Krafft-Ebing, Richard von (1840-1902)

Baron Richard von Krafft-Ebing, one of the pioneers of the science of sexology and its most prominent figure in the second half of the 19th century, was born in 1840 in Baden, Germany. After completing his studies of medicine at the University of Heidelberg he [Page 480]specialized in psychiatry, working first in several asylums in Germany and then as a university professor in Strasbourg, Graz, and finally Vienna, where he also took the role of the forensics expert. In his first major book titled A Textbook of Insanity (1879), he attempted to provide a detailed classification of mental disorders. The aim of the book was to to instruct people who could come into contact with mentally ill individuals to identify the kind of the disease and to adequately respond. Psychopathia Sexualis (Psychopathy of Sex), his next important work that would become also his best-known one, appeared in 1886, offering a detailed psychiatric classification and analysis of sexual disorders. Although written primarily for the professional medical and legal audiences, with some parts written in Latin, the book nevertheless became popular among general audiences. In his attempts to taxonomize the types of sexual perversion, Krafft-Ebing coined and used the terms masochism, sadism, and fetishism, and he labeled as perversion every form of desire that was not directed toward procreation. As his book had reached wider circles of readers, Krafft-Ebing was contacted by a number of homosexuals who volunteered to be subjects of his case studies, finally having space to openly talk about their feelings. Thus, for years homosexuality remained the focus of Krafft-Ebing's scientific attention.

The experience of getting to personally know and work with such a great number of homosexual individuals made him change his initial views that same-sex desire was caused by hereditary degeneracy and accompanied by mental affliction and moral corruption. He came to the conclusion that most of his subjects were physically, mentally, and morally healthy, and that homosexuality was not the result of mental illness. These insights led him to support campaigns for decriminalization of homosexuality, such as the one for repealing Paragraph 175 of the German constitution, according to which homosexual acts were prohibited. In the final edition of Psychopathia Sexualis, appearing shortly before his death, he recognized homosexuality as one of several possible forms of sexual desire, completely unrelated to mental illness. This acknowledgement of homosexual desire as just one type of sexual desire became one of the most important legacies of Krafft-Ebing's work. Interestingly, however, it was not Krafft-Ebing's view but Freudian reversion to seeing homosexuality as a disease that dominated most of 20th-century psychiatry. Krafft-Ebing died in December 1902, a year after his retirement.