Taking Prisoners: Havelock Ellis, Sigmund Freud, and the Construction of Homosexuality, 1897-1951

Abstract

This paper addresses the efforts of both Havelock Ellis and Sigmund Freud to posit a theory of homosexuality, and especially considers their efforts to (re-)negotiate each other's theories. Its central premise derives from the sociology of scientific knowledge: that it is not what is written, but the way that what is written is treated by ensuing experts, that makes knowledge. In the case study used in this paper, Ellis and Freud struggle to posit what they consider to be the proper model for understanding homosexual desire. They utilize aspects of each other's word, but are careful not to appear to be following each other too closely. Such a struggle to establish different schools of thought is exemplified by the informal negotiations engaged in when a student, Joseph Wortis, made contact with both Freud and Ellis. Again following sociology of scientific knowledge precepts, these informal negotiations (contained in published and archival letters) are used to show how knowledge claims are constructed, deconstructed any reconstructed by the actors who have stakes in the outcome of what is to be regarded as knowledge in the relevant communities.

Diversity in Human Sexuality: Implications for Policy in Africa

“…In the Victorian era, in particular, some scientists fi rst came to see homosexuality as an abnormal psychopathy. This became a widely held view in the fi rst half of the 20 th century (Crozier, 2000;Foucault, 1990;Herdt, 1997). Medical associations and scientifi c bodies throughout the world have since changed their views and strongly disavowed the idea that same-sex attraction is a defect or biological 'malfunction'.…”

“…From the mid-20th century onwards, same-sex orientation came to be seen by some scientists as a psychological and social 'abnormality' induced by either poor parenting styles or some kind of childhood trauma (Crozier, 2000;Halperin, 2000;Hoffman and Knight, 2007). These hypotheses have been tested by scientists from a variety of disciplines, especially in the fi elds of physiology and psychiatry.…”

Modernism and Sexology

“… Ivan Crozier has studied the important relationship of Freud and Ellis in some detail, showing how they were often in competition to make their theory of sex the dominant one, but how they also pushed each other to revise or more fully explain their ideas. See, for instance, Crozier's introduction and notes to his critical edition of Ellis and Symonds's Sexual Inversion and his essay “Taking Prisoners.” Siobhan Somerville notes that “degeneracy” was a “kind of reverse evolutionary process, in which the usual progression towards more ‘civilized’ mental and physical development was replaced with regression instead, resulting in a weakened nervous system and the emergence of ‘primitive’ physical and mental traits” (“Introduction” 202).…”

Havelock Ellis's Literary Criticism, Canon Formation, and the Heterosexual Shakespeare

“…Ivan Crozier, in a series of important articles (2000,2007), as well as in the introduction to his edition of Sexual Inversion (2008), demonstrates that Ellis's work on homosexuality belongs to a tradition of sexological writings emerging largely but not exclusively on the Continent. Although the sexological model of analyzing sexual behavior as a natural phenomenon continued to define later work (perhaps most importantly that of Alfred Kinsey in the 1940s in America), Crozier (2000) also notes that "[b]y the time of the publication of Ellis' final essay in 1951 [12 years after his death], Ellis was well underway to being eclipsed by Freud" (p. 464). On some of the ways both men's works "supplement" one another's' throughout the twentieth century in Britain, see Waters (1998, p. 166).…”

“…Notwithstanding Ellis and Symonds's collaboration, Sexual Inversion was substantially put together and written by Ellis after the death of Symonds, and even this early, co-authored version reflects Ellis's thought. Subsequent editions appeared only under Ellis's name, and in response to new work in sexology and psychiatry (particularly the work of Freud), Ellis substantially revised and enlarged Sexual Inversion, especially the 3rd edition of 1915 (Crozier, 2000). Nevertheless, unless otherwise noted, I cite Crozier's critical edition of the "co-authored" Sexual Inversion because it is more accessible to readers and because the early edition is more proximate to Ellis's literary criticism (hence, more likely to reveal discourses shaping that criticism).…”