Universal Fetishism? Emancipation and Race in Magnus Hirschfeld's 1930 Sexological Visual Atlas
It is important to note that the arguments of German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld about emancipation and the universality of sexual variation benefited from the differences that the images also depict. His narrative gains cogency precisely because the superficial message of a universally equal human...
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| Published in: | Journal of the history of sexuality 2021, Vol.30 (1), p.23-47 |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | eng |
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| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | It is important to note that the arguments of German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld about emancipation and the universality of sexual variation benefited from the differences that the images also depict. His narrative gains cogency precisely because the superficial message of a universally equal humanity is underpinned by the subtext of continuously confirmed difference: the images clearly show disparities between two groups, but Hirschfeld used that underlying difference first to show the universal diversity in sexuality and then to convince his readers that sexual variations were both natural and innate. The two parts of this discourse reciprocally reinforce and constitute each other, enabling Hirschfeld's readers to see like he did that sexual difference had to be innate and universal. Even when early twentieth-century emancipators such as Hirschfeld strongly opposed racism, colonial structures and racist thought inevitably informed their reasoning. As Egelmeer's deconstruction of Hirschfeld's visual argumentation has shown, he inadvertently relied on these structures because they created the photographs that enabled the universal observation that his visual argument needed. |
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| ISSN: | 1043-4070 1535-3605 |