Uranian (sexuality)

For other uses, see Uranian (sexuality) (disambiguation).

From John Addington Symonds' 1891 book A Problem in Modern Ethics.

Uranian is a 19th century term that referred to a person of a third sex — originally, someone with "a female psyche in a male body" who is sexually attracted to men, and later extended to cover homosexual gender variant females, and a number of other sexual types. It is believed to be an English adaptation of the German word Urning, which was first published by activist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825–95) in a series of five booklets (1864–65) which were collected under the title Forschungen über das Räthsel der mannmännlichen Liebe ("Research into the Riddle of Man-Manly Love"). Ulrich developed his terminology before the first public use of the term "homosexual", which appeared in 1869 in a pamphlet published anonymously by Karl-Maria Kertbeny (1824–82).

The term "Uranian" was quickly adopted by English-language advocates of homosexual emancipation in the Victorian era, such as Edward Carpenter and John Addington Symonds, who used it to describe a comradely love that would bring about true democracy, uniting the "estranged ranks of society" and breaking down class and gender barriers. Oscar Wilde wrote to Robert Ross in an undated letter (?18 February 1898): "To have altered my life would have been to have admitted that Uranian love is ignoble. I hold it to be noble - more noble than other forms."

The term also gained currency among a group that studied Classics and dabbled in pederastic poetry from the 1870s to the 1930s. The writings of this group are now known by the phrase "Uranian poetry". The art of Henry Scott Tuke and Wilhelm von Gloeden is also sometimes referred to as "Uranian".

Etymology

The word itself alludes to Plato's Symposium, a discussion on Eros (love). In this dialog, Pausanias distinguishes between two types of love, symbolised by two different accounts of the birth of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. In one, she was born of Uranus (the heavens), a birth in which "the female has no part". This Uranian Aphrodite is associated with a noble love for male youths, and is the source of Ulrichs's term urning. Another account has Aphrodite as the daughter of Zeus and Dione, and this Aphrodite is associated with a common love which "is apt to be of women as well as of youths, and is of the body rather than of the soul". After Dione, Ulrichs gave the name dioning to men who are sexually attracted to women. However, unlike Plato's account of male love, Ulrichs understood male urnings to be essentially feminine, and male dionings to be masculine in nature.

John Addington Symonds, who was one of the first to take up the term Uranian in the English language, was a student of Benjamin Jowett and was very familiar with the Symposium.

However, it has been argued that this etymology, at least for the English-speaking countries, is unrelated to Ulrichs's "coinage". In his volume Secreted Desires: The Major Uranians, Michael M. Kaylor writes:

Given that the prominent Uranians were trained Classicists, I consider ludicrous the view, widely held, that ‘Uranian’ derives from the German apologias and legal appeals written by Karl-Heinrich Ulrichs (1825–95) in the 1860s, though his coinage Urning — employed to denote ‘a female psyche in a male body’ — does indeed derive from the same Classical sources, particularly the Symposium. Further, the Uranians did not consider themselves the possessors of a ‘female psyche’; the Uranians are not known, as a group, to have read works such as Forschungen über das Räthsel der mannmännlichen Liebe (Research on the Riddle of Male-Male Love); the Uranians were opposed to Ulrichs’s claims for androphilic, homoerotic liberation at the expense of the paederastic; and, even when a connection was drawn to such Germanic ideas and terminology, it appeared long after the term ‘Uranian’ had become commonplace within Uranian circles, hence was not a ‘borrowing from’ but a ‘bridge to’ the like-minded across the Channel by apologists such as Symonds.

