Erwin J. Haeberle A
Brief History of Female Sexuality Invited keynote lecture at the 3rd conference of the SSSST
Patriarchal Traditions in East and West II. Female Sexuality in the Western World 1. Women in Politics 2. The Fight for Contraception 3. The Need for Sex Education 4. A First Definition of Sexual Health 5.Overcoming the “Reproductive Bias” 6. Scientific Studies of Female Sexuality III. Three Current International Problems 1. The Mutilation of Female Sex Organs 2. The Empowerment of Women in the Fight against AIDS 3. The Medicalization of Female Sexual Problems By allowing me, a male, to speak about female sexuality, you have greatly honored me and, at the same time, saddled me with a heavy burden. After all, for us men this is a dangerous subject. It carries the temptation to say more than we actually know. Actually, when confronted with a largely female audience, as I am here today, any man would probably be wise to say nothing at all and thus avoid revealing the extent of his ignorance. However, having accepted your invitation, I now feel obliged to share with you some of what I have said and written over the years. It is "on the record" anyway, and I might as well stand by it. Thus, if you permit me, I will try to give you a brief survey of bits and pieces from my web site that touch on today's subject. You can find all of the following remarks scattered about here and there in my various writings, but for this special occasion I will try to pull the scraps together in some coherent, if rather modest, whole: Biologists know that women
are the stronger, and men are the weaker sex. On the average, men die earlier
than women, they are less able to take care of themselves when they are old, their
sexual development is more precarious, their sexual response is less reliable,
and more of them tend to suffer from sexual dysfunctions. Men are also more
likely to show strange and unacceptable sexual behaviors.
Most sex crimes are committed by men, and most sexual violence is caused by
men. In short: Male sexuality is fragile and easily threatened while, in
comparison, female sexuality is stable and strong. Indeed, modern science has
taught us that the female sex is the basic and primary sex. Just look at the
human embryo: Without the production of testosterone, the embryonic
development will "automatically" take a turn towards the female. In
other words: The female sex is the basic or
primary sex. From the standpoint of evolutionary biology, it is also
the older sex. The male sex can develop only if "something is added",
i.e. if certain hormones help it along during certain periods during pregnancy.
In mythological or poetic language: Eve was
created first, and after her Adam was made from her rib.
Of course, we all know that
the Bible tells us the opposite: God created Adam first and Eve second as his
companion, explaining: “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis
2, 18). However, since the famous book of Simone de Beauvoir of 1949 we know that “The Second Sex” is no longer content with being defined as
God’s afterthought. Indeed, in the last few decades the modern women’s movement
has produced many other rebellious books, of which “The
Feminine Mystique” by Betty Friedan of 1963 is probably the best known, because in the At the same time, the traditional lower social
status of women has also become an international political issue: In 1973, the United Nations
General Assembly formally adopted a Convention on the Elimination of all forms of
Discrimination against Women. Two years later, in 1975, the
first World
Conference on Women was held in Mexico City, the second 1980 in
Copenhagen, the third 1985 in Nairobi, and the fourth 1995 in Beijing. These
conferences articulated a whole series of demands that are still waiting to be
met in all too many parts of the world. In the meantime, countless internationaI and national agencies and organizations have
joined the work of elevating the status of women by developing and pursuing a
great variety of projects. They all have the same goal: The complete political,
economic, social, cultural and legal equality of the sexes. Patriarchal Traditions in
East and West Of course, these recent developments have their roots deep in ancient
human history. The issues that are so hotly debated today have been fought over
for thousands of years. However, a women’s movement in the modern sense began
only with the Age of Enlightenment in In feudal
Be that as it may, many forms of
foot and shoe fetishism have also been known in the Western world. Not
only the feet, but the soles of the feet and the toes have been, and still are,
sexual fetishes for some men. This also applies to footwear, especially at
times when very high heels or elaborate boots are in fashion. However, one has
to keep in mind that fetishism is a matter of degree, and that much depends on
the circumstances whether it becomes a problem. In imperial At this point, I must confess my complete ignorance of the cultural and
