Pillow Talk: Credibility,Trust and the Sexological Case History

See Hacking Ian , “Making up people”, in Reconstructing individualism, ed. by Heller T. (Stanford, 1986), 222–36; Hacking , “Making up people”, London Review of Books, 17 August 2006, at http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n16/hack01_.html (20/4/08); Hacking , “The looping effects of human kinds”, Causal cognition: An interdisciplinary approach, ed. by Sperber D. Premack D. Premack A. (Oxford, 1995), 351–83; Hacking , “Kinds of people: Moving targets”, British Academy Lecture, at: http://www.britac.ac.uk/pubs/src/_pdf/hacking.pdf (20/4/08).

Some sexual acts were thought to signify physically. For a discussion of the signs of sodomy in nineteenth-century medical texts, see Crozier Ivan , “All the appearances were perfectly natural”, in Forth Christopher E. Crozier Ivan , Body parts: Critical explorations in corporeality (Lanham, MD, 2005), 65–83.

Nowell-Smith Harriet , “Nineteenth-century narrative case histories: An inquiry into stylistics and history”, Canadian bulletin of medical history, xii (1995), 47–67, p. 48.

Greene Charles Lyman , Medical diagnosis: A manual for students and practitioners, 3rd edn (London, 1910), 3.

Chamberlain E. Noble , Symptoms and signs in medical practice: An introduction to medical diagnosis (Bristol, 1936), 6.

Epstein Julia , “Historiography, diagnosis, and poetics”, Literature and medicine, xi (1992), 23–44.

Hunter Kathryn Montgomery , “Remaking the case”, Literature and medicine, xi (1992), 163–79, p. 164. See also Hunter Kathryn Montgomery , Doctor's stories (Princeton, 1991).

Sacks Oliver , The man who mistook his wife for a hat (New York, 1985), pp. ix–x. For some sceptical comments on Sacks, see Neve Michael , “It's got bells on”, London Review of Books, 21 June 1984, 3.

Laqueur Thomas , “Bodies, details, and the humanitarian narrative”, in Hunt Lynn (ed.), The new cultural history (Berkeley, 1989), 176–204. Laqueur did not, however, address the behind-the-scenes practices which were specific to the different fields of practice which he considered — Forensic medicine, pathological anatomy, novel-writing, legal reports, etc. Such an approach would bring us closer to the historiographies propounded by Hacking and especially Michel Foucault.

See Risse Guenter Warner John Harley , “Reconstructing clinical activities: Patient records in medical history”, Social history of medicine, v (1992), 183–205; Suzuki Akihito , “Framing psychiatric subjectivity: Doctor, patient and record-keeping at Bethlem in the nineteenth century”, in Melling Joseph Forsythe Bill (eds), Insanity, institutions and society, 1800–1914 (London, 1999), 115–36; Fissell Mary , “The disappearance of the patient's narrative”, in French Roger Wear Andrew (eds), British medicine in an age of reform (London, 1991), 92–109.

To position these discussions, see Cooter's Roger , polemic “After death/after-‘life’: The social history of medicine in post-postmodernity”, Social history of medicine, xx (2007), 441–64. My interest in Cooter's article was aroused by Anne Kveim Lie, Morten Hammerborg, and Svein Atle Skålevåg in Bergen recently, for which I thank them.

Duden Barbara , The woman beneath the skin: A doctor's patients in eighteenth-century Germany, transl. by Dunlap Thomas (Cambridge, MA, 1991).

Roy Porter Dorothy , In sickness and in health (New York, 1988), and Patient's progress: Doctors and doctoring in eighteenth-century England (Oxford, 1989).

Porter Roy , “The patient's view: Doing the history of medicine from below”, Theory and society, xiv (1985), 175–98.

Oosterhuis Harry , Stepchildren of nature (Chicago, 2000); Oosterhuis , “Richard von Krafft-Ebing's ‘stepchildren of nature”’, in Rosario Vernon (ed.), Science and homosexualities (New York, 1997), 67–87; Dreger Alice , “Hermaphrodites in love: The truth of the gonads”, in Rosario (ed.), Science and homosexualities, 46–66; Dixon Joy , “Sexology and the occult: Sexuality and subjectivity in theosophy's new age”, Journal of the history of sexuality, vii (1997), 1997–33.

