Abstract

By focussing on a selection of Nicola Pende’s studies from the 1920s on ‘endocrinological abnormalities’ associated with impotence, lack of virility for men, and lack of femininity for women and finally homosexuality, this essay aims to illustrate the ways in which hormone research introduced an innovative approach to the study of sexual behaviour in Italian sexology, and to show how it was used to normalise individuals. It will demonstrate how endocrinology promoted an understanding of the body and sexual desire in which the attributes of masculinity and femininity, and even of sexual orientation, were malleable and subject to deliberate engineering.