|
|
Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825
- 1895)
|
|
|
|
Names Index:
A B
C D
E F
G H
I J
K L
M N
O P
Q R
S T
U V
W X
Y Z
| Authors
Index | Scholars
Index |
|
 The
Riddle of 'Man-Manly' Love : The Pioneering Work on Male
Homosexuality
by
Karl Heinrich Ulrichs
A century before Stonewall and the rise of the
modern gay and lesbain movement, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs
(1825-1895), lawyer, classical scholar, and openly gay man, was
boldly and publicly defending the rights of homosexuals. Between
1864 and 1880, he published a series of twelve tracts, which he
collectively titled Forschungen uber das Rathsel der
mannmannlichen Liebe (Research on the Riddle of
"Man-Manly" Love). Much more than a seminal work on
the causes of homosexuality, Ulrichs' monumental study deeply
infuenced an entire generation of sex researchers, including
Richard von Krafft-Ebing and Havelock Ellis. Now for the first
time this pioneering work is available in English, translated by
Michael A. Lombardi-Nash.
In The Riddle of "Man-Manly" Love,
Ulrichs surveys literary, historical, physiological, and other
data in his argument that homosexuality is not a disease or a sin,
but perfectly natural, and that the strict line of defferentiation
between men and women has bee overemphasized. Turning to the
science of embryology, Ulrichs contends that Urnings (his term for
male homosexuals) result from a crossing of the male and female
generative principles during the first curcial stages of fetal
development. Thus Urnings are essentially "male" in
body, "female" in desire, and different, therefore, from
Dionings (i.e., hetersexual men). Homosexuality (and, with that,
hermaphroditism and bisexuality) is the work of nature, hence
innate and unavoidable.
Volume I contains the first six books (five of
which Ulrichs published under a pseudonym) and Part One of the
seventh. Here Ulrichs appeals for equal treatment of Urnings in
relegion and law, and adduces cogent evidence that their drives
are inborn. He discusses the various grades of Uranism (male
homosexuality), from the most "feminine" in
characteristics to the more "masculine."
In volume II, covering books 7 to 12, Ulrichs
focuses on religious, social, and legal sanctions against Urnings,
and how intolerance leads to emotional dysfunction, ruined lives,
and suicide.
Ulrichs' is a voice in the desert finally
breaking the silence, whose impassioned plea for tolerance and
increase understanding can still be heard today. While these two
magnificent volumes may be read with pleasure and profit by all, The
Riddle of "Man-Manly" Love provides to social and
sex researchers and educators a scholarly, exhaustive, and
indispensable reference work on homosexuality from prehistory to
the nineteenth century.
|
|
From the Knitting Circle
Excerpt:
Born 28th. August, 1825, in Aurich, Hanover; died
14th. July, 1895, in L'Aquila, Italy.
German lawyer, writer, and gay rights
campaigner.
He wrote using the pseudonym Numa Numantius
until he dropped it in 1868.
He studied law at the universities of Göttingen
and Berlin (1844-47) and became a junior attorney in the civil
service of the Kingdom of Hanover. In 1854 he left state service
to become a free-lance journalist and private secretary of a
representative to the German Confederation in Frankfurt am Main.
In Frankfurt he used embryology to develop a
theory of homosexuality that he presented in a series of five
booklets (1864-65) titled Forschungen über das Rätsel der mannmännlichen
Liebe (Researches Into the Riddle of Love Between Men). This he
later extended to twelve booklets with the last appearing in 1879.
He assumed that love directed
towards a man must be feminine and used the Latin phrase anima
muliebris virili corpore inclusa (a female soul trapped in a
male body), and he coined the term 'Urning' (Uranian) for such a
person. This was a reference to Plato's Symposium in
which Pausanias postulates two gods of love, the Uranian
(Heavenly) Eros who governs principled male love, whereas the
Pandernian (Vulgar) Eros governs heterosexual or purely licentious
relations. Károly
Mária Kertbeny later invented alternative words such as Homosexualität...
|
|
Celebration 2001 introduces gay people young and
old to the heritage that Ulrichs said is rightfully theirs. Let
Gay people imbed it in their conscience that Gay rights have been
so hard-won, beginning with one lone voice seemingly calling in
the desert. Now, Gay people have a rich tradition of such voices,
and it all began with Ulrichs.
Excerpt:
...the first known out-of-the-closet Gay
activist. He was a risk taker, and risk taking, as they say,
separates the men from the boys. To protect his family, in 1864 he
used the pseudonym Numa Numantius but dropped it in 1868 when he
came out. With reference to Venus Urania, the ninth muse and
mythical Greek god of "Gay" people, Ulrichs coined the
term Uranismus (Uranism), his word for homosexuality, which
included Lesbians ("Urninds"), Gay men, ("Urnings"),
Bisexuals ("Uranodionings"), and Transpersons (Zwitter).
He started the modern Gay Movement by being the first to say
publicly that Uranians are natural, not sinners, diseased, or
criminal. He set a new standard for everyone who followed by
bringing a new, positive approach to bear on what he called the
riddle of nature. From then on he began to change the way people
thought about what is today called same-sex love.
|
|
Written and Compiled by Paul J. Nash Michael
Lombardi-Nash, this extensive, interesting and entertaining site
celebrates the 175th Birthday anniversary of Ulrichs.
|
|
|
|
Names Index:
A B
C D
E F
G H
I J
K L
M N
O P
Q R
S T
U V
W X
Y Z
| Authors
Index | Scholars
Index |
|
|
