This image is the cover for the book Psychopathia Sexualis, Classics To Go

Psychopathia Sexualis, Classics To Go

Excerpt: "Sexuality is the most powerful factor in individual and social existence; the strongest incentive to the exertion of strength and acquisition of property, to the foundation of a home, and to the awakening of altruistic feelings, first for a person of the opposite sex, then for the offspring, and, in a wider sense, for all humanity. Thus all ethics and, perhaps, a good part of æsthetics and religion depend upon the existence of sexual feeling. Though the sexual life leads to the highest virtues, even to the sacrifice of the ego, yet in its sensual force lies also the danger that it may degenerate into powerful passions and develop the grossest vices. Love as an unbridled passion is like a fire that burns and consumes everything; like an abyss that swallows all,—honor, fortune, well-being."

Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing

Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing (1840–1902; full name Richard Fridolin Joseph Freiherr Krafft von Festenberg auf Frohnberg, genannt von Ebing) was an Austro-German psychiatrist and author of the foundational work Psychopathia Sexualis (1886), a Clinical-Forensic Study, which was first published in 1886 and expanded in subsequent editions. The last edition from the hand of the author (the twelfth) contained a total of 238 case histories of human sexual behaviour. Translations of various editions of this book introduced to English such terms as "sadist" (derived from the brutal sexual practices depicted in the novels of the Marquis de Sade), "masochist", (derived from the name of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch), "homosexuality", "bisexuality", "necrophilia", and "anilingus". Psychopathia Sexualis is a forensic reference book for psychiatrists, physicians, and judges. Written in an academic style, its introduction noted that, to discourage lay readers, the author had deliberately chosen a scientific term for the title of the book and that he had written parts of it in Latin for the same purpose. Psychopathia Sexualis was one of the first books about sexual practices that studied homosexuality/bisexuality. It proposed consideration of the mental state of sex criminals in legal judgements of their crimes. During its time, it became the leading medico–legal textual authority on sexual pathology.

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