Early Nineteenth-Century Sexual Radicalism: Heinrich Hössli and the Liberals of His Day

This essay argues that Hössli’s 1836/8 apology for male-male love, Eros, grows out of early nineteenth-century liberal and radical thought. He is able to connect demands for the separation of church and state, the emancipation of the Jews, and the extension of rights to women to the sexual emancipation of the body.

“Early Nineteenth-Century Sexual Radicalism: Heinrich Hössli and the Liberals of His Day,” in After the History of Sexuality: German Narratives of Lust and Longing, ed. by Helmut Puff, Dagmar Herzog and Scott Spector (New York: Berghahn Books, 2012), pp. 76-89.