Sex, Masculinity, and the "Yellow Peril": Christian von Ehrenfels' Program for a Revision of the European Sexual Order, 1902-1910

Abstract

Around the turn of the twentieth century European middle-class men were caught in a complex set of psychological dilemmas.' On the one hand, the social, legal, and economic disabilities faced by women gave middle-class men extraordinary opportunities for the sexual exploitation of women and girls, both within and outside marriage. On the other hand, both Christian tradition and a burgeoning feminist movement were leveling an unprecedented degree of public criticism at men's sexual behavior; both, in fact, tended to regard men's sexual irresponsibility and aggression as the central social evil of the age.' Hard drinking, sexual humor, violence, and frequenting brothels appear to have been integral parts of masculine identity in many areas, particularly in cities and at universities. But the middle class defined itself in part by elaborating, in opposition to the alleged dissolution and intemperance of the aristocracy and the lower classes, its own ethic of domesticity, sobriety, respectability, and self-control. This ethic was strengthened by the advance of medical knowledge regarding the long-term impact of sexually transmitted diseases, which underpinned a widespread perception that men's sexual indiscipline was a profound threat to the physical health of society at large, and by the intensifying suppression and stigmatization of male physical and sexual aggression through legal controls and sanctions.2 At the same time, there was intense concern over the decline of the European birthrate, as the growth of mass armies and imperialism made population more than ever the measure of national power. But middle-class families were increasingly forced to limit their fertility if they wished to maintain their standard of living.3 Masculine tradition demanded that men be independent, entrepreneurial, risk-takers, aggressive. But a growing proportion of middle-class men were white-collar employees and civil servants.4 Respectable culture demanded that men display emotional autonomy, self-reliance, or even self-containment; and it defined masculinity above all as rationality and