Sexology - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Sexology is the scientific study

Scientific method

Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of...

of human sexuality

Human sexuality

Human sexuality is the awareness of gender differences, and the capacity to have erotic experiences and responses. Human sexuality can also be described as the way someone is sexually attracted to another person whether it is to opposite sexes , to the same sex , to either sexes , or not being...

, including human sexual interests, behavior, and function. The term does not generally refer to the non-scientific study of sex, such as political analysis or social criticism.

In modern sexology, researchers apply tools from several academic fields, including biology

Biology

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

, medicine

Medicine

Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....

, psychology

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

, statistics

Statistics

Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....

, epidemiology

Epidemiology

Epidemiology is the study of health-event, health-characteristic, or health-determinant patterns in a population. It is the cornerstone method of public health research, and helps inform policy decisions and evidence-based medicine by identifying risk factors for disease and targets for preventive...

, sociology

Sociology

Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

, anthropology

Anthropology

Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...

, and criminology

Criminology

Criminology is the scientific study of the nature, extent, causes, and control of criminal behavior in both the individual and in society...

. Sexology studies sexual development and the development of sexual relationships as well as the mechanics of sexual intercourse

Sexual intercourse

Sexual intercourse, also known as copulation or coitus, commonly refers to the act in which a male's penis enters a female's vagina for the purposes of sexual pleasure or reproduction. The entities may be of opposite sexes, or they may be hermaphroditic, as is the case with snails...

. It also documents the sexualities of special groups, such as the disabled, child development, adolescents, and the elderly

Geriatric sexology

Geriatric sexology is the systematic study of sexuality in the elderly. It encompasses all aspects of sexuality, including attempting to characterise "normal sexuality" and its variants, including paraphilias and disorders of or relating to sex and the sex organs. The field covers physiological and...

. Sexologists study sexual dysfunctions, disorders, and variations, including such widely varying topics as erectile dysfunction

Erectile dysfunction

Erectile dysfunction is sexual dysfunction characterized by the inability to develop or maintain an erection of the penis during sexual performance....

, pedophilia

Pedophilia

As a medical diagnosis, pedophilia is defined as a psychiatric disorder in adults or late adolescents typically characterized by a primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescent children...

, and sexual orientation

Sexual orientation

Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them. By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality,...

.

Sexological findings, in spite of being scientifically based, can still become controversial when they contradict "mainstream", religious, or political beliefs in a given society.

Historical overview

Sexology as it exists today, as a specific research-based scientific field, is relatively new. While there are works dedicated towards sex in antiquity, the scientific study of sexual behavior in human beings began in the 19th century. Shifts in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

's national borders at that time brought into conflict laws that were sexually liberal and laws that criminalized behaviors such as homosexual activity.

German society, under the sexually liberal Napoleonic code

Napoleonic code

The Napoleonic Code — or Code Napoléon — is the French civil code, established under Napoléon I in 1804. The code forbade privileges based on birth, allowed freedom of religion, and specified that government jobs go to the most qualified...

, organized and resisted the anti-sexual cultural influences. The momentum from those groups led them to coordinate sex research across traditional academic discipline

Academic discipline

An academic discipline, or field of study, is a branch of knowledge that is taught and researched at the college or university level. Disciplines are defined , and recognized by the academic journals in which research is published, and the learned societies and academic departments or faculties to...

s, bringing Germany to the leadership of sexology.

Germany's dominance in sexual behavior research ended with the Nazi regime, marked by the destruction of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft
Institut für Sexualwissenschaft
The Institut für Sexualwissenschaft was an early private sexology research institute in Germany from 1919 to 1933. The name is variously translated as Institute of Sex Research, Institute for Sexology or Institute for the Science of Sexuality...

(Institute for Sexology) in Berlin. But after World War II, sexology experienced a renaissance, beginning in the United States. Large scale studies of sexual behavior, sexual function, and sexual dysfunction

Sexual dysfunction

Sexual dysfunction or sexual malfunction refers to a difficulty experienced by an individual or a couple during any stage of a normal sexual activity, including desire, arousal or orgasm....

gave rise to the development of sex therapy

Sex therapy

Sex therapy is the treatment of sexual dysfunction, such as non-consummation, premature ejaculation , erectile dysfunction, low libido, unwanted sexual fetishes, sexual addiction, painful sex, or a lack of sexual confidence, assisting people who are recovering from sexual assault, problems commonly...

