A Subversive Sexual Ambiguity

By Muriel Salle
English

In the second half of the xixth century, the question of sexual ambiguity worries doctors who, strangely enough, demonstrate a strong interest in the matter, despite the scarcity of such occurrences. In the double theoretical framework of positivism and evolutionism, they develop a renewed reflection on the subject, which betrays their anxieties at the same time as its provides their definition of the masculine and of the feminine.

Keywords

  • hermaphroditism
  • teratology
  • sexual difference
  • history of medicine
  • xixth century