social history of II. Female Sexuality in the Western World In the Judeo-Christian West, we have known about some powerful women in
antiquity, from the biblical Queen of Sheba
to the historical Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, who
charmed both Julius Caesar and Marc Anthony. However, as it soon turned out,
she did not have any real power. She killed herself when the Roman army
advanced on her palace, and
(From the left)
Elizabeth I. (1533-1603) Queen of
England; Maria Theresia
(1717-1780) Archduchess of Austria, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, Empress of
the Holy Roman empire; Catherine II the
Great (1729-1796) Empress of Russia At the same time, women have
advanced in many other fields, but still have not achieved their goal of
complete equality. Whatever progress they have been able to make over the years
has been the result of a long, arduous struggle, and it is mainly owed to many
courageous women. Today, I can name only a few of them:
In 1848, the American feminists
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
and Lucretia Mott convened the first
women's rights convention in In 1869, the great English libertarian John Stuart Mill published his
book "The
Subjection of Women", in which he argued for the legal and
social equality of the sexes. Interestingly enough, he did not acknowledge his co-author
- his wife Harriet. Finally, in 1893, 2. The Fight for Contraception Still, as already mentioned, the legal equality of the sexes is now an
international issue, and progress continues to be made. However, at least
equally important is equality in the social sphere, and here again, from the
very beginning, women have made significant contributions. One of these was the
struggle for a woman’s right to use contraception. This struggle began in
earnest in the early 19th century in
In any case, the decisive breakthrough did not come until the middle of
the 20th century, and it was mainly due to the tireless efforts of
one woman: Margaret Sanger. She had begun as a
nurse in the poorer sections of In 1916, Sanger and her sister opened a birth control clinic in
Eventually, in 1953, Margaret Sanger encouraged and
supported Gregory G. Pincus, an American biologist, in the development of
an oral contraceptive. Taking advantage of earlier hormonal research by the
chemists Carl Djerassi and Frank Colton, who worked for different pharmaceutical companies,
he was able to produce a contraceptive pill. Together with John Rock, an obstetrician at Harvard, he then began human
trials of the new pill first in
Today we know that this
scientific breakthrough was the decisive factor in the subsequent “sexual
revolution”. The “pill”, which soon
found almost universal acceptance, finally made it clear to everyone that sex
and reproduction had become separate issues. Once women could decide for
themselves if and when they wanted to bear children, their sexual attitudes
changed, and the traditional psychosocial balance between the sexes had to be
readjusted. However, before talking about this in greater detail, I should first mention
two American women who have done more than anyone else to promote
scientifically based sex education for both the young and the old – Mary S. Calderone and Ruth Westheimer. The German-born American sex therapist Ruth Westheimer, the
younger of the two, was the most remarkable sex
educator in the late 20th century. Through her radio and television
shows as well as her public lectures and numerous publications, she became an
immensely popular spokesperson for an enlightened, progressive approach to sex.
Her grandmotherly appearance and manner, combined with a heavy German accent,
made her the darling of the media and overcame all resistance to her sex-
positive message. If anyone, it was she who made it possible for many Americans
to talk more openly and without embarrassment about sex.
However, an equally great or even greater contribution was made by Westheimer’s most important forerunner. In 1964, the physician Mary s. Calderone, with
several others, founded, the “Sexuality
Information and Education Council of the US” (SIECUS)
in 4. A First Definition of
Sexual Health Mary Calderone also played an active part in
the decision by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1975 to propose, for the
first time, a definition of sexual health:
“Sexual
health is the integration of the somatic, emotional, intellectual, and social
aspects of sexual being, in ways that are positively enriching and that enhance
personality, communication, and love. Fundamental to this concept are the right to sexual information and the right to
pleasure.” This definition and several others that followed are well worth an
extended discussion, but here we do not have the time for it. Today let me
simply point out that, among other things, it also marked a watershed in the
understanding of female sexuality. Throughout the 19th century, the main purpose of sexual activity was
still believed to be procreation, a goal now barely mentioned by the WHO.