— p.xiii, footnote

Development of classification scheme for sexual types

Ulrichs, had a typical third gender outlook of male to male attraction. He, like Freud, believed that a sexual attraction for men essentially flowed out of a female psyche -- this, even if he did recognize a class of masculine males, but considered them to have a female pscyhe -- he seems to have no idea about males with manhood, who even in his times were secretly being sexual with each other, all the time He also failed to take into account that a significant proportion of male to female desire exhibited by males with manhood (that he called dionings, and that the west today calls 'straight'), is exaggerated or sometimes faked, because of peer pressures and other pressures of social masculinization . Nevertheless, he chose to include both the third genders (feminine types) and the 'men' (masculine types) under the same third gender category of "Uranian," which was compeletly unprecedented in the history of human civilization, which was later on renamed as 'homosexual' category, that stigmatized male-male attraction for the 'men' (masculine/ regular guys), because historically, anything that becomes associated with the third gender becomes a disqualification for manhood. Ulrichs developed a more complex threefold axis for understanding sexual and gender variance, where sexual preference preceded gender orientation (masculine/ feminine) in deciding one's social category -- unlike what was practised historically, across the cultures. This was his classification: sexual orientation (male-attracted, bisexual, or female-attracted), preferred sexual behavior (passive, no preference, or active), and gender characteristics (feminine, intermediate, or masculine). The three axes were usually, but not necessarily, linked — Ulrichs himself, for example, was a Weiblinge (feminine homosexual) who preferred the active sexual role.

Thus, Ulrichs started the western tradition, where masculine gendered males that desired men were still thought to be of a female psyche -- this was based on the premise that a desire for men was in essence because of a female psyche -- and so, these desires (and the respective males) who were so far classified along with other men, under the 'manhood' category, were from now on, classified with the third genders, as 'homosexual,' in a typical third gender fashion, and broken from other males with manhood, and thus kept away from the manhood category. In his entire list, there is no concept of a male with manhood, with a male psyche, that can desire a man.

This heralded a new dimension to the age-old religious stigma attached to man-man sex -- the new one being a much more potent one -- that stigmatized such man to man desires as effeminate, third gender or unmanly. In the past, only a desire for receptive anal sex was so stigmatized as qualifying one to be broken from manhood and to be classified in a separate emasculated category. Man's desire for men in a non-receptive capacity was never seen as 'feminine' earlier. This new classification, along with several other new developments in the western society, resulted in most men disowning a desire for men and taking on the heterosexual lifestyle and identity in large numbers, leaving the 'homosexual' lifestyle and desires to only a few, mostly feminine males.

The taxonomy of Uranismus

Note that in these terms, -in is an ordinary German suffix usually meaning "female".

• Urningin (or occasionally the variants Uranierin, Urnin, and Urnigin): A female-bodied person with a male psyche, whose main sexual attraction is to women. ("lesbian" or "straight trans man")
• Urning: A male-bodied person with a female psyche, whose main sexual attraction is to men. ("gay" or "straight trans woman")

• Dioningin: A heterosexual, feminine woman.
• Dioning : A heterosexual, masculine man.

• Uranodioningin: A female bisexual.
• Uranodioning: A male bisexual.

• Zwitter: Intersexual

Urningthum, "male homosexuality" (or urnische Liebe, homosexual love) was expanded with the following terms:

• Mannlinge: very masculine, except for feminine psyche and sex drive towards effeminate men ("butch gay")
• Weiblinge: feminine in appearance, behaviour and psyche, with a sex drive towards masculine men ("queen")
• Manuring: feminine in appearance and behaviour, with a male psyche and a sex drive towards women ("feminine straight man")
• Zwischen-Urning: Adult male who prefers adolescents. ("pederast", "hebephile")
• Conjunctive, with tender and passionate feelings for men
• Disjunctive, with tender feelings for men but passionate feelings for women ("metrosexual", "bromance")
• Virilisierte Mannlinge: Male Urnings who have learned to act like Dionings, through force or habit ("straight-acting gay")
• Uraniaster or uranisierter Mann: A dioning engaging in situational homosexuality (e.g. in prison or the military)

See also

• List of transgender-related topics

References

• Michael Matthew Kaylor, Secreted Desires: The Major Uranians: Hopkins, Pater and Wilde (Brno, CZ: Masaryk University Press, 2006)
• Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature, "Urania" (Springfield MA, Merriam-Webster Inc, 1995.)
• Webster's Dictionary of the English Language – Unabridged Encyclopedia Edition, "Uranian" (New York NY: Publisher's International Press, 1977.)
• Winston Dictionary of the English Language, "Uranian (Philadelphia PA, John C. Winston Company, 1954.)
• Lesbian activist Anna Rueling used the term in her 1904 speech, "What Interest does the Women's Movement have in Solving the Homosexual Problem?" text of Rueling's speech