Sex And Character: An Investigation Of Fundamental Principles

Otto Weininger (Author), Laura Marcus (Co-author), Daniel Steuer (Coordinator)

Find this book at buch7.de | eurobuch.com | buchhandel.de | books.google.com ASIN=0253344719, Category: Philosophy, Language: E, cover: HC, pages: 496, year: 2005(1903).

A different version (AUTHORISED TRANSLATION FROM THE SIXTH GERMAN EDITION, 1906) of this book is online. One quote from the beginning of the book:

NOTE TO THE SIXTH GERMAN EDITION
(By the German Publisher)

There are few instances in the history of literature in which a work so mature in its scientific purpose and so original in its philosophic aspect as "Sex and Character" has been produced by a student who was at the time of its completion less than thirty years of age. "Sex and Character" was at once accepted by scientific authorities, who had direct knowledge of its subject matter, as a book that demanded respectful consideration, whether or not its conclusions might be accepted. It may at once be admitted that the book is by no means in harmony with contemporary thought. If the conclusions of Weininger should be accepted, discussions concerning the emancipation of women, the relation of women to culture, and the results of sexuality would be deprived of their foundation. In this treatise, we have presented, with all the penetrating acumen of the trained logician, a characterisation of sexual types, "M" (the ideal man), and "W" (the ideal woman). The psychological phenomena are traced back to a final source and the author undertakes to present what he believes to be a definitive solution altogether alien to the field of inquiry wherein the answer has hitherto been sought."

Here are some quotes - how could OW possibly know all this?

p37: "Men when quite young, say under twenty, are attracted by much older women (say those of thirty-five and so on), whilst men (of thirty-five) [with growing age] are attracted by [ever younger] women (much younger than themselves). So also, on the other hand, quite young girls (sweet seventeen) generally prefer much older men, but, later in life, (may marry striplings) [not rarely break marriage with very young men). The whole subject deserves close attention and is both popular and easily noticed."

Text in square brackets shows better or omitted translation from german original. The corresponding german text is
(p43): "Ganz jung, noch nicht 20 Jahre alt, wird man meist durch ältere Frauen (von über 35 Jahren) angezogen, während man mit zunehmendem Alter immer jüngere liebt; ebenso ziehen aber auch (Gegenseitigkeit!) die ganz jungen Mädchen, die »Backfische«, ältere Männer oft jüngeren vor, um später wieder mit ganz jungen Bürschlein nicht selten die Ehe zu brechen. Das ganze Phänomen dürfte viel tiefer wurzeln, als es nach der anekdotenhaften Art aussehen möchte, in der man meist von ihm Notiz nimmt."
p57: "The more femaleness a woman possesses the less will she understand a man, and the sexual characters of a man will have the greater influence on her. This is more than a mere application of the law of sexual attraction, as I have already stated it. So also the more manly a man is the less will he understand women, but the more readily be in- fluenced by them as women. Those men who claim to understand women are themselves very nearly women. Womanish men often know how to treat women much better than manly men. Manly men, except in most rare cases, learn how to deal with women only after long experience, and even then most imperfectly."

p65: Those so-called "women" who have been held up to admiration in the past and present, by the advocates of woman's rights, as examples of what women can do, have almost invariably been what I have described as sexually intermediate forms. The very first of the historical examples, Sappho herself, [...]

p68: The authoress and mathematician, Sonia Kowalevska, like Sappho, had an abnormally scanty growth of hair, still less than is the fashion amongst the poetesses and female students of the present day.

p73: It would be marked, on the one hand, by an increased production of male women, and on the other, by a similar increase in female men. There is strong evidence in favour of such a periodicity; if it occurs it may be associated with the "secessionist taste," which idealised tall, lanky women with flat chests and narrow hips.

p88: "In this connection it may be noted that only the most male youths are addicted to masturbation, and although it is often disputed, I believe that similar vices occur only among the maler of women, and are absent from the female nature."

p88: Here the english translation is missing a lot of text from the german original, starting on p110 with:

"Ich weiß, daß ich hiemit eine Behauptung aufstelle, der schroffe gegenteilige Versicherungen gegenüberstehen. Doch werden sich die scheinbar widersprechenden Erfahrungen alsobald befriedigend erklären.

