Havelock Ellis

Havelock Ellis (February 2, 1859-July 8, 1939) was a British doctor, sexual psychologist and social reformer.

He studied medicine at St Thomas' Hospital, although never had a regular medical practice; he joined the Fellowship of the New Life in 1883, meeting other social reformers Edward Carpenter and George Bernard Shaw. In 1891, when still a virgin, Ellis married Edith Lees. He was interested in sexual liberation and wrote the seven volume Studies in the Psychology of Sex between 1897 and 1928. Until 1935 this work was only legally available to the medical profession.

His Sexual Inversion, the first English medical text book on homosexuality, co-authored with John Addington Symonds, described the sexual relations of homosexual men, something that Ellis did not consider to be a disease or a crime. A bookseller was prosecuted in 1897 for stocking it. Other psychologically important concepts developed by Ellis include auto-erotism and narcissism, both of which were later taken on by Sigmund Freud.

Ellis was a supporter of Eugenics which he wrote about in The Task of Social Hygiene.

"Eventually, it seems evident, a general system, whether private or public, whereby all personal facts, biological and mental, normal and morbid, are duly and systematically registered, must become inevitable if we are to have a real guide as to those persons who are most fit, or most unfit to carry on the race."

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See also: Havelock Ellis, 1859, 1883, 1897, 1928, 1935, 1939, Britain, Edith Lees, Edward Carpenter