Chapter 20 Chapter 20 Paranoid Sex Theory

The pseudoscience on sexuality is wide-ranging and grotesque, and understandably so.Almost every aspect of sex has been examined by paranoid biologists. Consider, for example, the question of how the sexes actually happen.Theosophists and Sophist anthropologists believed that the earliest "races" were hermaphrodites, male and female combined in one individual (a theory defended by Aristophanes in Plato's Treatises modern mysticism).William Smith, the British engineer who invented expert politics, published an obscure book in 1927 whose title proposed a diametrically opposed theory: Are Men and Women Descended from Different Animals? "

The famous British anti-feminist Arabella Keneally set out to address this question in 1934 in her book The Human Spinning Top.The subtitle of the book is, "Consideration of the gyroscopic rotation of the earth as a function of the evolution of life on Earth sheds light on the phenomenon of sex: the origin and development of sex, and its significance in evolution." Miss Kinilli sets out her argument in a marathon prologue: "Since malleable clay can be molded into all sorts of well-proportioned three-dimensional shapes and erected vertically on the little potter's wheel of the pottery industry, then , on the potter's wheel of this great earth that has undergone creation and evolution, the bioplastic matter on the earth is also molded into countless different biological individuals, with gradually complex shapes and vastly different structures, from more and more complex upright postures Seen from the outside, they are also erected gradually in the vertical direction. In view of this, I boldly base my argument on the universal gravitation of the great Newton, rather than on the later Einstein's theory."

According to Keenely, the universe presents an androgynous aspect, from the lowly atoms to the high-level galaxies.In fact, masculine and feminine are the warp and weft of the fabric of the universe.She also believed that northern races were masculine and southern races effeminate (somewhat due to the rotational motion of the earth), and that the right side of each body was more masculine than the left.Her book is filled with beautiful photographs of giraffes, fish, dogs, camels, spiral nebulae, crabs and spinning tops.There is an interesting section in the book about her experiments with telepathy.She writes, "Years ago, during my engagement to a man I loved deeply, we communicated our thoughts and feelings telepathically with each other. It was as natural as breathing."

Odd books and articles about the relative superiority of the sexes are another type of interesting literature.It ranges from early work arguing that women are inherently inferior (smaller brain sizes and the like) to an article in the Saturday Review by anthropologist Ashley Montagu on March 1, 1952, Proof that women are born superior.As to whether women's efforts to achieve equality with men are signs of progress or regress, there has also been a number of unusual writings on the subject, from Arabella Keneally's 1920 attack on feminism in " Feminism and Sexual Differences, until recent works.

Another branch of the pseudoscience of sex is the method of determining the sex of a baby before conception.Folk superstitions on the subject link the sex of the fetus to almost everything (climate, moon phase, diet, relative ages of parents, posture, etc.).Many of these theories have been the subject of academic papers.Aristotle thought the direction of the wind was relevant to this question.Aquinas said he believed that parents could have had the boy or girl they wanted had the fall of Adam and Eve not occurred, but he did not elaborate on the means by which this could be done.In recent years, there has been a theory that an egg on one side of a woman's body produces a male, while an egg on the other side produces a female.This theory really drove experimental work in Europe, but it was later found to be unreliable.

A German sexologist believed that the right testicle and right ovary were male and the left testicle and ovary were female, but he did not specify what would happen if a sperm from the right testicle combined with the egg on the left.Bernal McFadden, who had eight children, six of them girls, subscribed to another German theory that the sex of the children was the opposite of that of the most fervent and fertile of the parents.Other authorities, fathers with more sons, strongly favor the alternative view: that the child is of the same sex as the more energetic parent.There is also a theory that, due to telepathic influences, children are often born of the opposite sex than the father most expects.

Methods of overcoming impotence are also the object of much quasi-scientific research.There are various opinions about the sexual stimulation of a certain food among the people, and an authority can be found for almost every opinion.Foods associated with sex are various, such as eggs and caviar (fish roe); or foods reminiscent of or similar to sexual organs (such as asparagus, celery, onion, bee clams, oatmeal, etc.).There are hundreds of folk remedies and counterfeit medicines for sexual stimulation. The subject of rejuvenation has a long and absurd history.Although there is not a shred of evidence that goat glands, or any other animal glands, can be successfully transplanted into men, John Brinkley "Physician" in Kansas performed them on thousands of innocent old people in the 1920s. This operation made him a millionaire.His clinic in Milford, Kansas, charges as little as $750, but the dissection of a very small goat can cost as much as $1,500.Even the publisher of the "Little Blue Book," the late Haldeman-Julius, was duped by Brinkley.For several years, the publisher advertised for Brinkley in a magazine that was largely revealing of intimate American life, publishing articles praising the doctor.However, Haldeman Julius later realized his mistake and publicly apologized to readers.