Zuvor nämlich harrt noch der Kontrektationstrieb von W der Besprechung. Dieser spielt beim Weibe die größte, weileine alleinige Rolle."

and ending on p112 with:
"Was man für Onanie des Weibes ausgegeben hat, sind nicht wie beim Manne Akte mit der immanierenden Tendenz, den Zustand der sexuellen Erregtheit aufzuheben; es sind vielmehr lauter Versuche, ihn herbeizuführen, zu steigern und zu prolongieren. -- Aus der Scheu vor der sexuellen Erregung, einer Scheu, deren Analyse einer Psychologie der Frau eine keineswegs leichte, vielleicht sogar die schwierigste Aufgabe stellt, läßt sich desgleichen mit Sicherheit auf eine große Schwäche in dieser Beziehung schließen."
while in the english translation there is instead only one paragraph (p88), starting with:
"I must now discuss the "uniting" impulse of women, for that plays the chief, if not the sole part in her sexuality."

and ending with

"These differences of habit must not be mistaken for real differences of desire."]
"It can be shown, moreover, that woman is sexually much more excitable (not more sensitive) physiologically than man.

The condition of sexual excitement is the supreme moment of a woman's life."

p90: "Corresponding to true women, there are extremely female men who are to be found always in the apartments of the women, and who are interested in nothing but love and sexual matters. Such men, however, are not the Don Juans."

p91: "And thus it happens that the sexual impulse of the male is eruptive in character and so appears stronger. The real difference between the sexes is that in the male the desire is periodical, in the female continuous."

p92: "This brings me to consider the nature of the female consciousness, and I must take a long ditour to consider it. [...] And so it happens that a man can know about his sexuality, whilst a woman is unconscious of it and can in all good faith deny it, because she is nothing but sexuality, because she is sexuality itself.

It is impossible for women, because they are only sexual to recognise their sexuality, because recognition of anything requires duality."

p95: "A man may see the head of a woman for a moment, and this may make a very strong impression on him, and yet he may be unable to say exactly what he has seen, or, for instance, be able to remember the colour of her hair. The retina must be exposed to the object sufficiently long, if only a fraction of a second, for a photographic impression to be made."

[Ed. note: That's true. I observed it only 2 months ago. I even talked for a whole 15 minutes to a charming, young girl, 23 years old. Afterwards I could neither tell the colour nor the length of her hair! - and I'd not read OWs book before.]

p102: "The male lives consciously, the female lives unconsciously. This is certainly the necessary conclusion for the extreme cases. The woman receives her consciousness from the man; the function to bring into consciousness what was outside it is a sexual function of the typical man with regard to the typical woman, and is a necessary part of his ideal completeness."

See also Soloviev's view: "A cela correspond un caractère spécial de la forme la plus élevée de l'amour chez la femme : l'homme qu'elle a choisi lui apparaît comme son vrai sauveur destiné à lui révéler et à réaliser pour elle le sens de sa vie [...]"

p104: "Talent is hereditary ; it may be the common possession of a whole family (e.g., the Bach family); genius is not transmitted; it is never diffused, but is strictly individual.

Many ill-balanced people, and in particular women, regard genius and talent as identical. Women, indeed, have not the faculty of appreciating genius, although this is not the common view."

p336: As for the higher, platonic love of man, they do not want it; it flatters and pleases them, but it has no significance for them, and if the homage on bended knees lasts too long, Beatrice becomes just as impatient as Messalina.

In coitus lies woman's greatest humiliation, in love her supremest exaltation. Since woman desires coitus and not love, she proves that she wishes to be humiliated and not worshipped. The ultimate opponent of the emancipation of women is woman.

p336: Coitus is immoral because there is no man who does not use woman at such times as a means to an end; for whom pleasure does not, in his own as well as her being, during that time represent the value of mankind.

p347: Sexual union has no place in the idea of mankind, not because ascetism is a duty, but because in it woman becomes the object, the cause, and man does what he will with her, looks upon her merely as a "thing," not as a living human being with an inner, psychic, existence. And so man despises woman the moment coitus is over, and the woman knows that she is despised, even although a few minutes before she thought herself adored.

p347: "There can be no doubt that the men who have really desired the emancipation of women are the men who are not very sexual, who have no great craving for love, who are not very profound, but who are men of noble and spiritual minds. I am not going to try to palliate the erotic motives of man, nor to represent his antipathy to the "emancipated woman" as being in any sense less than it is; it is much easier to go with the majority, than, as Kant did, to climb, painfully and slowly, to the heights of isolation."

p348: "A woman who had really given up her sexual self, who wished to be at peace would be no longer "woman." She would have ceased to be "woman," she would have received the inward and spiritual sign as well as the outward form of regeneration.

Can such a thing be?"