Havelock Ellis

Henry Havelock Ellis (February 2, 1859 - July 8, 1939), known as Havelock Ellis, was a British physician, sexual psychologist and social reformer. His work on human sexuality had challenged Victorian taboos on sexual behavior, contributing toward the demystification of sexual behavior in general. In his pursuit of studying human sexuality, Ellis studied medicine at St Thomas' Hospital, from 1881 to 1889. He opened the way for the later researchers, such as Alfred Kinsey.

Life

Havelock Ellis was born at Croydon, south of London, the son of Edward Peppin Ellis and Susannah Mary Wheatley. His father was a sea captain; his mother, the daughter of a sea captain, and many other relatives lived on or near the sea. At seven years of age his father took him on one of his voyages, to Australia and Peru. After his return Ellis went to a fairly good school, the French and German College near Wimbledon, and afterward attended a school in Mitcham.

In April 1875, Ellis left London on his father's ship for Australia, and soon after his arrival in Sydney obtained a position as a master at a private school. It was however discovered that he had had no training for this position, so he was forced to leave this post. He became a tutor for a family living a few miles from Carcoar. He spent a happy year there, doing a lot of reading, and then obtained a position as a master at a grammar school in Grafton. After the school’s headmaster had died, Ellis carried on the school for a year, but was too young and inexperienced to do the job successfully. At the end of the year, he returned to Sydney, completed his teacher’s training, and was given charge of two government part-time elementary schools, one at Sparkes Creek and the other at Junction Creek.

Ellis returned to England in April 1879. He decided to take up the study of human sexuality and felt the best step to qualify for that was as a medical doctor. He studied medicine at St Thomas' Hospital, from 1881 to 1889. At the same time he started to work for the newspaper Westminster Review, editing its theological and religion section. After receiving his M.D. in 1889, Ellis practiced medicine for a short time, but did not have interest to work as a physician.

In 1883, Ellis joined The Fellowship of the New Life, a socialist debating group established by Edith Nesbit and Hubert Bland. The group later became known as the Fabian Society. Among the members were social reformers such as Edward Carpenter George Bernard Shaw, Sidney Webb and Beatrice Webb, Graham Wallas, and Walter Crane.

In 1887 Ellis became editor of the Mermaid Series of reprints of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. Among the authors who worked on this project were Arthur Symons (1865-1945) and A.C. Swinburne (1837-1909). Ellis published his first works of nonfiction in the Contemporary Science Series, which he edited until 1914.

In November 1891, at the age of 32, Ellis married the English writer and proponent of women's rights, Edith Lees. From the beginning, their marriage was unconventional (Edith Ellis was openly lesbian), and at the end of the honeymoon, Ellis went back to his bachelor rooms in Paddington, while she lived at Fellowship House. Their "open marriage" was the central subject in Ellis's autobiography, My Life (1939). None of Ellis's four sisters ever married.

Ellis published in 1894 his famous Man and Woman, which was translated into many languages. Between 1897 and 1910 he wrote his masterwork, Studies in the Psychology of Sex, published in six volumes. The seventh volume was published in 1928. His Sexual Inversion (1897) was the most controversial of his works, and was banned from sale, pronouncing as obscene.

The last years of his life Ellis spent in retirement near Ipswich, is Suffolk. He died on July 8, 1939 in Washbrook, England.

Work

Like some other members of the Fabian Society, Ellis was a supporter of sexual liberation. His personal experiences, including his unsuccessful marriage, love for another woman, and his sexual problems, led him toward intense interest in human sexuality. In his first major work, Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Ellis explored sexual relations from a biological and multicultural perspective. Ellis was mostly interested in the typical sexual behavior, but he also wrote on homosexuality, masturbation, and other sexual practices. He tried to demystify human sexuality. He, for example, described masturbation as something normal, and had assured his readers that it did not lead to serious illness.

Second volume of his Studies in the Psychology of Sex - Sexual Inversion - was the first English medical text book on homosexuality. In it Ellis described some 80 cases of homosexual males, both men and boys. Ellis did not consider homosexuality to be a disease, immoral, or a crime. He assumed that same-sex love transcends age as well as gender taboos, as seven of the twenty one examples in the book were of intergenerational relationships.

Although the term “homosexual” is attributed to Ellis, he wrote in 1897:

“Homosexual” is a barbarously hybrid word, and I claim no responsibility for it.” (Sexual Inversion, 1897)

Studies in the Psychology of Sex stirred serious controversy; it was away too liberal for the conservative Victorian society. Ellis even faced a trial for obscenity, which he eventually lost. His book was banned from publishing in Britain. However, an American publisher published the book with a slight change. The Evolution of Modesty, originally written after the Sexual Inversion, became the first book in the series while the later book was published as the second volume.

Ellis also advocated birth control and argued that women should enjoy their sex lives.

Ellis was a supporter of eugenics, which he wrote about in his book on social hygiene. He believed that eugenics, an “art of Good Breeding”, was necessary for the human race to grow healthy. Ellis did not condemn Nazi sterilization program, and believed that they were based on scientific premises. Other psychologically important concepts developed by Ellis include autoerotism and narcissism, both of which were later taken on by Sigmund Freud.

