media in Western countries has increasingly discussed trans people, quite often stigmatising them. At the same time a growing number of people identify as non-binary and some governments are discussing whether to recognise a neutral gender in official documents, along with the male and female ... (Show more)In the last decade, the media in Western countries has increasingly discussed trans people, quite often stigmatising them. At the same time a growing number of people identify as non-binary and some governments are discussing whether to recognise a neutral gender in official documents, along with the male and female genders. In many cases, science is invoked to defend or challenge traditional understandings of sex. This talk examines how a new understanding of intersex variations, chromosomes and hormones challenged the traditional binary definition of sex at the beginning of the twentieth century. It discusses how science in the Western world has increasingly seen not only gender, but also sex, as a spectrum of degrees between male and female in the first half of the twentieth century. (Show less)
Francesca Campani :
Savage Sexualities. Detecting and Disseminating Primitive Sexual Behaviours in the Second Half of Nineteenth Century Italy
During the second half of the nineteenth century, an increasing number of scholars from different fields began systematic enquiries into human sexual behaviours, leading to the emergence of sexual science. Among these scholars, anthropologists in particular commenced investigations into the sexual habits of so-called ‘primitive’ populations from a diachronic and ... (Show more)During the second half of the nineteenth century, an increasing number of scholars from different fields began systematic enquiries into human sexual behaviours, leading to the emergence of sexual science. Among these scholars, anthropologists in particular commenced investigations into the sexual habits of so-called ‘primitive’ populations from a diachronic and cross-cultural perspective.
In Italy, Paolo Mantegazza, a physician, anthropologist and sexual scientist, was among the first to specifically study and disseminate descriptions of non-western sexual behaviours to a wider audience especially with his book Gli amori degli uomini (Mantegazza, 1886-1887). By describing the unbridled and animal sexualities of primitives, he used these habits as a mirror to help shape Western ideas on sexuality, addressing not only specialists but also the citizens of the new-born Italian state.
Traditionally, historiography has focused mainly on the contribution of medical-psychiatric disciplines to the construction of discourses on sexual perversions. Only recently have historians started to investigate the intertwining disciplines that characterised science, race, gender and sexuality at the time.
Building on Mantegazza’s scientific production on sexuality, expressed in both his essays and museums, this paper aims to explore the understandings of primitive sexualities in Italian nineteenth century sexual science. Subsequently, it will show the popularisation of these discourses by analysing how scientists of the time disseminated their scientific theories to a wide audience within journals such as Illustrazione Italiana, Nuova Antologia and Il Fanfulla della Domenica. (Show less)
Ramón Castejón-Bolea, Ángela Segura-Arenas :
Let´s Talk about Sex: Sex Education, Masculinities and Family Planning Centres in Spain (1979-1985)
The idea of sex education in Spain goes back to the sexual modernization movement of the late 1920s whose activity increased during the Second Republic (1931-1939). This movement was cut short after the Civil War, when Franco’s National Catholicism suppressed political rights for decades and imposed a “morality” that silenced ... (Show more)The idea of sex education in Spain goes back to the sexual modernization movement of the late 1920s whose activity increased during the Second Republic (1931-1939). This movement was cut short after the Civil War, when Franco’s National Catholicism suppressed political rights for decades and imposed a “morality” that silenced and repressively disciplined Spanish people’s sexuality.
Contraception, banned throughout the dictatorship, was legalized in 1978, during the transition to democracy, which was triggered by Franco’s death in 1975. After the legalization of contraception in 1978, city councils, provincial governments and the newly created Ministry of Health established public family planning centres, some of which maintained the ethos of their feminist-oriented ancestors: women-centered practice, sex education and even the practice of self-exploration.
Sexology, whose development had equally been curtailed by the dictatorship, in the 1970s underwent progressive professionalization and institutionalization. In 1975, the Sexological Sciences Institute (Instituto de Ciencias Sexológicas), was established and started offering and developing a sexological postgraduate curriculum. In 1979 The Spanish Journal of Sexology (Revista Española de Sexología) was founded.
