BPS Core Textbooks Series

Developed in collaboration with the British Psychological Society

Chapter 4 – Remembering Herculine: The Looping Effects of Sexuality

Chapter Summary

This chapter critically explores how sexuality emerged as a central concept in psychology, medicine, and society thought during the second half of the nineteenth century. Moving beyond a biological understanding of sex, the chapter traces the historical construction of sexuality as a site of identity, regulation, and scientific interest. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality (1978), it challenges the assumption that sexuality was simply repressed in the Victorian era, instead highlighting the production of sexuality through the proliferations of discourse, classification, and control.

The chapter introduces key sexologists such as Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Magnus Hirschfeld and Havelock Ellis, whose work transformed sexual behaviours into medical and legal categories. These scientific frameworks are contrasted with the erotic arts, artistic and spiritual traditions (ars erotica, e.g. the Kama Sutra) that understood sexuality to be a form of expression and experience rather than as a potential pathology.

Building on the distinction between natural and human kinds, the chapter introduces Ian Hacking’s concept of the looping effect. The chapter concludes by showing how scientific classifications of sexuality shaped, and were reshaped by, the individuals they described, illustrating the complex interplay between knowledge, power, and identity in psychological thought.

Chapter 4 – Quiz

  • Chapter 4 – Flashcards

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  • Chapter 4 – Key Readings

    Brinkmann, S. (2005). Human kinds and looping effects in psychology: Foucauldian and hermeneutic perspectives. Theory & Psychology, 15(6), 769-791. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354305059332 

    Csányi, G. (2025), Demography, pleasure, state, and market in socialist sexology: Medical-sexological and sexual-psychological public discourse in socialist Hungary through counselling books from a social-political perspective. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 61(1): e70015. https://doi.org/10.1002/jhbs.70015 

    Fischer, N., & Seidman, S. (2016). Introducing the new sexuality studies : 3rd edition (Third edition). Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. 

    Foucault, M. (1990). The history of sexuality. Vol. 1, The will to knowledge. Penguin.  

    Hacking, I. (1986). Making up people. In T.C. Heller, M. Sosna & D.E. Wellbery (Eds.), Reconstructing individualism: Autonomy, Individuality and the self in Western thought (pp.222-236). Stanford: Stanford University Press.  

    Hacking, I. (1995). The looping effects of human kinds. In Sperber, D., Premack, D., & Premack, A. J. (Eds), Causal cognition: A multidisciplinary debate. Clarendon Press. 

    Healy-Cullen, S., & Morison, T. (2024). Extending sexual scripting theory through critical discursive psychology: An analytical approach to explore the performance of sexual identities. Theory & Psychology, 34(6), 757-776. https://doi.org/10.1177/09593543241282330 

    Leng, K. (2015). The personal is scientific: Women, gender, and the production of sexological knowledge in Germany and Austria, 1900–1931. History of Psychology, 18(3), 238–251. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0039519 

    Leng, K., & Sutton, K. (2020). Histories of sexology today: Reimagining the boundaries of scientia sexualis. History of the Human Sciences, 34(1), 3-9. https://doi.org/10.1177/0952695120927172 

    Marrow, E. (2023). “Why should other people be the judge”: The codification of assessment criteria for gender-affirming care, 1970s–1990s. History of Psychology, 26(3), 210–246. https://doi.org/10.1037/hop0000238 

    McCarthy, T. (1981), Freud and the problem of sexuality. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences. 17: 332-339. https://doi.org/10.1002/1520-6696(198107)17:3<332::AID-JHBS2300170304>3.0.CO;2-I 

    Rutherford, A., & Pettit, M. (2015). Feminism and/in/as psychology: The public sciences of sex and gender. History of Psychology, 18(3), 223–237. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0039533 

    Weeks, J. (2009). Sexuality (3rd ed). Routledge. 

  • Chapter 4 – Reflective Questions

    1. How does Michel Foucault’s critique of the ‘repressive hypothesis’ change the way we understand Victorian sexuality? 
    2. In what ways did early sexologists like Krafft-Ebing and Havelock Ellis contribute to both the medicalisation and normalisation of sexuality? 
    3. What is the difference between a natural kind and a human kind, and why is this distinction important when studying sexuality? 
    4. What does Ian Hacking’s concept of the ‘looping effect’ reveal about the relationship between classification and self-identity? 
    5. How do artistic and spiritual traditions (such as ars erotica and the Kama Sutra) offer alternative understandings of sexuality compared to scientific sexology?

  • Chapter 4 – Weblinks

    Michel Foucault – The History of Sexuality Explained (YouTube)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggum7zG4DeM

    This is a 34 minute lecture delivered by Dr Stephen Hicks of Rockford University, USA which discusses the original book by Michel Foucault, including reading through sections of the text and discussing the theoretical and cultural implications of it. It uses accessible language throughout, making the lecture not intimidating for students new to these concepts.

    Ian Hacking – Looping Effects of Human Kinds (University of Oslo Lecture)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp7_iB9tsT8

    This 3-minute video gives a clear and easy-to-understand explanation of Ian Hacking’s discussions of the difference between nature and culture. The lecture is presented using illustrations and includes information about Hacking himself as well, adding interesting context to the theory being discussed.

    Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (The Institute for Sexual Science) – Wikipedia Overview

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institut_für_Sexualwissenschaft

    This page gives an excellent overview of Magnus Hirschfeld’s work on early sexuality research and queer sexual health activism and accessibility, which was subsequently destroyed by the Nazi party during the Second World War. It provides vast amounts of opportunities for further reading, and all information is presented in a clear and accessible way.

    The Kama Sutra of Vastanya – Online free-to-access upload of text in its entirety

    This site is a free-to-access upload of the entire text of the Kama Sutra, as translated by Sir Richard Burton (1883), with a full chapter index to enable easy navigation of the book. The site includes footnotes throughout and provides an accessible way to read and understand the Kama Sutra for students interested in this incredibly influential text.

    Loop de Loops and Deepities of Sex and Gender, with Colin Wright

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L5HyJxKDW8&t=3411s

    This video is a 1-hour episode from a podcast called ‘Gender: A Wider Lens’, and this episode involves the hosts discussion with Dr. Colin Wright, an evolutionary biologist and advisor for the Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine who has done extensive research on the biology of sex and sex differences, alongside ideas about gender identity. The episode discusses ideas like if sex is binary, transgender health and provides an insight in Dr. Wright’s career in this field.

    The History of Sexuality – Wikipedia entry discussing Foucault’s study of sexuality

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_Sexuality

    This pages gives a detailed discussion of the contents and theory included in Foucault’s published works discussing the emergence of ‘sexuality’ as a discursive concept, and gives some contextual grounding for the different phases of publishing that Foucault used.