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Introduction - What is sexual behavior?
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History of the Term 2
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Carl von Linné
(1707-1778), a Swedish botanist, has been called “the father of taxonomy”, because he created the biological system for naming, ranking, and classifying organisms. He introduced the “binary nomenclature”, i.e. he assigned two names to a plant or animal, the first one for the genus (like a surname) the following second one for the species (like a first name). Examples are: Quercus rubra (the red oak), Canis lupus (the wolf), and Homo sapiens (the human as known today).
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The adjective "sexual" originally had only a very limited use and never implied anything more than a category of some kind. It was not until the 18th century that the word broadened its meaning and began to refer also to the process of reproduction. This was, in part, a consequence of scientific progress. For example, in 1735, the Swedish botanist Carl von Linné devised what he called a methodus sexualis, i.e., a sexual classification method or system in which plants were listed according to the character and number of their reproductive structures. This method (which is now obsolete) greatly impressed most scholars and even many laymen at the time. However, there was also some rather peculiar opposition. Linné's system was violently attacked by certain religious leaders who noted that it allowed for the cohabitation of one female pistil with several male stamens in one and the same flower. This was clearly indecent and a defamation of God who could not possibly have created such depravity. Biology teachers were therefore implored not to mention it to their young students.
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