. Post-WWII sexology in the U.S. was influenced by the influx of European refugees escaping the Nazi regime and the popularity of the Kinsey studies

Kinsey Reports

The Kinsey Reports are two books on human sexual behavior, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female , by Dr. Alfred Kinsey, Wardell Pomeroy and others and published by Saunders...

. Until that time, American sexology consisted primarily of groups working to end prostitution

Prostitution

Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...

and to educate youth about sexually transmitted diseases.

The advent of HIV/AIDS in the 1980s caused a dramatic shift in sexological research efforts towards understanding and controlling the spread of the disease.

Ancient

Sexual manuals

Sex manual

Sex manuals are books which explain how to perform sexual intercourse and other sexual practices. They often also feature advice on birth control, and sometimes safe sex, as well as advice on sexual relationships.-Early sex manuals:...

have existed since antiquity, such as Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

's Ars Amatoria
Ars Amatoria
The Ars amatoria is an instructional love elegy in three books by the Roman poet Ovid, penned around 2 CE. It claims to provide teaching in three areas of general preoccupation: how and where to find women in Rome, how to seduce them, and how to prevent others from stealing them.-Background:After...

, the Kama Sutra
Kama Sutra
The Kama Sutra is an ancient Indian Hindu text widely considered to be the standard work on human sexual behavior in Sanskrit literature written by Vātsyāyana. A portion of the work consists of practical advice on sexual intercourse. It is largely in prose, with many inserted anustubh poetry verses...

of Vatsyayana

Vatsyayana

Vātsyāyana is the name of a Hindu philosopher in the Vedic tradition who is believed to have lived during time of the Gupta Empire in India...

, the Ananga Ranga
Ananga Ranga
The Ananga Ranga or Kamaledhiplava is an Indian sex manual written by Kalyana malla in the 15th or 16th century. The poet wrote the work in honor of Lad Khan, son of Ahmed Khan Lodi. He was related to the Lodi dynasty, which from 1451 to 1526 ruled from Delhi...

and The Perfumed Garden for the Soul's Recreation
The Perfumed Garden
The Perfumed Garden of Sensual Delight by Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Nafzawi is a fifteenth-century Arabic sex manual and work of erotic literature....

. None of these treat sex as the subject of a formal field of scientific or medical research, however.

Pre World-War II

In 1837, De la prostitution dans la ville de Paris (Prostitution in the City of Paris) was published by Alexander Jean Baptiste Parent-Duchatelet. In that study, Parent-Duchatelet provided data from a sample of 3,558 registered prostitutes of Paris. That effort has been called the first work of modern sex research.

In 1886, Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing

Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing

-Bibliography :* Heinrich Ammerer: Am Anfang war die Perversion. Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Psychiater und Pionier der modernen Sexualkunde. Styria premium 2011 in der Verlagsgruppe Styria GmbH & Co KG, Wien-Graz-Klagenfurt, ISBN 978-3-222-13321-3....

published Psychopathia Sexualis. That work is considered as having established sexology as a scientific discipline.

In 1897, Havelock Ellis, a British sexologist, co-authored the first English medical text book on homosexuality, Sexual inversion (Das Konträre Geschlechtsgefühle). (The original German-languaged edition was published in 1896.) A friend of Edward Carpenter

Edward Carpenter

Edward Carpenter was an English socialist poet, socialist philosopher, anthologist, and early gay activist....

, Ellis was one of the first sexologists who did not regard homosexuality as a disease, immoral, or a crime. He preferred the term inversion

Sexual inversion (sexology)

Sexual inversion is a term used by sexologists, primarily in the late 19th and early 20th century, to refer to homosexuality. Sexual inversion was believed to be an inborn reversal of gender traits: male inverts were, to a greater or lesser degree, inclined to traditionally female pursuits and...

to homosexuality, and developed concepts such as autoerotism and narcissism

Narcissism

Narcissism is a term with a wide range of meanings, depending on whether it is used to describe a central concept of psychoanalytic theory, a mental illness, a social or cultural problem, or simply a personality trait...

