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Kertbeny
Coins "Homosexual"
1869, Germany. The Austrian born Hungarian writer,
Karl
Maria Kertbeny, coined the word "homosexual" as part of his arguments
against the German sodomy law that eventually became Paragraph 175
of the German Penal Code.
Like his contemporary Karl Ulrichs, Kertbeny was appalled
that many men who had sex with each other were incarcerated by authorities, and that they
were at constant risk of blackmail promulgated by their sexual partners. If the
sodomy laws were removed, the opportunity for blackmail would be eliminated.
In support of his legal arguments, Kertbeny developed an elaborate system for
classifying sexual orientation:
Monosexuality. Many
normal sexuals engage in masturbation, but monosexualists have an innate drive to
masturbate that displaces the normal drive for women. In the tradition of
Tissot's Onanism, Kertbeny claimed that monosexualists suffer weakness
and ill health because masturbation depletes their energy.
Homosexuality. People who
find their sexual pleasures with members of the same sex. The homosexual, Kertbeny
believed, is not necessarily effeminate, and may be uniquely masculine. Several types of
homosexual exist:
Tribades. Female homosexuals
may be either active or passive.
Mutuals. These male
homosexuals find sexual satisfaction in mutual masturbation and constitute the vast
majority of homosexuals.
Pygists. Pygists may be
active, passive or supervirile in their pursuit of anal sex. The supervirile are
hypermasculine men who attract even normal sexuals.
Heterogeneity. People with an
inborn drive to have sex with animals have "heterogeneous" sexual temperaments.
Normal Sexuality. The
ordinary love for the opposite sex. According to Kertbeny, normal sexuals have much
stronger sex drives than the other types which makes them prone to rape, violence,
and child molesting. In his correspondence with Ulrichs, Kertbeny coined
"heterosexuality" as a new term for "normal sexuality".
By arguing that each of the sexual aberrations he
categorized were inborn, he hoped to show that "pederasts", that is, men who
have sex with other men, experience their desire not as a result of willful debauchery but
because they were born with a homosexual proclivity. Like Ulrichs, Kertbeny hoped
that once homosexuality was recognized as an inborn propensity and not a moral failure,
the courts would stop jailing homosexuals.
Ulrichs and Kertbeny were both wrong on this count.
Paragraph 175 was not rescinded until 1969 and "homosexuality" became a
preferred term for psychiatric diagnosis.
Sources and Further Reading
Feray, Jean-Claude and Herzer, Manfred, trans. Glen W. Pepple, 1990. "Homosexual
Studies and Politics in the 19th Century: Karl Maria Kertbeny". Journal of
Homosexuality Vol. 19 no. 1.
Herzer, Manfred, 1985, trans. Hubert Kennedy. "Kertbeny and the Nameless
Love". Journal of Homosexuality. Vol.12, No. 1.
Kennedy, Hubert, 1988. Ulrichs: The Life and Works of Karl Heinrich
Ulrichs, Pioneer of the Modern Gay Movement. Boston: Alyson.
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© 1998
Andrew Wikholm
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