Sexology
Sexology is the systematic study of
human sexuality. It encompasses all aspects of sexuality (except
Involuntary celibacy), including attempting to characterise "
normal sexuality" and its variants, including
paraphilias.
Modern sexology is a multidisciplinary field which uses the techniques of fields including
biology,
medicine,
psychology,
statistics,
epidemiology,
sociology,
anthropology, and sometimes
criminology to bear on its subject. It studies human
sexual development and the development of
sexual relationships as well as the mechanics of
sexual intercourse and
sexual malfunction. It also documents the sexuality of special groups, such as handicapped, children, and
elderly, and studies sexual pathologies such as
sex addiction and
child sexual abuse.
Note that sexology is considered descriptive, not prescriptive: it attempts to document reality, not to prescribe what behavior is suitable, ethical, or moral. Sexology has often been the subject of controversy between supporters of sexology, those who believe that sexology pries into matters held sacrosanct, and those who philisophically object to its claims of
objectivity and
empiricism.
A number of ancient
sex manuals exist, including
Ovid's
Ars Amatoria, the
Kama Sutra of
Vatsyayana, the
Ananga Ranga and
The Perfumed Garden for the Soul's Recreation. However, none of these treated sex as the subject of a formal field of scientific or medical research.
One of the earliest sex researchers prior to the
20th century sexology movement was
Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing, whose book
Psychopathia Sexualis, published in
1886, recorded a dizzying array of sexual anomalies.
In the late
19th and early 20th centuries,
Sigmund Freud developed
a theory of sexuality based on his studies of his clients.
Wilhelm Reich and
Otto Gross, two scholars of Freud, conducted revolutionary studies around human sexuality.
Magnus Hirschfeld founded the
Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexology) in
Berlin in
1919. When the Nazis took power, one of their first actions, on May 6, 1933, was to destroy the Institute and burn the library.
In
1947,
Alfred Kinsey founded the
Institute for Sex Research at
Indiana University at
Bloomington, now called the
Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction.
Masters and Johnson released their works
Human Sexual Response in 1966 and
Human Sexual Inadequacy in 1970. Their books sold well, and they were founders of what became to be known as the
Masters & Johnson Institute in 1978.
Fritz Klein MD developed the
Klein Sexual Orientation Grid a multi-dimensional system for describing complex sexual orientation, similar to the
Kinsey scale, but measuring seven different vectors of
sexual orientation and
identity separately, and allowing for change over time. In 1978
Klein published
The Bisexual Option, a groundbreaking psychological study of
bisexuality and in 1998, he founded the
American Institute of Bisexuality (AIB) to encourage, support and assist research and education about
bisexuality.
Sexology, as we currently define it, is largely a 20th and 21st century phenomenon.
Sexology relates to a number of other fields of study:
* several fields of
medicine, including
andrology,
gynaecology, and the
anatomy of the sex organs
* the
psychology,
sociology, and
anthropology of sexual behavior
*
neuroscience can be used to study many basic sexual reflexes, and is increasingly relevant to more complex aspects of sexual behavior
*
psychiatry studies disorders of
sexual behavior when they impact on clinical conditions or reach a point where they become
dysfunctional or sources of psychological difficulty.
* many aspects of sexual behavior are or have been regulated by
law in various jurisdictions, and various classes of sexual offences are studied by
criminology*
biology (general) and
ethology (behavioral) study the sexual behavior of other animals, which can be compared with human sexual behavior
* the techniques of
evolutionary biology can be brought to bear on the causes of sexual behavior
* the
epidemiology of
sexually transmitted diseases
Sexology also touches on public issues such as the debates over
abortion,
public health,
birth control,
sexual abuse and
reproductive technology.
See also: :Category:SexologistsThis is a list of notable sexologists, sorted by the year of their birth:
*
Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing (1840–1902)
*
Wilhelm Fliess (1858-1928)
*
Havelock Ellis (1859-1939)
*
Albert Moll (1862-1939)
*
Edward Westermarck (1862-1939)
*
Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935)
*
Iwan Bloch (1872-1922)
*
Theodor Hendrik van de Velde (1873-1937)
*
Max Marcuse (1877-1963)[
1]
*
Otto Gross (1877-1920)
*
Ernst Gräfenberg (1881-1957)
*
Harry Benjamin (1885-1986)
*
Theodor Reik (1888-1969)
*
Alfred Kinsey (1894-1956)
*
Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957)
*
Wardell Pomeroy (1913-2001)
*
Albert Ellis (born 1913)
*
Kurt Freund (1914-1996)
*
Ernest Borneman (1915-1995)
*
William Masters (1915-2001) and
Virginia Johnson (born 1925) - see
Masters and Johnson*
Paul H. Gebhard {born 1917)
*
John Money (1921-2006)
*
Preben Hertoft (born 1928)
*
Oswalt Kolle (born 1928)
*
William E. Simon (1930-2000)
*
John H. Gagnon [
2] (born 1931)
*
Fritz Klein (1932â€"2006)
*
Milton Diamond (born 1934)
*
Erwin J. Haeberle (born 1936)
*
Rolf Gindorf (born 1939)
*
Simon LeVay (born 1943)
*
Shere Hite (born 1943)
*
Anne Fausto-Sterling (born 1944)
*
Gilbert Herdt (born 1949)
*
Edward O. Laumann*
List of sexology topics*
Gender and sexuality studies*
Philosophy of sex*
Sex education*
Nancy Friday*
Kinsey Institute *
The Klein Sexual Orientation Grid*
Sexual and Affectional Orientation and Identity Scales by Bobbi Keppel &
Alan Hamilton for the
Bisexual Resource Center*
Institute of Family and Sexuality Studies (KULeuven) Belgium
*
Magnus Hirschfeld Archive of Sexology at the
Humboldt University of Berlin with free access to:
**
Human Sexuality: An Encyclopedia**
Critical Dictionary of Sexology**
Sexology World-wide, listing of world-wide sexology institutions
**
Five online courses in Sexual Health**
History of Sexology*
edu.humsex.org Academic Programs in Human Sexology (world wide)
*
Sexology Professor: Sexological Terms and Sexologists*
Society for Human Sexuality**
History of Sexology*
German Society for Social-Scientific Sexuality Research (DGSS)*
Sexology SA *
Flemish Society of Sexology Belgium
*
World Sex Records (Section on Sexology)
* Barry Yeoman,
Forbidden Science, Discover magazine