, which were later adopted by Sigmund Freud. He is regarded as having been one of the most influential scholars in opposing Victorian morality regarding sex.

In 1908, the first scholarly journal of the field, Journal of Sexology (Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft), began publication and was published monthly for one year. Those issues contained articles by Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...

, Alfred Adler

Alfred Adler

Alfred Adler was an Austrian medical doctor, psychotherapist, and founder of the school of individual psychology. In collaboration with Sigmund Freud and a small group of Freud's colleagues, Adler was among the co-founders of the psychoanalytic movement as a core member of the Vienna...

, and Wilhelm Stekel

Wilhelm Stekel

Wilhelm Stekel was an Austrian physician and psychologist, who became one of Sigmund Freud's earliest followers, and was once described as "Freud's most distinguished pupil." According to Ernest Jones, "Stekel may be accorded the honour, together with Freud, of having founded the first...

.

In 1913, the first academic association was founded: the Society for Sexology.

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...

developed a theory of sexuality. These stages of development include: Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency and Genital. These stages run from infancy to puberty and onwards. based on his studies of his clients, between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Wilhelm Reich

Wilhelm Reich

Wilhelm Reich was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, known as one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry...

and Otto Gross

Otto Gross

Otto Gross was an Austrian psychoanalyst. A maverick early disciple of Sigmund Freud, he later became an anarchist and joined the utopian Ascona community.His father Hans Gross was a judge turned pioneering criminologist...

, were disciples of Freud, but rejected by his theories because of their emphasis on the role of sexuality in the revolutionary struggle for the emancipation of mankind.

In 1919, Magnus Hirschfeld

Magnus Hirschfeld

Magnus Hirschfeld was a German physician and sexologist. An outspoken advocate for sexual minorities, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, which Dustin Goltz called "the first advocacy for homosexual and transgender rights."-Early life:Hirschfeld was born in Kolberg in a...

founded the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft
Institut für Sexualwissenschaft
The Institut für Sexualwissenschaft was an early private sexology research institute in Germany from 1919 to 1933. The name is variously translated as Institute of Sex Research, Institute for Sexology or Institute for the Science of Sexuality...

(Institute for Sexology) in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

. Its library housed over 20,000 volumes, 35,000 photographs, a large collection of art and other objects. The Institute and its library were destroyed by the Nazis less than three months after they took power, May 8, 1933. Hirschfeld developed a system which identified numerous actual or hypothetical types of sexual intermediary between heterosexual male and female to represent the potential diversity of human sexuality, and is credited with identifying a group of people that today are referred to as transsexual or transgender

Transgender

Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....

as separate from the categories of homosexuality, he referred to these people as 'transvestiten' (transvestites).

Post World-War II

Alfred Kinsey

Alfred Charles Kinsey was an American biologist and professor of entomology and zoology, who in 1947 founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University, now known as the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, as well as producing the Kinsey Reports and the Kinsey...

founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University at Bloomington

Bloomington, Indiana

Bloomington is a city in and the county seat of Monroe County in the southern region of the U.S. state of Indiana. The population was 80,405 at the 2010 census....

in 1947. This is now called the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction

Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction

The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction is a nonprofit research institute at Indiana University. It was established in Bloomington, Indiana in 1947...

. He wrote in his 1948 book that more was scientifically known about the sexual behavior of farm animals than of humans.

Kurt Freund

Kurt Freund

Kurt Freund was a Czech-Canadian physician and sexologist best known for developing phallometry , research studies in pedophilia, and for the "courtship disorder" hypothesis as a taxonomy of certain paraphilias Kurt Freund (17 January 1914–23 October 1996) was a Czech-Canadian physician and...

developed the penile plethysmograph

Penile plethysmograph

Penile plethysmography , or "phallometry", refers to measurement of bloodflow to the male genital. The most commonly reported methods of conducting penile plethysmography involve the measurement of the circumference of the penis with a mercury-in-rubber strain gauge, or the volume of the penis with...

in Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

in the 1950s. The device was designed to provide an objective measurement of sexual arousal

Sexual arousal

Sexual arousal, or sexual excitement, is the arousal of sexual desire, during or in anticipation of sexual activity. Things that precipitate human sexual arousal are called erotic stimuli, or colloquially known as turn-ons. There are many potential stimuli, both physical or mental, which can cause...

in males, and Freund used it to help dispel a number of myths surrounding homosexuality

Homosexuality

Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...

