Ellis, Havelock (1859-1939)

From Encyclopedia of Sex and Sexuality

British physician and author, Havelock Ellis was a groundbreaker in sexual investigation and discussion. Before Masters and Johnson there was Kinsey, before Kinsey there was Freud, and before Freud there was Ellis. By the time of his death he was overshadowed by Freud’s more sweeping work, which focused less on physiology and more on the whole sexual human being. Ellis’s major work, the seven-volume The Psychology of Sex, came out a single volume at a time from 1897 to 1928. The first volume was banned in Britain; the judge called it “filth masquerading as science.” Later volumes were published in the United States and issued to the medical profession only—making it a great prize for young readers to get hold of and share! Ellis frightened many people by indicating that various sexual behaviors then considered “freakish” and “abnormal” were much more widespread than they wanted to believe. Subsequent researchers, facing much less opposition in later times, validated his findings.