Forrester John , “If p, then what? Thinking in cases”, History of the human sciences, ix (1996), 1–25.

Ginzburg Carlo , “Morelli, Freud and Sherlock Holmes: Clues and scientific method”, History workshop journal, ix (1980), 5–36, p. 12.

Ginzburg , “Morelli, Freud and Sherlock Holmes”, 16.

Foucault Michel , Discipline and punish (Harmondsworth, 1991), 191–2.

See Crozier Ivan , “La sexologie et la définition du ‘normal’ entre 1860 et 1900”, Cahiers du genre, xxxiv (2003), 17–37. Again, Hacking's insights are important in this context.

Of course, this is not to suggest that many scientists bother with replicating other scientists work to ‘check’ it. See Collins Harry , “The seven sexes: A study in the sociology of a phenomenon, or the replication of experiments in physics”, Sociology, ix (1975), 205–24; Mulkay Michael Gilbert Nigel , “Replication and mere replication”, Philosophy of the social sciences, xiv (1986), 1986–37.

This is not to suggest that trust is not central to other sciences as well. See Shapin Steven , “Cordelia's love: Credibility and the social studies of science”, Perspectives on science, iii (1995), 255–75.

For more on enculturation, see Warwick Andrew , Masters of theory (Chicago, 2003). Work by Chris Lawrence on medical cultures is also relevant. See Lawrence , “Incommunicable knowledge: Science, technology and the clinical art in Britain, 1850–1914”, Journal of contemporary history, xx (1985), 1985–20; Lawrence , “Still incommunicable: Clinical holists and medical knowledge in interwar Britain”, in Lawrence Chris Weisz George (eds), Greater than the parts: Holism and biomedicine, 1920–1950 (Oxford, 1998), 94–111; Lawrence , “A tale of two sciences: Bedside and bench in interwar Britain”, Medical history, xliii (1999), 1999–49.

See Canguilhem Georges , The normal and the pathological, transl. by Fawcett Carolyn R. Cohen Robert S. (New York, 1989), who uses the example of sexual inversion to make the same point.

For more on the place of tacit knowledge in science, see Collins Harry , “The TEA set: Tacit knowledge and scientific networks”, Science studies, iv (1974), 165–86.

Barnes Barry , “On the conventional character of knowledge and cognition”, Philosophy of the social sciences, xi (1981), 303–33, p. 306. Also see Barnes , T. S. Kuhn and social science (London, 1982), chap. 2. It would be proper to look on sexological cases, such as of masochism for example, in terms of artificial kinds, and therefore to use Martin Kusch's elaboration of Barnes's work. See Barnes , “Social life as bootstrapped induction”, Sociology, xvii (1983), 1983–45, and Kusch Martin , Psychological knowledge (London, 1998).

In this there is some similarity with Kuhn's discussion of scientific discovery. See Kuhn T. S. , “The historical structure of scientific discovery”, Science, cxxxiv (1961), 760–4.

Again, see Canguilhem , The normal and pathological (ref. 24). Also see Foucault Michel , Birth of the clinic, transl. by Sheridan Alan (London, 1973).

Ellis to Haire, British Library, Add MS 70540, 3 May 1925.

For more on this selection process, see Crozier Ivan , “Havelock Ellis, Eonism, and the patients' discourse”, History of psychiatry, xi (2000), 125–54.

See Oosterhuis , “Krafft-Ebing's ‘stepchildren of nature”’ (ref. 15). Although looking at the archives at Krafft-Ebing's correspondents, Oosterhuis does not consider why some cases were chosen for publication in Psychopathia sexualis and not others.

This tendency leads some scholars to look at sexologists as led by their patients. See for example, Hansen Bert , “American physicians’ ‘discovery’ of homosexuals, 1880–1900: A new diagnosis in a changing society”, in Rosenberg Charles E. Golden Janet L. (eds), Framing disease: Studies in cultural history (New Brunswick, 1992), 104–33.