. This tool has since been used with sex offenders.

In 1966 and 1970, Masters and Johnson

Masters and Johnson

The Masters and Johnson research team, composed of William H. Masters and Virginia E. Johnson, pioneered research into the nature of human sexual response and the diagnosis and treatment of sexual disorders and dysfunctions from 1957 until the 1990s....

released their works Human Sexual Response and Human Sexual Inadequacy, respectively. Those volumes sold well, and they were founders of what became known as the Masters & Johnson Institute in 1978.

Vern Bullough

Vern Bullough

Vern Leroy Bullough was an American historian and sexologist.He was a distinguished professor emeritus at the State University of New York , an Outstanding Professor in the California State University, a past president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, past Dean of natural and...

was the most prominent historian of sexology during this era, as well as being a researcher in the field.

21st Century

Technological advances have permitted sexological questions to be addressed with studies using behavioral genetics, neuroimaging, and large-scale Internet-based surveys.

As of the early 21st century, the Université du Québec à Montréal

Université du Québec à Montréal

The Université du Québec à Montréal is one of four universities in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.-Basic facts:The UQAM is the largest constituent element of the Université du Québec , a public university system with other branches in Gatineau , Rimouski, Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec City, Chicoutimi, and...

is the only university in the world to offer a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in sexology.

Notable contributors

This is a list of sexologists and notable contributors to the field of sexology, by year of birth:

Carl Friedrich Otto Westphal
Carl Friedrich Otto Westphal
Carl Friedrich Otto Westphal was a German neurologist and psychiatrist from Berlin. He was the son of Otto Carl Friedrich Westphal and Karoline Friederike Heine and the father of Alexander Carl Otto Westphal...

(1833–1890)
Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing
Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing
-Bibliography :* Heinrich Ammerer: Am Anfang war die Perversion. Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Psychiater und Pionier der modernen Sexualkunde. Styria premium 2011 in der Verlagsgruppe Styria GmbH & Co KG, Wien-Graz-Klagenfurt, ISBN 978-3-222-13321-3....

(1840–1902)
Albert Eulenburg
Albert Eulenburg
Albert Eulenburg was a German neurologist who was a native of Berlin. He studied medicine at the Universities of Berlin, Bern and Zurich, earning his doctorate 1861. Among his instructors were Johannes Peter Müller , Ludwig Traube and Albrecht von Graefe...

(1840–1917)
Auguste Henri Forel (1848–1931)
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...

(1856–1939)
Wilhelm Fliess
Wilhelm Fliess
Wilhelm Fliess was a German Jewish otolaryngologist who practised in Berlin. On Josef Breuer's suggestion, Fliess attended several "conferences" with Sigmund Freud beginning in 1887 in Vienna, and the two soon formed a strong friendship...

(1858–1928)
Havelock Ellis
Havelock Ellis
Henry Havelock Ellis, known as Havelock Ellis , was a British physician and psychologist, writer, and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He was co-author of the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality in 1897, and also published works on a variety of sexual practices and...

(1858–1939)
Eugen Steinach
Eugen Steinach
Eugen Steinach was a leading Austrian physiologist and pioneer in endocrinology.-Biography:He was born on January 28, 1861 in Austria....

(1861–1944)
Robert Latou Dickinson
Robert Latou Dickinson
Robert Latou Dickinson was an American obstetrician and gynecologist, surgeon, maternal health educator, artist, sculptor and medical illustrator, and research scientist.-Life:...

(1861–1950)
Albert Moll (1862–1939)
Edvard Westermarck
Edvard Westermarck
Edvard Alexander Westermarck was a Swedish-speaking Finnish philosopher and sociologist. Among other subjects, he studied exogamy and the incest taboo....

(1862–1939)
Magnus Hirschfeld
Magnus Hirschfeld
Magnus Hirschfeld was a German physician and sexologist. An outspoken advocate for sexual minorities, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, which Dustin Goltz called "the first advocacy for homosexual and transgender rights."-Early life:Hirschfeld was born in Kolberg in a...

