The evolution of the questionnaire in German sexual science: A methodological narrative

Pretsell, Douglas

Abstract

The sexological research questionnaire, which became a central research tool in twentieth-century sexology, has a methodological-developmental history stretching back into mid-nineteenth century Germany.
It was the product of a prolonged, disruptive encounter between sexual scientists constructing sexual case studies along with newly assertive homosexual men supplying self-penned sexual autobiographies. Homosexual autobiographies were intensely interesting to these men of science but lacked the brevity, structure, and discipline of a formal clinical case study. In the closing decades
of the century, efforts to harness and regularize this self-penned material resulted in a series of methodological adaptations.
By the turn of the century this process had resulted in the first use of a formal sexual research questionnaire.

Citation

Pretsell, D. (2020). The evolution of the questionnaire in German sexual science: A methodological narrative. History of Science, 58(3), 326-349. https://doi.org/10.1177/0073275319881014

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Online Publication Date: Oct 21, 2019
• Publication Date: 2020-09
• Deposit Date: Jan 17, 2025
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 20, 2025
• Journal: History of Science
• Print ISSN: 0073-2753
• Electronic ISSN: 1753-8564
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 58
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 326-349
• Series ISSN: 0073-2753
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0073275319881014
• Keywords: Gay, homosexual, sexology, sexuality, autobiography, case study, urning, Germany, sexual inversion
• Public URL: https://keele-repository.worktribe.com/output/1048841
• Publisher URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0073275319881014