For more on this text, see Crozier , Introduction to the critical edition of Havelock Ellis and John Addington Symonds, Sexual inversion (1897) (Basingstoke, 2008). Ellis and Symonds discuss this questionnaire in their correspondence, but I have been unable to locate any copies of it. I do, however, pay further attention to it in my introduction to the reprint of their book.

Stekel Wilhelm , Sadism and masochism, i (London, 1929), 239.

Stekel , Sadism and masochism, i, 242.

Ellis Havelock , “The history of Florrie”, Psychoanalytic review, vi (1919), 207.

Florrie to Havelock Ellis, British Library Add MS 70539, 24 July 1921.

I discuss this case and the surrounding literature more in “Philosophy in the English boudoir”, Journal of the history of sexuality, xiii (2004), 275–305.

See papers by the psychiatrist Lynn David , “Sigmund Freud's analysis of Albert Hirst”, Bulletin of the history of medicine, lxxi (1997), 69–93; Lynn David Vaillant George , “Anonymity, neutrality, and confidentiality in the actual methods of Sigmund Freud: A review of 43 cases, 1907–1939”, American journal of psychiatry, clv (1998), 1998–71. A huge list could be produced looking at how Freud (ab)used his cases. Attention should be drawn to Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, Remembering Anna O.: A century of mystification (London, 1996).

See the two notable exceptions in this case: Foucault Michel , “Dream, imagination, and existence”, in Ludwig Binswanger, Dreams and existence, transl. by Williams Forrest (Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1993), and Sonu Shamdasani, Introduction to Théodore Flournoy, From India to the planet Mars: A case of multiple personality with imaginary languages (Princeton, 1994), pp. xi–li. Other cases have not received the same healthy attention.

Foucault Michel , The history of sexuality, i: An introduction, transl. by Hurley Robert (London, 1990), 43.

For further discussion of this important text, see Davidson Arnold , The emergence of sexuality (Cambridge, MA, 2001).

Westphal Karl , “Die conträre Sexualempfindung: Symptom eines neuropathitischen (psychopathitischen) Zustandes”, Archiv für Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten, ii (1869–70), 73–108, p. 106n. See also Griesinger Wilhelm , “Vortrag zur Eröffnung der psychiatrischen Clinik”, Archiv für Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten, i (1868), 650. For one of the few detailed discussions of Westphal's oft-cited paper, see Halperin David , “How to do the history of homosexuality”, GLQ, vi (2000), 87–123. The majority of anglophone scholars have contented themselves (explicitly or not) with following Michel Foucault's (inaccurate) reference to this paper in History of sexuality, i (ref. 41), 43.

Westphal , “Die conträre Sexualempfindung”, 75–76.

Westphal , “Die conträre Sexualempfindung”, 76.

Westphal , “Die conträre Sexualempfindung”, 76.

Westphal , “Die conträre Sexualempfindung”, 76.

See Casper Johann , “Ueber Nothzucht und Päderastie und deren ermittelung seitens des Gerichtesarztes”, Vierteljahrschrift für gerichtliche öffentliche Medizin, i (1852), 21–78.

Dowbiggin Ian , Inheriting madness (Berkeley, 1991).

Westphal , “Die conträre Sexualempfindung” (ref. 43), 78.

Westphal , “Die conträre Sexualempfindung”, 78.

Westphal , “Die conträre Sexualempfindung”, 96–97, incl. 96n.

Westphal , “Die conträre Sexualempfindung”, 97.

Westphal , “Die conträre Sexualempfindung”, 107.

Most important in this respect was von Krafft-Ebing Richard , “Ueber gewisse Anomalies des Geschlectstriebs und die klinisch-forensich Verwenthug derselben als eines wahrscheinlich functionellen Degenerationszeichens des centralen Nervensystems”, Archiv für Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheinten, vii (1877), 291–312.

See Hacking , “Looping effects” (ref. 1); Hacking , “Kinds of people” (ref. 1).