(1868–1935)
Iwan Bloch
Iwan Bloch
Iwan Bloch was a Berlin dermatologist.Born in Delmenhorst, Germany, he is often called the first sexologist. He discovered the Marquis de Sade's manuscript of The 120 Days of Sodom, which had been believed to be lost, and published it under the pseudonym Eugène Dühren in 1904...

(1872–1922)
Theodor Hendrik van de Velde (1873–1937)
Max Marcuse
Max Marcuse
Max Marcuse was a Jewish - German dermatologist and sexologist. He became an editor for Magnus Hirschfeld’s Journal of Sexology in 1919 and continued editing the journal until 1932. Marcuse immigrated to Palestine in 1933, following the Nazi rise to power. Several of Marcuse's unpublished...

(1877–1963)
Otto Gross
Otto Gross
Otto Gross was an Austrian psychoanalyst. A maverick early disciple of Sigmund Freud, he later became an anarchist and joined the utopian Ascona community.His father Hans Gross was a judge turned pioneering criminologist...

(1877–1920)
Ernst Gräfenberg
Ernst Gräfenberg
Ernst Gräfenberg was a German-born physician and scientist...

(1881–1957)
Bronisław Malinowski (1884–1942)
Harry Benjamin
Harry Benjamin
Harry Benjamin was a German endocrinologist, widely known for his clinical work with transsexualism. He was raised in an observant Ashkenazy Jewish home.- Early life and career :...

(1885–1986)
Theodor Reik
Theodor Reik
Theodor Reik was a prominent psychoanalyst who trained as one of Freud's first students in Vienna, Austria. Reik received a Ph.D. degree in psychology from the University of Vienna in 1912. His dissertation, a study of Flaubert's Temptation of Saint Anthony, was the first psychoanalytic...

(1888–1969)
Alfred Kinsey
Alfred Kinsey
Alfred Charles Kinsey was an American biologist and professor of entomology and zoology, who in 1947 founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University, now known as the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, as well as producing the Kinsey Reports and the Kinsey...

(1894–1956)
Wilhelm Reich
Wilhelm Reich
Wilhelm Reich was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, known as one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry...

(1897–1957)
Mary Calderone
Mary Calderone
Mary Steichen Calderone was a physician and a public health advocate for sexual education. She served as president and co-founder of the Sex Information and Education Council of the United States from 1954 to 1982. She was also the medical director for Planned Parenthood...

(1904–1998)
Wardell Pomeroy
Wardell Pomeroy
Wardell Baxter Pomeroy was an American sexologist and co-author with Alfred C. Kinsey. He was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He graduated from Indiana University and earned a Ph.D. in psychology in 1954 from Columbia University...

(1913–2001)
Albert Ellis (1913–2007)

Kurt Freund
Kurt Freund
Kurt Freund was a Czech-Canadian physician and sexologist best known for developing phallometry , research studies in pedophilia, and for the "courtship disorder" hypothesis as a taxonomy of certain paraphilias Kurt Freund (17 January 1914–23 October 1996) was a Czech-Canadian physician and...

(1914–1996)
Ernest Borneman
Ernest Borneman
Ernst Wilhelm Julius Bornemann was a German crime writer, filmmaker, anthropologist, ethnomusicologist, jazz musician, jazz critic, psychoanalyst, sexologist, and committed socialist. All these diverse interests, he claimed, had a common root in his lifelong insatiable curiosity...

(1915–1995)
William Masters (1915–2001)
Gershon Legman
Gershon Legman
Gershon Legman was an American cultural critic and folklorist.-Life and work:Legman was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania to Emil and Julia Friedman Legman, both of Hungarian/Romanian Jewish descent; his father was a railroad clerk and butcher...

(1917–1999)
Paul H. Gebhard (1917– )
John Money
John Money
John William Money was a psychologist, sexologist and author, specializing in research into sexual identity and biology of gender...

(1921–2006)
Ira Reiss
Ira Reiss
Ira L. Reiss has been a prominent sexuality researcher since the mid-1950s, and retired from his position as professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis in 1997. Reiss grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania during the Great Depression...

(1925-)
Virginia Johnson
Virginia E. Johnson
Virginia Eshelman Johnson is a former American sexologist and psychologist, best known as the junior member of the Masters and Johnson sexuality research team...

