Here is the
English version of the Interview |
||
Italian Interview
in
http://www.whipart.it/
Interviste
Apre il più grande archivio del mondo di
sessuologia
Paolo Gresta -
09.11.2009
Quindici anni fa il Professor
Erwin J. Haeberle,
studioso tedesco di sessuologia e docente all'Università di Humboldt
fino al 1993, cominciò a raccogliere tutto il materiale messo insieme da
lui e dai suoi colleghi in materia di sessuologia in un immenso archivio
on line con lo scopo di rendere accessibili a chiunque, gratuitamente,
tutte le informazioni necessarie per una educazione sessuale sana e
consapevole. Oggi quel progetto si è trasformato in un punto di
riferimento globale, cliccato da milioni di persone e strumento
indispensabile per la conoscenza e la prevenzione di malattie e
abitudini sbagliate di cui siamo totalmente inconsapevoli. Abbiamo
incontrato il Professore per farci raccontare come è andata.
English Translation
1)
Professor Haeberle, what kind of need did push you to begin an ambitious
project like this?
Now that I have
retired, I am doing it out of gratitude for a very lucky and successful
academic career. I want ot give something back that is meaningful. In
particular, I want to share my long experience with readers in
developing countries who can probably profit most. That’s why I wrote my
curriculum of 6 online courses in sexual health. I am now offering them
in 11 (soon 12) languages – the world’s largest e-learning project.
These courses, if studied properly, will undoubtedly help in raising the
status of women in many countries. I consider this now one of the most
important tasks for us sexologists.
2) When did you start to put together your archive?
I started it 15
years ago (1994) while I was still working for a German federal research
institute – the Robert Koch Institute, named after the Nobel prize
winner and disoverer of the causative agents of anthrax, tuberculosis
and cholera. Since all German government web sites, being financed by
the German taxpayer, are freely accessible, my web site was also an
“open access” site from the very beginning. After my retirement, the
Robert Koch Institute could no longer support it. I therefore
transferred the Archive to Humboldt University and kept it free for
everyone. Since the university has no money to support it either, I am
now running it as my personal hobby, and I am paying for it out of my
own pocket.
3) 8 millions visitors on your website in only a month. What does it
mean? Do you think people are still hungry of knowledge? Yes, obviously, all over the world, there is a great deal of curiosity and a need for accurate information about sex, especially in developing countries. Just look at my visitors’ statistics:
http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/webstats/awstats.pl?output=alldomains
4) Can you explain to us how our society lives the differences (if they
are) between the concepts of love and sex? Do you think that there are
still many things to discover, in this way?
There can be sex
without love and love without sex. Being a sexologist, I deal only with
sex on my web site. Love is a separate, very dificult
issue. Certainly, in both sex and love there are still many
things to be discovered.
5) The hour of “sex education” schools have put in their programs seems
to be a good idea. But it could be also a risk. What do you think about
it?
I see no risk in
scientifically based sex education. Knowledge is good in itself. For me,
ignorance has never been a virtue.
6) This library is completely free-access. And we know that love, as
Mantegazza said, is and will always be an art. So, do you think that all
the forms of art and its contribution to the world’s knowledge should be
free for everyone?
I am a passionate
proponent of “open access” to all useful information. This is especially
true of information whose copyright has expired and whose copyright is
freely given away by its authors like myself. For living authors and
artists who depend on the income from their work, other solutions must
be found. I am sure they will be found sooner or later.
7) In your opinion, where is sexology going nowadays? Do you see some
other mutations on the horizon?
There are now three
main branches of sexology – 1. sex research, 2. sexual medicine and sex
therapy, and 3. sex education. Of these, the third seems to me the most
important right now. In the last century, Western sexologists have
accumulated a great deal of knowledge that now must be shared with the
rest of the world. And the world is ready for it. The demand is
enormous. Sexual knowledge will lead to more sexual rights being
demanded by more and more people, and they will have to be granted by
more and more governments.
If the human race as a whole is to survive in some tolerable condition,
the present sexual repression, especially of women, must end. Universal
sex education by freely accessibile sites like mine can make a great
contribution.
8) What results this library can obtain from here to the next World
Congress of Sexology?
My electronic
Archive can, and will, reach ever more users, informing them
about the increasingly important issue of sexual health. After all, I am
just following the repeated demands of the World Health Organization
(WHO), which has been in the forefront of this campaign. The World
Congresses of Sexology have fully adopted the WHO agenda in this respect
and have issued a Declaration of Sexual Rights that will support it:
http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/ECE5/was_declaration_of_sexual_righ.html
Future World Congresses will undoubtedly put even more emphasis on sex
education and the recognition of sexual rights. More and more people
realize that, in the final analysis, sex is a political issue. |