After Radio Brinkley's license was revoked, the doctor crossed the Rio Grande from Del Río to buy a radio station in Mexico.There he pretended to perform prostate surgery, but in fact he was peddling a bogus drug.The medicine is nothing but a little blue dye and a little hydrochloric acid.The doctor owns four cars, several yachts and a private jet, which he flies between Del Rio and Little Rock, Arkansas. Shortly before his death in 1937, he founded a hospital in Little Rock and ran for governor of Kansas three times, narrowly losing one to Alf Langdon.Brinkley won thousands of votes in neighboring Oklahoma, but he is not the state's candidate.Even more sensational was the fact that the doctor had donated money to a local fascist organization, William Paley's Silver Shirts.The Brinkley Memorial Chapel in Milford has a moving inscription: "To God and to Jesus, the Son of the Father, for the many blessings that have been given to me, JR Brinkley."

Pseudoscientific works on homosexuality are voluminous and varied, especially in Germany, where there are more eccentric works than in other countries, and they also echo racist works in many ways.For one or another psychological reason, some authors have great prejudice against homosexuals. Some people regard homosexuality as a source of evil in their books.And some other sexual authorities are homosexuals themselves, and they think that homosexuality is a higher way of life, and they also say that most of the great men and women in the world are homosexuals, and only by developing a homosexual society can we achieve cultural perfection. peak.

Homosexual paradoxes run the gamut, from the mystics who believe that the male soul possesses the female body or the female soul possesses the male body, to the scientific-language pundits who find a "homosexual center" in the brain.American author Charles Leland wrote a bizarre book in 1904 called "Sex Change".He believed that the human brain was always subconsciously of the opposite sex.Leland often dreamed of being a woman, so he made a theoretical generalization based on this.Of all the theories about homosexuality, none is more bizarre than Sir Richard Burton's.He believes that there is a zone around the earth, called the "excess zone", and homosexuality is concentrated in this zone.

Of the many strange theories about sexuality, few can be blamed for the views of Oneida founder and Congregationalist John Noyce.Noyce graduated from Dartmouth in 1830 and attended Yale Divinity School for a time.There he came to believe that Christ had returned to earth when Jerusalem fell in AD 70.He expects his disciples to be morally "perfect" from then on.Didn’t the Lord say, “Be perfect”?Noyce returned to his birthplace of Vermont and in 1843 founded an association in the village of Putney called the Putney Perfectionist Cooperative.However, the group's views aroused such fierce local opposition that they had to emigrate to Oneida Bay in Madison County, New York, in 1848.In a few years, this immigrant team has grown to hundreds of people. Noyce called the organization of this immigrant caravan "Biblical Communism."In this organization, all property is owned by the public.Sexual life in this group follows two principles: male abstinence and promiscuity.The founder believed that each member of the colony should love the other equally, and that fidelity to marriage was a selfish sin.Therefore, sexual relations between any man and woman are allowed as long as the need arises.On the other hand, reproduction is strictly controlled according to the laws of eugenics, in order to improve the race of the group.This was before the term "eugenics" appeared.Noyce called it "excellent breeding."Apparently, his immigration team was the world's first practical experiment in applied eugenics.In this respect, Noyce should perhaps be highly commended by Havelock Ellis and Shaw.Noyce's pamphlet, Male Abstinence, was undoubtedly the first to acknowledge the fact that sexual pleasure and childbearing were two separate things, which could be separated for the benefit of the village community. This village community has flourished for more than 30 years, publishing a large number of promotional materials such as books, pamphlets and periodicals. Its income mainly depends on the manufacture of high-quality steel hunting traps.Later, silver plating prospered as a business, and finally developed into what is now known as the "mura tableware industry."The immigration team eventually split into factions, and Noyce was forced to flee to Canada. In 1897, the experiment officially came to an end. Another modern authority on sexuality is the German psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich, who now lives in the United States.Reich considers hypersexuality (both male and female) to have a more important place.According to Reich, no psychopath can experience full and normal hypersexuality.In his most famous book, "The Role of Hypersexuality," he wrote, "...the psychotic suffers only from a lack of adequate, repeated sexual gratification." From this point of view, hypersexuality has become The best sign of a patient's mental health, and, consequently, attaining a true "Reichian hypereroticism" (as some of his followers put it) is one of the main goals of Reichian therapy. Given that Reich has gained a devoted following in recent years, chiefly among the literary avant-garde in New York and California, his theories should be expounded more broadly.Some of his notable discoveries are discussed in the next chapter.