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Authors: Hanne Blank

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sexual biology.
See
biological sex

sexual degeneracy and deviance: causes and fear of, 46–48; defined in contrast to heterosexuality, 3, 18–21, 49; disorders of sexuality, 8–9; management of, 36, 44–45; as a measure of a man, 14–15; and the Prussian Penal Code, 16–18, 143; and sexual orientation, 45, 49–50; specialized, 19

sexual desire, xxiii–xxiv, xxvi, 68–70, 72–75, 131.
See also
passionate romance in marriage

sexual dimorphism, xviii

sexual inversion, 16–17, 51–53, 54–56, 57–62, 170n10

sexuality: anaesthesia (
Psychopathia Sexualis
), 19; application of
contra naturam
(against nature) terminology to, 34; and class identity, 129–30; cultural doxa of, 27, 30–31, 37–40, 147–48, 151–55; definitions of, 2–3, 18–21; disorders of, 8–9; formal taxonomy of, 8–9; heterodox, 37; hyperaesthesia (
Psychopathia Sexualis
), 19; and manliness, 14–15; marked categories of, 31–33; natural support of, 34–35; orgasms as unit of measure of, 138–40, 143; paradoxia (
Psychopathia Sexualis
), 19; and procreation, 2–3, 18–19, 33–34, 45, 93, 124–25, 128–29; and scientific naming, 9–11, 31–33, 147–48; sex as manifestation of unruly appetites, 3; and sin in nineteenth-century urbanization, 4–9, 47–48; undifferentiated, 28–29, 33; Victorian, 12–13, 128–29, 137; and women's gain in sexual latitude, 111–12, 116–17, 131–33, 142–44

sexual orientation: and the anthropic principle, 62–66; and biological sex, ix–x; cultural doxa of, ix, xi–xii, xiii–xiv, xv–xvi, xxvi–xxvii, 42–43, 152–53, 155; empirical genetic/basis for, 34, 41–43, 57–62; and external genitalia, ix, xiii; and genetics, ix–x, 161–62; labeling, xi–xii, xii–xiii, 51–53; and nonprocreative sex, 65; and sexual deviance, 45, 49–50

