Havelock+Ellis

4/7/2011 ||   **__History of Havelock Ellis __** Henry Havelock Ellis, known as Havelock Ellis, was born on February 2nd 1859 in a town called Croydon, which is south of London. In his young life he moved around from England to Australia due to his father being a ship captain. Ellis attended the French and German College near Wimbledon, and afterward attended a school in Mitcham. He was a British psychologist who studied human sexuality. Ellis was one of the first psychologists of his era to do research on homosexuality. He was also a co-author of the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality in 1897. He did have other publications that dealt with homosexuality, which included the topic of transgender. **__Early Career __**  Henry Ellis travelled widely in Australia and South America due to his father being a sea captain. In his early career years, he was very interested in primary education. He was given the position of headmaster at a few different schools in Australia but did not successes due to the lack of training and experience. Since he did not find many successes in Australia, he decided to leave but he still felt that his failures taught him very valuable lessons. Ellis is quoted stating, “In Australia, I gained health of body, I attained peace of soul, my life task was revealed to me, I was able to decide on a professional vocation, I became an artist in literature. . . these five points covered the whole activity of my life in the world. Some of them I should doubtless have reached without the aid of the Australian environment, scarcely all, and most of them I could never have achieved so completely if chance had not cast me into the solitude of the Liverpool Range." We can see that he begins to try to help people by writing instead of teaching. During this time period he also read “ Life in Nature” by James Hinton, a writer on political, social, religious, and sexual matters. He later recalled that the book sparked a spiritual transformation: "The clash in my inner life was due to what had come to seem to me the hopeless discrepancy of two different conceptions of the universe … The great revelation brought to me by Hinton … was that these two conflicting attitudes are really but harmonious though different aspects of the same unity." Ellis now became convinced that sexual freedom could bring in a new age of happiness for him and the world. At this point of his career, all his passion moved towards medicine and sexuality. He studied at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, but never had a regular medical practice. Still, this did not keep him from writing about the topic. **__Sexuality by Ellis __** In 1890 Havelock Ellis' first book, //The New Spirit//, was published. His first book was very criticized because of Ellis’s new style of thinking. One critic wrote, “ "His reading has been rather too exclusively among the rebels and heretics of literature; and he would be well advised if he were to restore the balance by devoting more attention to the older, more conservative, more historic writers, whose influence, we may depend upon it, will survive the fame of several of the new men for whom our present-day critics are erecting very lofty pedestals." Ellis theories and ideas were a little too modern for the critics at the time so they would call his work abrupt. In 1896 he co-authored the book, //Sexual Inversion//. At first, the book was published in German. One year later, in 1897, the English translation of //Sexual Inversion//, came out. John Addington Symonds was the other co-author the book was noticed as the first English medical textbook on homosexuality. The textbook describes sexual relationships between men and young boys. Ellis is also credited for being the first academic scholar to write an objective study on homosexuality. The interesting thing is that Ellis did not make homosexuality into a bad thing. He did not characterize it as a disease, immoral, or even a crime. Maybe people of the time thought that homosexuality was a “sickness.” Ellis assumed (in his book) that same-sex love transcended age taboos as well as gender taboos so it is not a bad thing. **__Homosexuality Today __**  I believe that Havelock Ellis was beyond his time in writing a book on homosexuality. Homosexuality has been a part of human existence for a long time. He was the first to actually write a scholarly textbook about it which took a lot of courage. His first book was already criticized so a topic this sensitive would probably get more criticism. Aside from the textbook, he did conduct studies which are still studied by students till this day. In today’s world, this is a very sensitive issue and is still relevant. We still have people that think that homosexuality is a sickness and is wrong. With the help of Havelock Ellis, we are breaking those negative ideals down and are creating new avenues of thinking. Homosexuality should not be looked down upon. It is up to people to have their own gender preferences so we should respect them for what they are. Aside from personal feelings, the topic of homosexuality is creating headlines in all the media. One big debate today is if people in same-sex relationships can get married. This will give the same-sex partners all the rights and privileges that married heterosexual couples receive. Here in the United States, some states have passed laws to accept same-sex marriages and others have passed laws to ban them. People are beginning to rally to change those bans but the road is still long. It will not be easy but thanks to scholars like Henry “Havelock” Ellis, the benefits will be the same for everyone in the world. **__References __** Simkin, J. (2003, September 4). //havelock ellis: biography//. Retrieved from [] Wikipedia (2001, March 11), []
 * Sexual Communication ||
 * Henry “Havelock” Ellis ||
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 * Gabriel Enriquez