A matrix of interests: Freud, the sexologists, and the legacy of Greece

Abstract

The use of classical scholarship in nineteenth century debates onsexuality forms the focus of this paper. It is argued that GermanHellenism played a crucial role in providing Freud and Germansexology with a counter discourse to the theory of degeneration, adoctrine that had steadily gained currency in the latter part of thenineteenth century. Sexology and psychoanalysis were contemporaneousareas of investigation that focussed primarily onsexuality and were considered marginalised domains that operatedoutside the scientific establishment of the day. This exclusion wasdue in part to their subject matter, but it was further compounded bytheir widespread rejection of degeneracy, a theory that labelled bothJews and homosexuals as deviant members of society. The complexnetwork of association that existed between psychoanalysis andsexology in Austria and Germany is often neglected and the commonground that they shared is overlooked. This is unfortunate as theyexplored related fields of interest and their members were largelydrawn from similar backgrounds. A significant number of these menwere Jewish, a large number were homosexual or homosocial, andmost of them were excellent classical scholars. Classical studiesprovided the foundation upon which the elite German educationalsystem, the Gymnasium, was built, and while the Gymnasiumcurriculum was designed to inculcate the values of reason, selfdisciplineand idealism, it also allowed an access to the world ofGreek sexuality. It is argued that the divergent attitudes towardssexuality revealed in Greek art and literature provided many of thesesexual pioneers with a legitimate challenge to the medical andpsychiatric definitions of normal and abnormal sexuality.