Ellis also wrote on other topics, including hygiene, dreams, genius, conflict, art, literature, and the examination of nineteenth century. He published books on Henrik Ibsen, Walt Whitman, Leo Tolstoy, Casanova, and Friedrich Nietzsche.

According to Ellis in My Life (1939), his friends were much amused at his being considered an expert on sex, considering the fact that he suffered from impotence until the age of 60. Many believe that he had never had sexual intercourse, either with a woman or a man.

On the family he wrote:

”The family only represents one aspect, however important aspect, of a human being's functions and activities...A life is beautiful and ideal, or the reverse, only when we have taken into our consideration the social as well as the family relationship” (Little Essays on Love and Virtue, 1922)

Legacy

Ellis’s work greatly contributed toward the demystification of sexual behavior. It contributed toward the study of sexuality from the scientific perspective, bringing the change in public attitude about sex in general. He pointed out that sexual behavior is the most elemental of all human behavior, and that taboos that surrounded it were created by people’s ignorance about this important aspect of their lives. Ellis’s work paved the way to the surveys of Alfred Kinsey and other modern researchers of human sexuality.

Publications

• Ellis, Havelock H. 1894. Man and Woman: A Study of Secondary and Tertiary Sexual Characteristics. London: The Walter Scott Pub. Co.
• Ellis, Havelock H. 1911. The World of Dreams. Houghton Mifflin
• Ellis, Havelock H. 1919. The Philosophy of Conflict, and Other Essays in War-Time. Ayer Co Pub. ISBN 0836915682
• Ellis, Havelock H. 1923. The Dance of Life. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company
• Ellis, Havelock H. 1968 (original published in 1921). On Life and Sex: Essays of Love and Virtue. Signet. ISBN 0451022033
• Ellis, Havelock H. 1970 (original published in 1934). My Confessional. Books for Libraries Press. ISBN 0836919181
• Ellis, Havelock H. 1993 (original published in 1939). My Life: Autobiography of Havelock Ellis. Ams Press Inc. ISBN 0404200877
• Ellis, Havelock H. 2001 (original published in 1906). Erotic Symbolism, the Mechanism of Detumescence, the Psychic State in Pregnancy (Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5). University Press of the Pacific. ISBN 0898755921
• Ellis, Havelock H. 2006 (original published in 1916). Essays in War-Time (Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene). IndyPublish. ISBN 1428022538
• Ellis, Havelock H. 2007 (original published in 1897). Sexual Inversion (Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2). BiblioBazaar. ISBN 1426472765
• Ellis, Havelock H. 2007 (original published in 1900). The Evolution of Modesty, the Phenomena of Sexual Periodicity, Auto-Erotism (Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1). BiblioBazaar. ISBN 1426472757
• Ellis, Havelock H. 2007 (original published in 1903). Analysis of the Sexual Impulse, Love and Pain, the Sexual Impulse in Women (Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3). BiblioBazaar. ISBN 1426472773
• Ellis, Havelock H. 2007 (original published in 1905). Sexual Selection in Man (Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4). BiblioBazaar. ISBN 1426472781
• Ellis, Havelock H. 2007 (original published in 1910). Sex in Relation to Society (Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6). Kessinger Publishing, LLC. ISBN 1432504452
• Ellis, Havelock H. 2007 (original published in 1922). Little Essays of Love and Virtue. Dodo Press. ISBN 1406524840

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Brome, Vincent. 1979. Havelock Ellis, philosopher of sex: a biography. Law Book Co of Australasia. ISBN 0710000197
• Calder-Marshall, Arthur. 1960. The sage of sex; a life of Havelock Ellis. New York: Putnam.
• Collis, John S. 1959. Havelock Ellis, Artist of Life: a Study of His Life and Works. William Sloane Associates
• Grosskurth, Phyllis.1980. Havelock Ellis: A Biography. New York: Knopf. ISBN 0394501500
• Henry Havelock Ellis. Retrieved on July 13, 2007, <http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/havelock.htm>
• Henry Havelock Ellis. On BookRags, <http://www.bookrags.com>. Retrieved on July 13, 2007, <http://www.bookrags.com/biography/havelock-ellis/>
• Nottingham, Chris. 1999. The Pursuit of Serenity: Havelock Ellis and the New Politics. Amsterdam University Press. ISBN 9053563865
• Robinson, Paul A. 1976. The modernization of sex: Havelock Ellis, Alfred Kinsey, William Masters, and Virginia Johnson. New York: Harper & Row. ISBN: 0060135832

External links

• The Dance of Life by Havelock Ellis
• Essays in War-Time by Havelock Ellis
• Henry Havelock Ellis - Biography
• Henry Havelock Ellis – Biography on BookRags
• Quotes - Some quotes by Ellis
• Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 by Havelock Ellis
• Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 by Havelock Ellis
• Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 by Havelock Ellis
• Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 by Havelock Ellis

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