(1925– )
Preben Hertoft
Preben Hertoft
Preben Hertoft , Danish psychiatrist and professor in medical sexology, senior doctorate in medicine.After the death of his mentor Kirsten Auken, Hertoft worked over 40 years as a sexologist doing research, treatment, counseling and education. In 1986 he founded the first medical centre for...

(1928– )
Oswalt Kolle
Oswalt Kolle
Oswalt Kolle was a German sex educator, who became famous during the late 1960s and early 1970s for his numerous pioneering books and films on human sexuality. His work was translated into all major languages, while his films found an audience of 140 million worldwide. In his 1997 book Open to...

(1928– )
Vern Bullough
Vern Bullough
Vern Leroy Bullough was an American historian and sexologist.He was a distinguished professor emeritus at the State University of New York , an Outstanding Professor in the California State University, a past president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, past Dean of natural and...

(1928–2006)
William Simon (1930–2000)
John Gagnon
John Gagnon
Dr. John Gagnon of the State University of New York at Stony Brook is a sociologist and sexologist. Gagnon and William S. Simon developed the concept of sexual scripts, which posits that a person's sexual behavior and experience of that behavior is influenced by their subjective understanding of...

(1931– )
Edward Eichel (1932– )
Fritz Klein
Fritz Klein
Fred "Fritz" Klein was an American sex researcher, psychiatrist, inventor of the Klein Sexual Orientation Grid and author. He was also a pioneering bisexual rights activist, who was an important figure in the modern LGBT rights movement.- Life and career :Klein was born in Vienna, Austria, to...

(1932–2006)
Milton Diamond
Milton Diamond
Milton Diamond is a retired professor of anatomy and reproductive biology at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa. He has had a very long and productive career in the study of human sexuality...

(1934– )
Erwin J. Haeberle
Erwin J. Haeberle
Erwin J. Haeberle is a German social scientist and sexologist.Haeberle was born on 30 March 1936 in Dortmund, Germany. From 1956 - 1963 he studied drama, German, English literature, and French literature at the University of Cologne, University of Freiburg, University of Glasgow, and University of...

(1936– )
Gunter Schmidt
Gunter Schmidt
Gunter Schmidt is a German sexologist, psychotherapist and social psychologist.Schmidt was director of the section for sexual research in the clinic of the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf...

(1938– )
Rolf Gindorf
Rolf Gindorf
Rolf Gindorf is a German sexologist. He is also a member of Mensa.-Life and work:Originally a graduate from a language school , Dr. Gindorf first worked as a translator...

(1939– )
Volkmar Sigusch
Volkmar Sigusch
Volkmar Sigusch is a German sexologist, physician and sociologist. He was from 1973 to 2006 director of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft [Institute for Sexual Science] at the clinic of the Goethe-University in Frankfurt am Main....

(1940– )
Dorree Lynn (1941– )
Martin Dannecker
Martin Dannecker
Martin Dannecker is a German sexologist and author.Dannecker was born in Oberndorf am Neckar. After his school, he studied Industriekaufmann, and later, he studied as an actor at a theatre school in Stuttgart. During this time, Dannecker came out and started to read literature on homosexuality...

(1942– )
Shere Hite
Shere Hite
Shere Hite is an American-born German sex educator and feminist. Her sexological work has focused primarily on female sexuality. Hite builds upon biological studies of sex by Masters and Johnson and by Alfred Kinsey...

(1943– )
Ray Blanchard
Ray Blanchard
Ray Milton Blanchard is an American-Canadian sexologist, best known for his research studies on pedophilia, gender dysphoria, and sexual orientation. He has also published research studies on phallometry and several paraphilias, including transvestism and autoerotic asphyxia.-Education and...

(1945– )
Gilbert Herdt
Gilbert Herdt
Gilbert H. Herdt is Professor of Human Sexuality Studies and Anthropology and a Founder of the Department of Sexuality Studies and National Sexuality Resource Center at San Francisco State University.-Biography:...

(1949– )
Kenneth Zucker
Kenneth Zucker
Kenneth J. Zucker is a Jewish American-Canadian psychologist and sexologist, and head of the child and adolescent gender identity clinic at Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. Based on his collaboration with Susan Bradley, Zucker is considered an international authority in the field...

(1950– )

External links

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