![]() ![]() However, as the terms “contrary sexual sensation” or “sexual inversion” suggest, any kind of cross-gendered behavior, tastes, erotic attraction, or even one’s occupation invoked the suspicion of homosexuality. H- never described any same-sex affections in his patient. One curious and telling aspect of the case is that Dr. He concluded his cry for professional assistance: “Have any of your readers had a similar case within their experience? I proposed the name of Gynomania for it.” H- turned to the conventional remedies of the day: bromides and dietary manipulations (still known to us through Drs. He carried several pictures of himself as a ballet girl, as Queen Elizabeth I, as the Goddess of Liberty, etc. Then he abandoned himself to cross-dressing in painfully tight female clothing and even attended church in a black silk dress. He largely managed to abstain from masturbating with these articles until he had married and fathered two children. The patient was “a highly cultivated gentlemen of high moral character, the father of three or four healthy children, the result of an unusually happy marriage.” However, the patient had a lifelong fondness for “indoor games, female pursuits, and even attire,” especially corsets and tight ladies’ boots with French heels. H- to describe “a curious case of prolonged masturbation” currently under his care. A physician (clearly embarrassed by the subject matter) wrote under the pseudonym Dr. Take, for example, one of the first discussions of “contrary sexual sensation” in the American medical press, an exchange of letters published in The Medical Record of New York in 1881. Nevertheless, the emerging leaders in psychiatry and sexology believed that “contrary sexual sensation” had to be a profound mental aberration and had to have some biological explanation. Their writings also make it evident that they were baffled, disgusted, and terrified by it. It is, however, clear that Victorian doctors themselves believed that they had discovered a new phenomenon.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |