Universal Fetishism?

Emancipation and Race in Magnus Hirschfeld’s 1930 Sexological Visual Atlas (1930)

Abstract

The German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935) was both an important advocate for the public acceptance of sexual variety as well as one of the first and most influential theorizers in the field of “deviant” sexual identities and behaviors. This paper engages with the intriguing kaleidoscopic visual exposition of Hirschfeld’s sexological worldview in the 1930 visual atlas or Bilderteil, part of his magnum opus Geschlechtskunde. On the basis of an analysis of Hirschfeld’s textual and visual discourse and a close reading of a number of images used by him, it examines how he made a visual argument to underline the universality of the sexological laws that he had formulated. By comparing Europeans and non-Westerners, Hirschfeld intended to prove the universality, and thus normality, of fetishistic desires. The analysis lays bare the interdependence of Hirschfeld’s progressive ideas and methodology with racial stereotypes and structures of colonialism.