Taking Prisoners: Havelock Ellis, Sigmund Freud, and the Construction of Homosexuality, 1897–1951

SUMMARY

This paper addresses the efforts of both Havelock Ellis and Sigmund Freud to posit a theory of homosexuality, and especially considers their efforts to (re-)negotiate each other's theories. Its central premise derives from the sociology of scientific knowledge: that it is not what is written, but the way that what is written is treated by ensuing experts, that makes knowledge. In the case study used in this paper, Ellis and Freud struggle to posit what they consider to be the proper model for understanding homosexual desire. They utilize aspects of each other's work, but are careful not to appear to be following, each other too closely. Such a struggle to establish different schools of thought is exemplified by the informal negotiations engaged in when a student, Joseph Wortis, made contact with both Freud and Ellis. Again following sociology of scientific knowledge precepts, these informal negotiations (contained in published and archival letters) are used to show how knowledge claims are constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed by the actors who have stakes in the outcome of what is to be regarded as knowledge in the relevant communities.

Havelock Ellis, Sigmund Freud, Joseph Wortis, homosexuality, sociology of scientific knowledge, sex psychology, psychoanalysis