1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910789721503321

Autore

Beccalossi Chiara

Titolo

Female Sexual Inversion [[electronic resource] ] : Same-Sex Desires in Italian and British Sexology, c. 1870-1920 / / by Chiara Beccalossi

Pubbl/distr/stampa

London : , : Palgrave Macmillan UK : , : Imprint : Palgrave Macmillan, , 2012

ISBN

1-283-36072-1

9786613360724

0-230-35411-4

Edizione

[1st ed. 2012.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (319 p.)

Collana

Genders and Sexualities in History, , 2730-9479

Classificazione

HIS020000HIS015000HIS037070HIS037060HIS054000

Disciplina

306.76

306.76/630946

Soggetti

Italy—History

Europe—History

History, Modern

Clinical psychology

History

Sociology

History of Italy

European History

Modern History

Clinical Psychology

History of Science

Gender Studies

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Cover; Contents; Acknowledgements; Note on Terminology; Abbreviations; Part I; 1 Introduction: Female Sexual Inversion and other Medical Embodiments of Female Same-Sex Desires in Italy and Britain, circa 1870-1920; The emergence of the medical category of sexual inversion: continuities and variations; National traditions and competing medical fields; The hero/villain dichotomy; The (in)visibility of female same-sex desires; 2 Sexuality in Post-Risorgimento Italy and



Victorian Britain Historical contexts; Historical contexts; Regularisation of sexual behaviours; Part II

3 Italy: The Fashionable Psychiatric Disorder of Sexual Inversion and other Medical Embodiments of Same-Sex DesiresTowards an Italian psychiatry; 'Inversion of sexual instinct': towards a new and fashionable psychiatric pathology; The establishment of sexual inversion as a mental illness in psychiatric manuals; Asylums as laboratories for tracking female homosexuality; Figures of female same-sex desires; 4 Britain: Oblique Discourses Surrounding 'Lesbic Love'; British psychiatry in the nineteenth century; Psychiatry and same-sex desires; Female sexual excess: nymphomania and prostitution

Gynaecology: sexual excess in the female bodyYoung females do not sleep in the same bed: masturbation and adolescence; Part III Case-Studies; 5 Cesare Lombroso and Italian Criminal Anthropology; The Criminal Man, pederasty, and sexual inversion; Popularising sexology; Tribadism; Stigmatising feminism?; 6 Pasquale Penta, 'First Class Sexologist'; Following Lombroso's path: the Verzeni case; Archivio delle psicopatie sessuali; 'Natura non facit saltus': pursuing the study of sexuality; Female sexual inversion; 7 Havelock Ellis and Sex Psychology; Writing Sexual Inversion; The Bedborough case

Psychology of sex: female sexual inversion8 William Blair-Bell and Gynaecology; The normal woman and her internal secretions; The abnormal woman type; 9 Concluding Remarks; Notes; Bibliography; Index

Sommario/riassunto

An examination of how female same-sex desires were represented in a wide range of Italian and British medical writings, 1870-1920. It shows how the psychiatric category of sexual inversion was positioned alongside other medical ideas of same-sex desires, such as the virago, tribade-prostitute, fiamma and gynaecological explanations.