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Psychopathia sexualis: Eine klinisch-forensische Studie

1886

Richard von Krafft-Ebing

Psychopathia sexualis: Eine klinisch-forensische Studie

Stuttgart : Ferdinand Enke

1st Edition

1886

Psychopathia Sexualis: With Especial Reference to Contrary Sexual Instinct: A Medico-legal Study

Philadelphia, London : F. A. Davis

1st English Edition

1892

Translated from the seventh enlarged and revised German edition. Krafft-Ebing identifies a difference between congenital and acquired homosexuality. The latter is cause by homosocial environments, masturbation, fear of sexual disease or pregnancy from heterosexual intercourse (188-189), and may be reverted only if the person is untainted by other poor health conditions (190). Congenital homosexuality is always a degenerate trait to Krafft-Ebing, and any physical intersex trait is a sign of extreme degeneration (304). He describes the trans experience with several labels, including "Metamorphosis Sexualis," "effemination," and "viraginity" (202, 222-223) and says that the bisexual condition, termed psycho-sexual hermaphroditism, is predominately homosexual (222). Finally, he observes that people experiencing anaesthesia sexualis (asexuality) commonly have other traits of degeneration (42).

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