The Intersexes

Edward Irenaeus Prime-Stevenson

Description

The Intersexes: A History of Similisexualism as a Problem in Social Life (1906) is a work of nonfiction by Edward Irenaeus Prime-Stevenson. Written while Prime-Stevenson was living as an expatriate in Europe, The Intersexes is a defense of homosexuality grounded in scientific and historical research. Throughout his career, Prime-Stevenson sought to dispel falsehoods surrounding the history and social acceptance of homosexuality. Writing under the pseudonym Xavier Mayne, Prime-Stevenson took great care to insulate himself from the reprisal common to the period in which he worked. Despite his limited audience—copies of his works numbered in the hundreds—Prime-Stevenson is now recognized as a pioneering advocate for the rights of the LGBTQ community. “Between a protozoan and the most perfect development of the mammalia, we trace a succession of dependent intersteps...A trilobite is at one end of Nature's workshop: a Spinoza, a Shakespeare, a Beethoven is at the other. […] Why have we set up masculinity and femininity as processes that have not perfectly logical and respectable inter-steps?” Seeking to defend homosexuality as a natural result of human evolution, Prime-Stevenson offers his theory of intersexes, of which he identifies two while leaving room for more to be defined in the future. To do so, he rejects the binary of masculine and feminine, both of which fail to describe the vast majority of humanity, in favor of a broader spectrum of sexual identity. Using the terms Uranian and Uraniad, which align with gay and lesbian respectively, Prime-Stevenson attempts to define these types, call attention to historical examples, and critique the societal condemnation and persecution of such individuals as “degenerate” or “criminal.” This groundbreaking study, perhaps the first to approach homosexuality from a scientific, historical, personal, and legal point of view, is recognized today as a landmark in queer literature by academics around the world. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Edward Irenaeus Prime-Stevenson’s The Intersexes: A History of Similisexualism as a Problem in Social Life is a classic work of queer literature reimagined for modern readers.

Sujets

• LGBTQ+ Studies
• Human Sexuality
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Psychology

Informations

• Publié par: Mint Editions
• Date de parution: 22 juin 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781513295497
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The Intersexes
A History of Similisexualism as a Problem in Social Life
Edward Irenaeus Prime-Stevenson
 
The Intersexes: A History of Similisexualism as a Problem in Social Life was first published in 1908.
This edition published by Mint Editions 2021.
ISBN 9781513295343 | E-ISBN 9781513295497
Published by Mint Editions®
minteditionbooks.com
Publishing Director: Jennifer Newens
Design & Production: Rachel Lopez Metzger
Project Manager: Micaela Clark
Typesetting: Westchester Publishing Services
 
C ONTENTS
I.        I NTRODUCTORY : O LD I GNORANCES AND N EW P SYCHOLOGY
II.       M ALE AND F EMALE H UMAN N ATURE AS T HEORY AND AS R EALITY : T HE T HEORY OF I NTERSEXES
III.      A LTEROSEXUAL L OVE AND F RIENDSHIP : S IMILISEXUAL L OVE AND F RIENDSHIP
IV.      S IMILISEXUAL L OVE IN THE B RUTE W ORLD ; IN P RIMITIVE , B ARBAROUS AND S EMI -C IVILIZED M AN ; IN A NCIENT C IVILIZATIONS AND R ELIGIONS ; AND UNDER A NCIENT AND M ODERN S TATUTORY L AW
V.       T HE U RANIAN , OR U RNING ; H IS G ENERAL P HYSICAL AND P SYCHICAL D IAGNOSIS : T YPES AND B IOGRAPHIES
VI.      T HE U RANIAD , OR F EMININE C OMPLEMENT OF THE U RANIAN : H ER G ENERAL P HYSICAL AND P SYCHOLOGICAL D IAGNOSIS : T YPES AND B IOGRAPHIES
VII.    T HE U RANIAN AND U RANIAD IN T HEIR E ARLIEST Y OUTH : T HE I NBORN S IMILISEXUAL AS B OY AND AS G IRL : T YPES AND B IOGRAPHIES
VIII.   T HE U RANIAN AND THE U RANIAD IN THE M ILITARY AND N AVAL C AREERS ; IN THE A THLETIC P ROFESSIONS : AND IN R OYAL , P OLITICAL AND A RISTOCRATIC S OCIAL L IFE : T YPES AND B IOGRAPHIES
IX.    T HE U RANIAN AND U RANIAD IN THE D ISTINCTIVELY E THICAL , R ELIGIOUS AND I NTELLECTUAL L IFE : AND IN THE D ISTINCTIVELY Æ STHETIC P ROFESSIONS AND E NVIRONMENTS : T YPES AND B IOGRAPHIES
X.      T HE U RANIAN AND U RANIAD AS D EGENERATES , AS C RIMINALS AND AS S OCIAL AND L EGAL V ICTIMS : T YPES AND B IOGRAPHIES
XI.    T HE U RANIAN AND U RANIAD IN R ELATION TO M ARRIAGE AS A “C URE ” FOR S IMILISEXUALISM
XII.   I S THE U RANIAN A H IGHER OR A L OWER S EX AND T YPE IN THE S CALE OF H UMANITY ?
XIII.  T HE L IFE AND D IARY OF AN U RANIAN P OET : A UGUST VON P LATEN (1796–1835)
I
I NTRODUCTORY : O LD I GNORANCES AND N EW P SYCHOLOGY
A special trait of the last quarter of the century lately ended was the subtle but general, decided change in what one may call psychologic perspectives. The thoughtful classes have studied their fellow men of late, from the standpoints of practical psychiatrics and of moral responsibility, with a clearness of insight and from a variety of angles not before our time so considered or attained. The changes in currents of religious belief, by which dogmas have been displaced in favour of more natural spiritual conclusions, changes through which the understructure of ethical systems have been questioned and often rebuilt, have served humanity profoundly. Social science, applied to the individual, has also wrought similar healthful details in everyday life.
The Medical Psychologist.
Perhaps no process in the category has been more valuable than the leverage of the medical psychologist. His studies of phases of human nature, and his conclusions as to its expressions, exercise now-a-days upon the social attitudes an influence for which we have no parallel unless we revert to the Middle-Ages and to the best aspects (troublesomely blended, as they were, with mischievous errors) of Ecclesiasticism as a factor in mediaeval society.
The Psychologic Physician as a Juryman to the World.
Today this pratical application of the psychologist to social science puts the physician, especially, in the place and responsability of being a sort of juryman to the whole world. He is brought into the court-room, the State-Commission, the Parliament. In all our dealings with psychologic analisys, sooner or later, we are likely to revert to him. The medico-psychologist has now not only the ancient or new fields of experimental research; for, along with them, he possesses the advantage of largest freedom of speech in giving out his theories and practices to any intelligent outsiders. His sounder conclusions are even “popularized” almost as swiftly as accepted by members of his profession. In fact, so soon do they become common property that one or another school of charlatanism, ever-ready with perilous tendences of argument, often injures the more conservative and riper convictions of responsible thinkers. But however much is the mischief of superficial medical psychology, here or there, the physician who is a true psychiater constantly effects admirable rapports between law and the individual; relationships which are not credited always rightly to the distinctly psycho-medical judgment.
Old Notions and Theories Dismissed by Modern Science.
Directly or indirectly, to the higher scope of medical psychology do we owe the fact, for instance, that nervous ailments of men and women are no longer ascribed to devils and to witchcraft. The days of burning helpless human creatures for sorcery are past; even the most persistent confession that some wretched “accused” could shriek forth would now be nothing to a judge or a churchman. The students of alienism have changed ancient ideas about insanity, and have corrected forever the hideous ignorances of Bedlam treatments. We are no longer instructed that mad people are so depraved that God has visited a special judgment on them, and that starvation and beatings are the fittest methods of restoring the lost reason. The drunkard is regarded in the light of a victim of alcoholism, often, rather than as a responsible member of the community.
The Criminal as a Scientific Problem.
To criminal classes the medical psychologist lately has been particularly attentive. We have learned from this devotion that there exists a profound and demonstrable connection of mystery between the Will and a nervous organism, rapports between heredity and tendency to crime. We are willing to believe that felony may be a process of disease; even to our perceiving murder, arson, theft as involuntary acts. We have grown into pitying the suicide as a creature who is far less a moral sinner than an unhappy monomaniac; his psychologic equilibrium is so impaired that there is merely a fraction of moral responsability in his hanging himself in a wood, or putting a bullet through his heart. The world no longer regards epidemics as having theological mysteries in their origins; as expressing any immediate visitation of divine wrath. Scientific plumbing, the sanitary care of water-supplies, the bacteriologist with his microscope, the antiseptic treatment of surgical operations; more than for these relatively outward results is the doctor, as a practical scientist, to be thanked. Taking such a school of medical thought at its best, we realize how vigorous, not to say supreme, a factor the psychologic doctor can be, and also that his higher and most modern influence is hardly more than begun as to many further processes affecting public opinion and intelligence. The just concepts of human nature, the traits of man as the psychical and temperamental product which he is, the analysis of his responsibility to himself and to his fellows, present topics immediate to our day, to be viewed with a clarity not hitherto achieved. The process is dual. It brings destruction of many of the old fabrics, and a building-up of entirely new ones, through materials not earlilier in the hands of the social architect.
The Question of Intersexes.
Advanced theories and conclusions of medical psychologists have an important share in the following pages: therefore I have laid preliminary stress on such psychology in relation to general social-scientific progress. And with respect to the particular subject of the ensuing chapters, the existence of Intersexes in the human race, their various minor gradations as part of a series of fixed psychologic facts, the attributes of these Intersexes, and the social, moral and legal standpoints that are maintainable toward them, ideas of justice or injustice to them-in such considerations I shall be obliged to refer constantly to researches of distinguished medico-psychologists of our time. Hence what I shall write will be not much more than a summary of their decisions; apart from what is the share of personal exploration, in the lighter paths. As will be seen, the profound attention and discussions of psychiaters have been concentrating themselves more and more during many years, in spite of constant embasassments and perplexities, upon one of the most startling and obscure facts in human existence yet under scientific investigation. But of scientific theories of Intersexual life, and of what belongs to it by inalienable rights or is foreign to it, the intelligent lay-world is still far too ignorant, in spite of the vivid relation of the matter to millions of individuals. An enormous literature bearing upon it already exists: but not for the average lay-reader, and sparsely in English. The studies in print are chiefly in German, French, Italian and Russian. Their tone is not popular enough for ordinary readers. No adequate English work setting forth the topic exists in English at all, with easy accessibility. Indeed, such delicate and recondite chapters of human existence are opened, so many painful moral questions recur, that one does not wonder at the re