Moreover: At least women would not have been granted a right to sexual
pleasure. On the contrary: A healthy woman was believed to have little interest
in sex. She tolerated marital intercourse mainly because she wanted children
and then fulfill her true calling as a mother. A
typical statement of this belief was provided by
the eminent Victorian physician William Acton (1813 -1875) in his book "The Functions
and Disorders of the Reproductive Organs” (1857): "I should say that the majority
of women, happily for them, are not very much troubled with sexual feeling
of any kind". Women who insisted on their sexual satisfaction were often considered
"nymphomaniacs", subjected to medical treatments designed to dampen
their desires or were even committed to insane asylums. On the other hand, the
sexual pleasure potential of women - denied and feared at the same time -
caused a great deal of anxiety among men. This became evident in many literary,
artistic and musical works until well into the early 20th century. Plays,
treatises, and novels by Strindberg, Weininger, Wedekind and Heinrich Mann testified to this overwhelming
male fear. They described "vamps", i.e. women who, like insatiable
vampires, sucked the life blood out of men, ruined and destroyed them. Women
like Salome
in the play by Oscar Wilde and the opera by Richard Strauss, “Lulu” in the play by Wedekind and Alban Berg's opera, but also Marlene
Dietrich's "Lola" in "The Blue Angel" embody this male
nightmare. Officially, however, female sexual health consisted in
"modesty" i.e. lack of sexual desire - the very same condition that
today is believed to require treatment.
5. Overcoming the “Reproductive Bias” As I already mentioned,
breaking the link between sex and reproduction, has irrevocably changed the way
we think about female sexuality. Still, I believe that even today, many people
do not yet understand how far-reaching the implications of this development
really are. To take only one example: When the government of the People’s
Republic of China adopted the policy of “one-child per couple”, it implicitly
declared that reproduction and sexual activity are different matters which must
be understood and judged on their own terms. Chinese couples should have only
one child, but obviously this does not mean that they should practice sexual
abstinence ever thereafter. Thus, for the first time, a government officially recognized
sexual intercourse for its own sake as valid in itself. This is quite a contrast to
the traditional teachings of certain Western religions which saw (and still
see) reproduction as the only justification of sexual activity. Indeed, for
many centuries Western criminal and civil laws were based on this premise. The
long struggle fought by contraception advocates - from the Neo-Malthusians to
Margaret Sanger – illustrates how difficult it has been to remove the
“reproductive bias” from the law. Indeed, until early in the 20th
century doctors were punished for giving women contraceptive information. In
the However, the “reproductive
bias” still persists in another legal area - that of marriage itself. For
example: Recent years have seen a growing demand by lesbian and gay couples for
the right to get married. In many countries this demand has met with fierce
resistance and the argument that marriage must always be reserved for couples
of different sex. Some legislatures have therefore declared that “marriage is
permitted only between one man and one woman”. The main reason given for this
restriction is that the purpose of marriage is the raising of children and that
only couples of different sex can produce children. However, this argument is
not likely to prevail in the long run. After all, marriage has always been
permitted, even recommended, for post-menopausal women. Thus, the law has, in
fact, always recognized that love, companionship, and economic, social,
and emotional security are valid reasons to get married. All of these factors
also apply to same-sex couples. To deny them the right to marry is therefore
nothing less than discrimination and inherently unjust. As long as a woman over
fifty is allowed to marry a man so that she can turn loneliness into
togetherness, it is hard to explain why she should not be allowed to marry
another woman for the same reason. In view of this, some countries have now given same-sex unions the full status of marriages: Since today our topic is female sexuality, we should perhaps seize this
opportunity to take a brief look at lesbian couples. Many of them are now
becoming parents by artificial insemination, proving once again that the
formerly unbreakable link between sex and reproduction has definitely been
broken. Obviously, the sexual expectations, experiences and attitudes of these
women are quite different from those living in traditional heterosexual
relationships. However, even these relationships are now undergoing profound
changes. The sexual revolution that made
same-sex marriages possible has liberated all women by promoting more sex
research and thus helping everybody to gain a better understanding of female
sexuality in general.
The first woman to research female sexuality seems to have been the
young American physician Clelia
Mosher who, in 1892, began a survey among educated middle-class women
concerning sexual attitudes and experiences. The results remain unpublished
until 1980. They document an unexpected openness and sensuality of the women
who answered the questionnaires.
From a historical point of view, however, the first truly revolutionary
study of female sexuality was Alfred C. Kinsey’s
survey “Sexual
Behavior in the Human Female” of 1953. He
was able to show that, in essence, the sexual behavior
of women was not all that different from than that of men, indeed, that the
female sexual potential was, in certain ways, greater than that of males. This
created a firestorm of outrage in religious and politically conservative
circles, and thus the Rockefeller Foundation, which
had supported Kinsey’s research, was forced to end its support. Kinsey never recovered
from this blow and died shortly thereafter with many of his other ambitious
research projects unrealized. The entire episode proved once again, that female
sexuality was - and still is - an important political issue. Since Kinsey’s time, many women have begun their own sex research,
especially into the physiological aspects of female sexuality, and they more
than confirmed Kinsey’s findings. The most prominent of these initially they worked
with their husbands. For example, in 1966 Virginia
Johnson and William A.