Schmincke Dr , “Ein Fall von conträrer Sexualempfinding”, Archiv für Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheinten, iii (1872), 225–6. Westphal himself also presented another short case. See Westphal K. , “Zur conträren Sexualempfinding”, Archiv für Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheinten, vi (1876), 1876–1.

Gock H. , “Beitrag zur Kenntniss der conträren Sexualempfindung”, Archiv für Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheinten, v (1875), 564–74, p. 564.

See Kusch , Psychological knowledge (ref. 26).

Gock's female case had no signs of physical degeneration, and even her long, gaping labia and sensitive and tight vagina were considered normal. See Gock H. , “Beitrag zur Kenntniss der conträren Sexualempfindung” (ref. 58), 568.

Gock , “Beitrag zur Kenntniss der conträren Sexualempfindung”, 574.

These ideas are not new. See, for example, some of the papers in Hubbard Ruth Henifin Mary Sue Fried Barbara (eds), Women look at biology looking at women: A collection of feminist critiques (Boston, 1979); for social historians of medicine who consider the doctor/patient relationship, see for example Porter , “The patients' view” (ref. 14).

Furthermore, one should consider the issue of medical secrecy and confidentiality. See Morrice Andrew , “Should the Doctor tell?”, in Sturdy Steve (ed.), Medicine, health and the public sphere in Britain, 1600–2000 (London, 2002), 60–82.

For more on what anuses tell doctors looking for signs of sodomy, see Crozier , “All the appearances were perfectly natural” (ref. 2). For more on Acton, see Crozier Ivan , “William Acton and the history of sexuality: The medical and professional contexts”, Journal of Victorian culture, v (2000), 1–27.

Féré Charles , The evolution and dissolution of the sexual instinct (Paris, 1904), 190–1.

Raffalovich Marc , “Uranism, congenital sexual inversion: Observations and recommendation”, transl. by Herrick C. Judson , Journal of comparative neurology, v (1895), 33–65, p. 38.

Raffalovich , “Uranism, congenital sexual inversion”, 46.

Ellis Symonds , Sexual inversion (ref. 33). Congenital propensity to lying was considered atavistic. See Horn David , “Blood will tell”, in Forth and Crozier (eds), Body parts (ref. 2), 17–43.

For more on this see Crozier Ivan , “The medical construction of homosexuality and its relation to the law in nineteenth-century England”, Medical history, xlv (2001), 61–82.

Cited in Shaw J. C. Feris G. N. , “Perverted sexual instinct”, Journal of nervous and mental diseases, x (1883), 185–204, pp. 197–8.

Krafft-Ebing , “Ueber gewisse Anomalies des Geschlectstriebs” (ref. 55).

Shaw Feris , “Perverted sexual instinct” (ref. 70), 201, citing Krafft-Ebing, “Anomalies des Geschlectstriebs”.

Shaw Feris , “Perverted sexual instinct” (ref. 70), 202, citing Krafft-Ebing, “Anomalies des Geschlectstriebs”.

Savage George , “A case of sexual perversion”, Journal of mental science, xxx (1884), 390–1.

See Oosterhuis , “Krafft-Ebing's ‘Stepchildren of nature”’, on homosexuals and other paraphiliacs writing to Krafft-Ebing. Some of Havelock Ellis's correspondents, and indeed his co-author, John Addington Symonds, were keen to put sexology on a scientific footing by providing their cases. See their Sexual inversion (ref. 33). Earl Lind wrote his ‘confession’ of homosexual life in the nineteenth century to provide medical and legal readers with an ‘inside story’ of homosexual desire. See Lind , Autobiography of an androgyne (New York, 1918).

I discuss the collection of case histories for Sexual inversion in my introduction to the Palgrave edition (ref. 33).

Denko Joanne D. , “Klismaphilia: Enema as a sexual preference”, American journal of psychotherapy, xxvii (1973), 232–50.

Denko Joanne D. , “Amplification of the erotic enema deviance”, American journal of psychotherapy, xxx (1976), 236–55.

Power is relational, but not equal. See Foucault Michel , “Truth and power”, in Gordon Colin (ed.), Power/Knowledge (Brighton, 1980), 109–33; “Intellectuals and power: A conversation between Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze”, in Foucault Michel , Language, counter-memory, practice, ed. by Bouchard D. (Ithaca, 1977), 205–17.

