I came across a link to this article by Donovan Cleckley (whose writing I enjoy) and thought I’d post it here for those who are interested. I included a few excerpts to give a flavour of the piece:
https://fairerdisputations.org/sexologys-fathers/
The “science of sex” began from the premise that sexuality can be understood scientifically and objectively, without regard to political or moral implications. Yet, from a twenty-first century vantage point, many of the early sexologists’ most influential views seem dubious, at best, and deeply misogynistic, at worst. Indeed, many of the most troubling contemporary phenomena that haunt our sexual landscape can be traced back to their work, which legitimized and popularized countless formerly taboo practices. In other words, their “objective science” had moral and political implications aplenty.
In recent years, feminism has become the scapegoat for many of these developments, from the widespread acceptance of violent pornography to the sudden explosion in transgender identification. A typical view of the situation holds that the third-wave feminism of the 1990s, with its emphasis on sex positivity and queer theory, is thesingle cause of the transgender phenomenon. This narrative emphasizes women’s role while neglecting men’s contributions. But to understand how we got here, we must understand that sexology provided the ideological foundations for the widespread acceptance of postmodern gender ideology—and the pornography that fuels it. The influence of sexology also helps to explain how the paradigm “gender-affirming care” was extended so quickly from adults to children. Indeed, the more deeply one looks at the history of sexology, the more clearly one recognizes that today’s views of sexuality and gender far predate the sexual revolution of the 1960s and the incoherent academic theories that followed.
Transgenderism’s rise is not purely a postmodern phenomenon, much less a feminist one. Rather, it is the result of more than a century of social and sexual conditioning, based on the theories of sexology’s fathers. Though you may not know their names, you are living in a sexual culture built on the foundation laid by these men.
In short, throughout the twentieth century, the male-dominated field of sexology has been the pseudoscientific force behind the medicalization of sexuality and gender and the sexualization of children….
…radical feminist Sheila Jeffreys noted: “Throughout the twentieth century, women have been the problem for sexology and sex reform… because they have never shown the right enthusiasm.” Jeffreys connects this problematization of female sexuality with the rise of “sex positivity” and “queer theory.” Far from being authentic developments of feminist theory and practice, Jeffreys argues that the field has been part of an organized backlash against feminist critiques of transgenderism, prostitution, pornography, and other sexual practices that disproportionately harm women and children.