This project report analyzes the emergence of categories of sexual deviancy as they
appear in selected medical treatises from the eighteenth century. Terms such as homosexual or
lesbian were not yet available in medical or public discourse but the early modern writers did use a variety of other references to establish the existence of such categories. For instance, one might label deviants as hermaphrodites, eunuchs, sodomites, or monsters to describe what were perceived as unnatural forms of sexual expression which ostensibly posed a threat to the social order largely because they were not procreative, but also because of the fear that they might produce children of the same ilk. Moreover, the sudden explosion in scientific and medical knowledge during the Enlightenment created a need for the organization and classification of such knowledge, as well as a fascination with anomalies and how they might be cured. My argument is that four of these deviant categoriesthe chronic masturbator, tribades or
hermaphrodites, mollies (or effeminate male homosexuals), and eunuchswere considered
unnatural because they fell outside normative prescriptions of acceptable sexual conduct that was based primarily on pro-natal and pro-nutpial ideologies. I rely on experts in eighteenth-century scholarship, such as Rictor Norton, Randolph Trumbach, Thomas Laqueur, Robert Darby,
Thomas A. King, and George Rousseau, to inform my discussion of writings from this period.
Although contemporary scholars in this field have made significant contributions to our
knowledge of early modern understandings of sexual deviancy, relatively few of them seem to
have investigated how medical treatises on generation provided a scientific basis for the
marginalization of specific types of people. By identifying these types under the larger category
of generation, I argue that these medical texts and popular sexologies function as vehicles of
social control by emphasizing that the only legitimate form of sexual expression was within the context of marriage and that its sole purpose was for reproduction.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:USASK/oai:usask.ca:etd-09092010-170826 |
| Date | 05 October 2010 |
| Creators | Enns, Terry J. |
| Contributors | Stephanson, Raymond, James-Cavan, Kathleen |
| Publisher | University of Saskatchewan |
| Source Sets | University of Saskatchewan Library |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://library.usask.ca/theses/available/etd-09092010-170826/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Saskatchewan or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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