sexual promiscuity, 110–11

sexual reassignment, xxi

Sexual Revolution, 115, 141, 145–46

sexual stereotypes, 129–30

Shelley, Martha, 116

Shepard, Thomas, 100–101

Siegesbeck, Johann, 10

Signorile, Michelangelo, 153

Sigusch, Volkmar, 62

sin, 4–9, 15, 47–49, 69, 74

Smith, Adam, 74

Smith, Daniel Scott, 90

Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll, 24–25, 82

SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), 115

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
(film), 95

social behavior, xxv–xxvi, 50–51

social conservatives, 86

social Darwinism, 7, 64, 89

social egalitarianism, 76

social gender, xii–xiii, xxi–xxiii, xxvi

social human kinds, 66

social signaling, xxiii

sodomy, 2, 48, 125

The Sorrows of Young Werther
(Goethe), 98

Speed, Joshua, 24

spermatorrhea, fear of, 46

Spokesman-Review
(newspaper), 160

Stacey, Judith, 157–58

Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 128

Stead, William Thomas, 15

Stein, Edward, 66

Steinach, Eugene, 60

Stekel, Wilhelm, 48

sterilization, compulsory, 90

Stockham, Alice Bunker, 134

Stone, Lawrence, 12, 87, 98

Stopes, Marie, 30, 127, 132, 133

straight bodies, identification of, 41, 55–56, 59, 62

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), 115

Studies in the Psychology of Sex
(Ellis), 131

suffragists, 136–37

Supreme Court (US), 161

Systema Naturae
(Linneaeus), 10

teenagers, 112, 144.
See also
courtship culture; dating culture

Terman, Lewis, 36

Texas Fourth Court of Appeals, 161, 162

Texas State Supreme Court, 161

Third Reich, 18, 61, 90

Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality
(Freud), 30, 135–36

Through the Looking-Glass
(Carroll), 50

thumb-sucking, 47, 172n4

Tipton, Billy, 159–60

Tipton, Billy, Jr., 159–60

“Too Darn Hot” (Porter), 36

The Trials of Masculinity
(McLaren), 14

Ufficiali dell'Onesta (Office of Honesty), Florence, Italy, 125

Ulrichs, Karl, 16–17, 148

undifferentiated sexuality, 28–29, 33

United Nations, 83

University of Liverpool (UK), 35

University of Reading (UK), 10

University of Texas Health Science Center, 160

University woman, 82

urbanization and urban life, 4–9, 47–49, 107–8

Urning,
17

Vaernet, Carl, 61

vaginal orgasm.
See
orgasm

“Vaginal Orgasm as a Mass Hysterical Survival Response” (Atkinson), 142

vaginal rejuvenation surgery, 144

vaginoplasty, 162

van de Velde, Theodor, 30

Viagra, 121–23, 144–45

Victorian era: and the autonomy of women, 83; and companionate marriage, 130–31; contraception, 90–91; gender-normative, male-dominated hierarchy of the, 117; on masturbation, 46, 133; and nonprocreative sexual activity, 45–46; premarital sexuality during, 106–7, 110–12, 134; on procreative sexual activity, 128–29; sexological research on, 140, 178n22; and sexual inversion, 58; view of female sexuality, 12–13, 128–29, 137

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
(Wollstonecraft), 72

virginity, 29, 30, 39, 54, 72, 104

Warmus, Carolyn, 128

Weld, Theodore, 104–6

Wernicke's area, 44

white-livered widows, 128

white masculinity, disappearance of, 14

Whittlesey, Elisha, 24

Whittlesey, William, 24

Wilde, Oscar, 15

Winfrey, Oprah, xvi, 68

Wollstonecraft, Mary, 72, 76, 98

women: in arranged marriages, 69–70; and changes in marital power, 81–82; and desire for copulation, 12, 85; and desire for semen, 126–28, 144, 178n8; and economic autonomy, 83–84; economic role in dating, 108–9, 111–12; and education, 82–84; and episodic same-sex desires, 154; expectations of the marital relationship, 70–71, 130–31, 131–33; extramarital sexual experience of, 139, 178n21; and Flibanserin, 145; Freudian sexual development of, 136; and frigidity, 136, 137–38; gain in sexual latitude of, 111–12, 116–17, 131–33, 142–44; and individual autonomy, 83–84; in the Kinsey report (1953), 36; legal personhood of, 81; and marital coverture, 76–78; and maternity seeking, 12, 30, 46, 85; and middle-class sexuality doxa, 133; and the Pill, 91–92, 115, 141; premarital sexual experience of, 110–12, 139; and property rights, 76–77, 78–80, 80–81; and romantic heterosexual love, 116; sexual awakening of, 128–29, 137; sexual commoditization of, 111; sexual enervation of men by, 47–48, 126–28, 143–44, 178n9; sexual passivity of, 45, 46; and simultaneous mutual orgasm, 131–34; single, 67–68, 77, 93, 133; Victorian-era view of, 12–13, 128–29, 137; and virginity loss, 29, 30, 39, 54, 72, 104.
See also
feminism; marriage; orgasm

Wuornos, Aileen, 128

Yalom, Marilyn, 71

The Young Lady's Friend
(Farrar), 103

Zero Population Growth (Population Connection), 88

Beacon Press
25 Beacon Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02108-2892
www.beacon.org

Beacon Press books
are published under the auspices of
the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.

© 2012 by Hanne Blank
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America

15 14 13 12 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is printed on acid-free paper that meets the uncoated paper
ANSI/NISO specifications for permanence as revised in 1992.

Text design by Wilsted & Taylor Publishing Services

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Blank, Hanne.
Straight: the surprisingly short history of heterosexuality / Hanne Blank.
p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8070-4443-8 (hardcover: alk. paper)
E-ISBN 978-0-8070-4444-5
1. Heterosexuality—History. 2. Homosexuality—History. I. Title.
HQ23.B56 2012

306.76'409—dc23                  2011031432

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