Masters published their study “Human Sexual Response”, followed in 1970 by "Human Sexual Inadequacy". These two
books, more than any others, laid the groundwork for modern sex therapy. In 1972,
another couple, the
Another female sex researcher who gained prominence in the later 20th
century was Shere Hite, who became very well known through her two
best-selling studies “The Hite Report on Female Sexuality” (1976)
and “The
Hite Report on Men and Male Sexuality” (1981). Her highly
individualistic research methods have remained controversial, since she used
non-representative samples of subjects who filled out anonymous questionnaires,
but in any case, she gave voice to many women who had not been heard before,
and she succeeded in stimulating a new discussion of long neglected aspects of
female sexuality.
In any event, the accumulated recent research has undermined many
previously held assumptions. Once it was demonstrated that females and males
had essentially the same sexual capacities, it became necessary to make
practical use of this insight. For example: Most current textbooks of sex
therapy still distinguish between male and female sexual dysfunctions in a way
similar to the following table: Female
and Male Sexual Dysfunctions: Traditional Definitions
This table of traditional terms lists three female and five male sexual
dysfunctions, and it seems, at first glance, that they are totally different
phenomena without any common physiological basis. As a result of such
traditional distinctions, many people are under the false impression that the
physical reactions of men and women cannot really be compared. Modern sex
research has clearly demonstrated, however, that such a comparison makes a
great deal of sense. Indeed, we are now beginning to realize that, just as the sexual responses of males and
females are quite similar, so are their sexual dysfunctions. We
therefore need new special terms that can be applied to both sexes. Female and Male Sexual Dysfunctions: New
Definitions
男女性功能障碍:新定义(概要)
Looking a little closer at the problems of orgasm, we see strange
parallels, cross correspondences and a curious value system at work: This new chart undoubtedly deserves an extended discussion, but this is
obviously not the right time for it. I show it here only to illustrate that
much of what we see as substantial is actually conceptual - a matter of
semantics. I personally believe that it is now high time to end the traditional
terminological discrimination and to grant women equal rights with men when we
talk about their sexual responses and dysfunctions. But that is a topic for
another lecture. Right now, I prefer to turn to some more immediate concerns. III. Three Current International Problems In the area of female sexuality, many urgent problems are still waiting
to be solved. Today, I will mention only the three I consider the most
important: 1. The continued mutilation of female sex
organs in some societies, 2. the still lacking, but indispensable empowerment
of women in order to fight the AIDS pandemic, and 3. the attempts by the
pharmaceutical industry to medicalize female sexual
problems. The first two of these problems are of long standing, especially in
some developing countries, but now they have acquired a new urgency. The third
problem is relatively new, but no less important. 1. The
Mutilation of Female Sex Organs Today, the surgical mutilation of female sex organs in parts of
These operations are usually performed without anesthesia
on very young girls. Their ages vary according to local customs from infancy to
early adolescence. In most cases, the age lies between 3 and 8. The instruments
are often unsterilized knives or razor blades. The procedure
is one of the most brutal forms of violence against young females, and it is
always performed with a good conscience by older women who derive their income
from it. Prevalence
Prevalence by country and
form of mutilation Official Statements
In the meantime, all organizations trying to eliminate the practice have
come to realize that this cannot be done by simply passing laws against it.
Essential is a mentality change in the population. An important step in
obtaining religious and civil support for the end of the traditional sexual
mutilations was taken in 2003 in 2. The
Empowerment of Women in the Fight against AIDS Today, nearly half
of all HIV infections world-wide are found in women (48%, much higher in some
parts of The only effective AIDS prevention in these
circumstances is to raise the status of women, educating and empowering them so
that they can reach an adequate level of sexual self-determination. However, this means asking
for revolutionary changes in some countries that are still bound by ancient
patriarchal traditions in religion, custom, and law. On the other hand, it is
clear that these countries will court disaster if they fail to carry out the
necessary changes and do it soon. There will be millions of AIDS orphans with
no women to care for them, and where farming is still mostly women’s work, it
will simply no longer be done, leaving the survivors without sufficient food.
