Female same-sex desires: conceptualizing a disease in competing medical fields in nineteenth-century Europe

Beccalossi, Chiara (2012) Female same-sex desires: conceptualizing a disease in competing medical fields in nineteenth-century Europe. Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 67 (1). 7 -35. ISSN 0022-5045

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Abstract

This article examines the ways in which female same-sex desires were represented across a range of nineteenth-century European medical writings. While recognizing the conceptual innovations of the late-nineteenth-century psychiatric idea of “sexual inversion,” it argues that the category of “sexual invert” was positioned alongside other medical representations of same-sex desires, such as gynecological descrip- tions of women with hypertrophy of the clitoris and socio-cultural analy- ses of the tribade-prostitute. These representations complicate current historical accounts of sexual inversion, which emphasize conceptual rup- tures within the history of medicine.

Keywords:Modern European History, Sexology, female homosexuality, medicine, bmjconvert
Subjects:V Historical and Philosophical studies > V380 History of Science
V Historical and Philosophical studies > V145 Modern History 1900-1919
V Historical and Philosophical studies > V220 European History
V Historical and Philosophical studies > V144 Modern History 1800-1899
Divisions:College of Arts > School of History & Heritage > School of History & Heritage (History)
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http://purl.org/dc/terms/isPartofhttp://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/19035/
ID Code:19039
Deposited On:15 Oct 2015 19:42

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