This paper examines the beginnings of sex education in Spain during the democratic transition. It focuses on local public family planning centres, constituted between 1979 and 1985. We argue that the discourses and practices of sex education were constructed under the influences of the women’s health movement and sexology. In this historical context, sex education sought to redefine the ideal of male and female sexuality. This research is based on interviews with women and men involved in family planning centres, publications, brochures and audiovisual material used in these centers, as well as publications of the Sexological Sciences Institute and Spanish sexological journals. (Show less)
Stefano Poggi :
Medical Representations of Intersexuality in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Italy.
Over the last few decades, historical research has underlined the importance of medico-legal discourse in the definition of the conditions of intersexuality in eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe. The medico-legal production firstly flanked and then gradually took the place of canonical law in the formalisation of sexual dimorphism at the ... (Show more)Over the last few decades, historical research has underlined the importance of medico-legal discourse in the definition of the conditions of intersexuality in eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe. The medico-legal production firstly flanked and then gradually took the place of canonical law in the formalisation of sexual dimorphism at the legal level. Physicians and surgeons played a crucial role in discussing hermaphroditism in two aspects. They took part in the lively debate within the scientific and academic community, and performed as experts when trials had to define the gender of an intersexual individual—such as in marriage annulment cases.
This double engagement has produced a significant amount of medico-legal works on the conditions of intersexuality between the eighteenth and the nineteenth century. Physicians and surgeons wrote reports, essays and manuals of practical medicine aimed to debate the existence and the features of hermaphroditism. These works varied in their structure but were united by the need to communicate scientifically while simultaneously exploiting the widespread interest in abnormalities.
This paper aims to analyse this medico-legal production regarding intersexuality in the Italian linguistic context. In contrast to other national case studies, the history of intersexuality in Italy is still largely unexplored. This paper will analyse sources that have been only partially studied, and attempt to trace the trend lines of the Italian medical discourses on intersexuality. In doing so, the findings in Italian cases will be compared with more studied cases, such as French and Anglo-Saxon. (Show less)
Marie Walin :
Imperfections, Deformities or ‘Monstrosities’: the Physical Causes of Impotence in Nineteenth Century Spain
In his book Higiene del Matrimonio, Pedro Felipe Monlau discusses cases of various ‘imperfect’ men and women with masculine attitudes who were allegedly hermaphrodites. Monlau rejects this hypothesis, believing that there are only ‘some faggots, or loose-textured men, with womanly features, effeminate voice, shy character, and underdeveloped genital apparatus’ (Monlau, ... (Show more)In his book Higiene del Matrimonio, Pedro Felipe Monlau discusses cases of various ‘imperfect’ men and women with masculine attitudes who were allegedly hermaphrodites. Monlau rejects this hypothesis, believing that there are only ‘some faggots, or loose-textured men, with womanly features, effeminate voice, shy character, and underdeveloped genital apparatus’ (Monlau, 1853, p. 104). He later describes them as ‘monstrosities’ with ‘defects of conformation that simulate with more or less truth the amalgamation of the two sexes into a single individual.’ In this text, Monlau mixes the idea of intersexuality with that of ‘inversion’ or ‘homosexuality’, and also the idea of coherence between gender identity and sexual characteristics.
This paper will discuss examples of sexual impotence diagnoses made in Spain during the nineteenth century. These diagnoses demonstrate the permanence of the assimilation between the inability to perform coitus and physical characters considered too feminine for men, as well as ‘undeveloped’ genitalia, from the field of humoral medicine to the development of experimental medicine.
It will then explain how the emergence of hygienism in the first instance, and of proto-sexology in the second (and in particular the psychopathology of the 1870s), contributed to reinforcing the tracking down of physical ‘monstrosities’. This practice associated these so-called ‘monstrosities’ not only with impotence, but with sexual practices deemed to be ‘perverted’. Men’s masculine identities were devalued after being diagnosed as impotent, and by the end of the century they were increasingly suspected of having deviant sexual practices and desires, such as inversion or erotic monomania, while the existence of intersexuality remained denied. (Show less)
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