Artikel
Abstracts fra Bibliotek for Læger 1/2016
7. sep. 2018
5 min.
Leder: Lægerne og seksualiteten
Christian Graugaard, Jesper Vaczy Kragh, Morten A. Skydsgaard & Asbjørn Hróbjartsson
Originalartikel: Hænderne over dynen! - Om onani i rådgivningslitteratur og dansk lægevidenskab 1785-1870
Morten A. Skydsgaard
Hands over the duvet! Masturbation in advice literature and Danish medical science from 1785 to 1870.
Bibl Læger 2016;208:10-39
By the end of the 18th century, doctors, priests and schoolteachers began publishing advice literature about masturbation. There was no consensus about the value of masturbatory disclosure, and Danish doctors criticized such literature for spreading the vice and exaggerating its dangers. The conception of masturbation was influenced by 1) Christian morality, 2) educational movements, 3) culture and 4) medicine. The pathology of masturbation in the 18th century combined two kinds of medical thinking: Classic humoral pathology and a nervous-vitalistic disease theory, where life force and sexual instinct interacted delicately. The advent of modern medicine subjected masturbators to more thorough diagnostic procedures and post-mortem examination, rendering “the masturbatory disease” more organ-based, gender-divided, distinct and less dangerous. Studying the Danish history gives support for Thomas Laqueur’s “Solitary Sex”, yet one could argue that Laqueur downplays the role of medical science and doctors in the development of the concept of masturbation, despite the fact that “the medical gaze” on masturbation changed radically in the 19th century. The source material includes advice literature that launched campaigns about masturbation from the 1780s to the 1860s. The article investigates how this literature depicted masturbation and how the popularized idea of masturbation differed from the view of the Danish medical authorities. Medical statistics from the mid-19th century indicate that “seminal loss” and “spermatorrhea” were rarely seen in general practice and at somatic hospitals, while masturbation as a cause of mental illness was common at psychiatric institutions.
Originalartikel: Fra formaning til dialog - Seksualundervisning i danske skoler gennem 200 år
Christian Graugaard
From moralization to dialogue. Sex education in Danish schools in 200 years.
Bibl Læger 2016;208:40-59.
This article depicts milestones in the history of school-based sex education since the modern Danish school system was launched in 1814 – from masturbation panics and sexual hygiene demands via radical fights for sexual permissiveness to norm-critical and student-involving teaching efforts. It is evident that a gradual focus shift has taken place, from societal duties and self-discipline to individual rights and personal autonomy. However, the article argues that a tension between paternalism and empowerment is still present in current day Danish classrooms.
Et billede fra min hverdag
Bo Løye Hejl
Originalartikel: Herman Bang og seksualitetsproblemet - Homoseksualitet mellem moral, medicin, jura og pornografi
Dag Heede
Herman Bang and the problem of sexuality. Homosexuality between morality, medicine, law and pornography.
Bibl Læger 2016;208:62-81
This article introduces a marginal and exceptional text from the Danish writer Herman Bang (1856-1912). In 1909, Bang produced an essay in German together with his Berlin doctor, Max Wasbutzki (1874-1929), on the subject of homosexuality. The essay was entitled “Thoughts on the sexual problem”. Homosexuality was a topic, Bang had never explicitly addressed neither in his journalism nor in his literary work. The essay is not an intimate confession, but a sketchy outline of pseudo-scientific conjectures framed by memoirs, personal anecdotes and plain small talk. It addresses the typical life and challenges of “the” homosexual man and aims for the decriminalization of homosexuality. This article presents the very different reception history of the text in Germany and Denmark. Bang wanted the article to be published five years after his death, but his Danish friends and relatives delayed the publication, which did not take place until 1922. Danish translations appeared later in sensationalist and pornographic contexts, and the essay has not been treated academically until the recent two decades. It is suggested, that a lack of an advanced sexological context in Denmark was a main reason for the delayed and thwarted Danish reception of Bang’s posthumous essay.
Kvartalets genstand
Morten A. Skydsgaard
Originalartikel: Overlægen og politiinspektøren - Forhandlinger om dansk frisind i 1960’erne
Peter Edelberg
The senior doctor and the police superintendent. Negotiations about Danish liberal-mindedness in the 1960s.
Bibl Læger 2016;208:84-107
This article discusses the tradition of Danish liberal-mindedness in sexual matters by presenting a crucial debate in 1963 between the psychiatrist Thorkil Vanggaard (1910-1998) and Police Superintendent Jens Jersild (1903-1978) of the Copenhagen Vice Squad on the causes of homosexuality. The debate was situated in a Danish development of increasing de-dramatization of homosexuality during the 20th century. Basically, Vanggaard argued for a Freudian model of homosexuality that on the surface espoused tolerance, but was grounded on pathologization and marginalization. Jersild argued for a seduction theory, seeing homosexuality as a social process and warning against the perceived antisocial consequences of homosexuality. This article argues that even though Vanggaard’s theory seems benign, we should be cautious of Freudian models and perhaps rediscover an updated seduction theory in the hope of a more queer, socially situated and liquid model of sexuality in contrast to the tired discussion of choice versus biology or nature versus nurture.
Originalartikel: Orgasmeland – lægerne og 1930’ernes seksuelle revolution
Lea Korsgaard
Orgasm land – doctors and the sexual revolution of the 1930s
Bibl Læger 2016;208:108-24
In 1933, Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957), a controversial freudo-marxist and a leading figure in the German movement for sexual reform, fled Nazi-Germany and settled for six month in Copenhagen, Denmark. In Denmark, Reich radicalized a group of young intellectual socialists and formed Sexpol, a team solely devoted to a risky fight for Reich’s vision: The sexual revolution. Sexpol’s most prominent members counted the medical student Tage Philipson (1907-1961) and the well-known and often scandalized doctor, birth-control activist and sex educator Jonathan Leunbach (1884-1955). Philipson and Leunbach were frontrunners in Sexpol’s main activities that had major influence on the sexual reform movement, and they provided 1) free sex education for poor working-class women, 2) school and education reforms 3) an illegal abortion clinic in central Copenhagen and 4) public agitation for sexual reform.