Denko , “Amplification of the erotic enema deviance” (ref. 78), 250.

Indeed, I maintain that for a discourse to be considered properly sexological, it has to be written by a doctor, and usually contain reference to case material — Other discourses about sex do of course exist (such as by feminist or homosexual activists), but they belong to a different “discursive formation” (see Foucault Michel , Archaeology of knowledge, transl. by Sheridan A. (New York, 1972)).

Bullough Vern , “American physicians and sex research and expertise, 1900–1990”, Journal for the history of medicine and allied sciences, lii (1997), 236–53. See also Denko , who emphasized that she was a psychiatrist when encouraging patients to write to her.

See Ellis Havelock , My life (London, 1939); Nottingham Chris , The pursuit of serenity (Amsterdam, 1999); Grosskurth Phyllis , Havelock Ellis: A biography (New York, 1980).

John Addington Symonds to Edward Carpenter, 29 December 1892, in the Letters of John Addington Symonds, ed. by Schueller Herbert M. Peters Robert L. (Detroit, 1967–69), iii, p. XXX.

See Crozier , Introduction to Ellis and Symonds, Sexual inversion (ref. 33).

For more about this event and the responses in the medical press, see Crozier, Introduction to Ellis and Symonds, Sexual inversion (ref. 33); “Charge of publishing and selling obscene literature”, British medical journal, 5 November 1898, 1466.

See the review of Carpenter in British medical journal, 26 June 1909, 1547. This was much more harsh than the earlier reviews of Ellis. See Lancet, 1901, i, 108; review of Sexual inversion, Alienist and neurologist, xix (1898), 1898–6, etc. Not all of these reviews of Ellis were completely positive. See British medical journal, 8 February 1902, 339–40.

Kiernan James , “Sexual perversion”, Detroit lancet, vii (1884), 481–4, p. 481.

Clearly issues of boundary working are important here. See Gieryn Thomas , “Boundary-work and the demarcation of science from non-science: Strains and interests in professional ideologies of scientists”, American sociological review, xlviii (1983), 781–95; Abbott Andrew , “Boundaries of social work or social work of boundaries?”, Social service review, lxix (1995), 1995–62.

These letters do not survive in Ellis's correspondence, although some of the cases are discussed in other letters between Symonds, Edward Carpenter, Horatio Brown, etc.

To see how certain changes in hospital record keeping came about, see Risse Warner , “Reconstructing clinical activities” (ref. 10); Suzuki , “Framing psychiatric subjectivity” (ref. 10); Fissell , “The disappearance of the patient's narrative” (ref. 10).

von Schrenck-Notzing Albert , Therapeutic suggestion in psychopathia sexualis (pathological manifestations of the sexual instinct) with especial reference to contrary sexual instinct, transl. by Chaddock C. G. (Philadelphia, 1895), p. viii.

See for one of many examples, Anon., “The gentleman degenerate”, Alienist and neurologist, xxv (1904), 62–70.

For more on the controversy of Freud manufacturing his cases, see Forrester John , Truth games (Cambridge, MA, 1997), or Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, “How fabrication differs from a lie”, review of Han Israëls, Der Fall Freud: Die Geburt der Psychoanalyse aus der Lüge, London Review of Books, 13 April 2000, which can be read at: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n08/borc01.html. Also consider Michael Neve's sceptical review of Oliver Sacks, A leg to stand on, entitled “It's got bells on”, London Review of Books, 21 June 1984, 3.

Denko , “Klismaphilia” (ref. 77), 238.

E.g., Westphal , “Die conträre Sexualempfindung” (ref. 43).

See Shapin , “Cordelia's love” (ref. 22).

See for example, Dr H—, “Gynomania”, Medial record, ix (1881), 336, a discussion of homosexuality and cross-dressing that did not cite any of previous literature by Westphal, Krafft-Ebing, or Casper, which further framed the case as ‘masturbation’ rather than same-sex desire. This point extends Hacking's claims about homosexuality in “making up people” to all perversions — Although unlike Hacking, the emphasis here is on the field rather than the object.