3. The Medicalization
of Female Sexual Problems The recent enormous commercial success of so-called potency pills for
men has prompted attempts to develop similar drugs for women. Certain
pharmaceutical companies and many physicians hoped for a huge new market and
corresponding profits. However, they were not really sure of the expected
demand and therefore first began to construe a new disease – “Female Sexual
Dysfunction or FSD”. Manufacturing sexual diseases for men and women is nothing new in
medical history. In the 18th century for example, the invention
of “masturbatory insanity” created an
entirely new, very large class of patients, in the late 19th
century, the invention of “contrary sexual feeling” (homosexuality) as a mental
illness provided a lucrative business for psychiatrists and psychoanalysts for
the next 100 years. Around the turn of the 20th century, a new,
fashionable female malady commanded the public’s attention – hysteria. All of
these diseases have, in the meantime, been removed from the diagnostic manuals,
and indeed, they have disappeared from the public consciousness. However, in
their time their existence was blindly accepted. No one questioned the medical
assertions, and countless individuals were subjected to degrading and useless treatments.
In our own time, many people are still prone to be manipulated in this
fashion. After all, large numbers of women and men continue to be ignorant
about the sexual functioning of their own bodies; they feel shame and embarrassment
when it comes to their sexual feelings and needs, and they quite unreasonably
expect sexual gratification from their partners without any personal effort.
The promise of a miracle drug that can bring instant sexual happiness fits all
to well into this picture. Thus, in the late 1990’s, the new disease FSD was invented and advertised.
Fanciful statistics were presented about its prevalence, and pretty soon,
guided by the “medical-industrial complex”, more and more people began to
believe in its existence. This, in turn, set the stage for some
industry-subsidized research which would find a cure. A minor detail was
deliberately neglected: Nobody really knew the exact definition of the disease
and its specific symptoms. Not surprisingly, therefore, a few feminist sex researchers began to
organize a scientifically based response to this new attempt to medicalize female sexuality. The most important of these
was - and is - the American psychotherapist Leonore Tiefer. Together with some like-minded colleagues,
she started an active campaign against the new simplistic view of women and soon
presented a positive manifesto under the title A
New View of Women's Sexual Problems (2001).
The New View Manifesto demonstrates the weakness of the prevailing medical
model of sexual dysfunctions. It emphasizes the social context of in which
female sexuality develops and recommends that the effort to define “normal”
sexual function should be abandoned. Most importantly: It offers an alternative
classification system of causes for sexual problems rooted in society,
relationships, psychology, and disease. Thus, the new view now groups female
sexual problems in four categories: 1. Socio-cultural problems in the
widest sense. These include sexual ignorance and anxiety due to
inadequate sex education - - inability to articulate feelings and experiences -
-lack of information about the formation and maintenance of gender roles - -
inadequate access to contraception, STD prevention and treatment - - shame
about one’s body or about one’s sexual orientation - - conflict about traditional
and new cultural norms - - fatigue and lack of time due to family obligations. 2. Relationship problems. These include inhibition, avoidance, or distress arising
from betrayal, dislike, or fear of partner - -
discrepancies in desire for sexual activity or in preferences for
various sexual activities - - loss of
sexual interest and reciprocity as a result of conflicts over commonplace
issues such as money, schedules, or relatives, or resulting from traumatic
experiences, e.g., infertility or the death of a child - - inhibitions in
arousal or spontaneity due to partner's health status or sexual problems. 3. Psychological problems. These include sexual
aversion, mistrust, or inhibition of sexual pleasure due to past physical,
sexual, or emotional abuse - - general personality problems with attachment,
rejection, co-operation, or entitlement - - depression or anxiety - - sexual
inhibition due to fear of sexual acts or of their possible consequences, e.g.,
pain during intercourse, pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, loss of
partner, loss of reputation. 4. Medical problems. These include pain
or lack of physical response during sexual activity despite a supportive and
safe interpersonal situation, adequate sexual knowledge, and positive sexual
attitudes - -. Such problems can arise from numerous local or systemic medical
conditions affecting neurological, neurovascular, circulatory, endocrine or
other systems of the body - - pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, or
other sex-related conditions - - side effects of popular drugs, medications, or
medical treatments.
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