An example of this type of writing is Solomon Meyer , “Two dreams”, Alienist and neurologist, xxxvi (1915), 12–35. Solomon here repudiates Freud's libido theory and the Oedipus complex, and uses two dream cases as evidence. For more on citation and the gaining of authority, see Bourdieu Pierre . “The specificity of the scientific field and the social conditions of the progress of reason”, Social science information, xiv (1975), 1975–47.

Denko , “Klismaphilia” (ref. 77), 246.

Bieber I. , “Enemas and sex”, Medical aspects of human sexuality, iv (1970), 2; and a close-call by Wilhelm Stekel, Patterns of psychosexual infantilism (New York, 1966).

See how Havelock Ellis treated other sexological and psychoanalytic discourses in his work Eonism and other supplementary studies (Philadelphia, 1928). For more, see Crozier , “Havelock Ellis, Eonism, and the patients' discourse” (ref. 30).

See Crozier Ivan , “Taking prisoners: Havelock Ellis, Sigmund Freud, and the construction of homosexuality, 1897–1951”, Social history of medicine, xiii (2001), 61–82.

Ellis , Sexual inversion, 3rd edn (Philadelphia, 1915), 80–81. Ellis continually stressed that there were more schools of psychoanalysis than Freud's, thus permeating the image that he was up against one solid body of psychoanalytic opposition.

Ellis , Sexual inversion, 3rd edn, 304. For a further description of the processes of sexual development see Freud , “The dissolution of the Oedipal complex”, in Freud, On sexuality, ed. by Richards Angela (London, 1991), 313–22.

Ellis , Sexual inversion, 3rd edn, 304. Ellis also criticized the psychoanalytic views of Abraham, “Ueber hysterische Traumzustände”, Jahrbuch für psychoanalytische Forshung, 1910, and Sadger , Die Lehre von Geschlectsverirungen (1921), based on universal bisexuality in Eonism, 16–17.

Freud Sigmund , “Three essays on the theory of sexuality”, On sexuality (Penguin Freud Library, vii; Harmondsworth, 1977), 33–169.

Ellis , Sexual inversion, 3rd edn, 304.

Ellis , Sexual inversion, 3rd edn, 306.

Ellis , Sexual inversion, 3rd edn, 307. Ellis himself had certain ‘troubles’ with his sex life with women — He preferred to watch women urinate, and did not have intercourse until he was in his fifties. See Grosskurth , Havelock Ellis (ref. 83).

Ellis , Sexual inversion, 3rd edn, 308.

See Crozier , “Taking prisoners” (ref. 103).

For an account of cycles of credibility that owes much to Pierre Bourdieu's writing, see Latour Bruno Woolgar Steve , Laboratory life (Beverly Hills, 1979), chap. 5. To learn more of the Bourdieuian roots of Actor-Network Theory, see Bourdieu , Outline of a theory of practice, transl. by Nice Richard (Cambridge, 1977); and applied specifically to science see Bourdieu, “Specificity of the scientific field” (ref. 99).

Cf. Pinch Trevor , “Towards an analysis of scientific observation: The externality and evidence significance of observational reports in physics”, Social studies of science, xv (1985), 3–36.

Although not solely through these objects, but also through modes of enunciation, formations of concepts, and deployments of strategies that are also field-specific. See Foucault's Archaeology of knowledge (ref. 81).

See Bullough Vern , Science in the bedroom (New York, 1994).

For example, Terry Jennifer , An American obsession (Chicago, 2000); Groneman Carol , Nymphomania (New York, 2000).

See Foucault Michel , “Nietzsche, genealogy, history”, in Rabinow Paul (ed.), The Foucault reader (London, 1984), 76–100. A useful application of Foucault's historiographical standpoint to medical history is Lie Anne Kveim , “Origin stories and the Norwegian radesyge”, Social history of medicine, xx (2007), 2007–79.

For example, see Bynum W. F. Neve Michael , “Hamlet on the couch”, in Porter Roy Bynum W. F. (eds), The anatomy of madness, i (London, 1985), 189–304.