Culture, Difference, and Sexual Progress in Turn-of-the-Century Europe: Cultural Othering and the German League for the Protection of Mothers and Sexual Reform, 1905–1914

Is sexual liberalization an historical inevitability? Does greater sexual freedom represent the trajectory of progress? Such questions haunted members of one of the early twentieth century’s most radical sex reform organizations, Germany’s League for the Protection of Mothers and Sexual Reform (Bund für Mutterschutz und Sexualreform). This pathbreaking organization, founded in Berlin in 1905, brought together a remarkable and eclectic mix of feminists, scientists, physicians, politicians, and artists who sought to transform sexual life through social work and philosophical inquiry. Among the league’s diverse and high-profile members were left-leaning feminists such as Helene Stöcker and Grete Meisel-Hess, sexologists Iwan Bloch and Magnus Hirschfeld, sociologists Max Weber and Werner Sombart, and Social Democratic Party leader August Bebel.¹ While the league’s primary goal was to materially improve the lives of unwed mothers and their children, many of its members, including its erstwhile president and later secretary Helene Stöcker, believed that the league’s purpose was much broader and involved a philosophical campaign aimed at “the critical examination … [and] renewal and deepening” of sexual ethics.²

In fact, for philosophically minded league members like Stöcker, a thorough overhaul of sexual norms and values was a cultural and evolutionary necessity. According to Stöcker, the laws and ethics governing sexuality in turn-of-the-century Germany reflected “a since-surpassed cultural period” that had now become an oppressive “burden” under much-changed conditions.³ In her view, the single mother and her pariah status constituted the most potent symbols of the “oppressive” and “burdensome” nature of these outmoded laws and ethics. Stöcker maintained that these women were being punished by old, ascetic, and notably Christian morals that were especially repressive toward female sexuality. This ascetic and misogynist morality, she insisted, was contrary to the progress of human culture, which she claimed was evolving “from compulsion to freedom, to moral self-determination.”⁴ In place of asceticism, Stöcker advocated a “joyful affirmation of life and all its healthy power and drives”—including the sex drive. According to her, the (hetero)sexual instincts of both sexes were natural and positive; aside from hunger, the sex drive was the “most elementary life instinct” that existed in every healthy individual.⁵ Although Stöcker was the most vocal proponent of sexual ethical reform, her beliefs and her attitudes toward sexuality were shared by other league members; sexologist and league chairperson Iwan Bloch, for example, went so far as to call the sex drive an “important and essential element of our common culture and progress.”⁶

Affirming the naturalness of the sex drive provided the foundation for what Stöcker called the New Ethic, which promoted sexual self-determination and free choice for both men and women. In Stöcker’s view, the New Ethic was realized above all in “a true, freely chosen monogamy” between two equal “personalities” either within or beyond marriage.⁷ According to her, this monogamous ideal represented “the loftiest heights” and “eminent objective” of modern culture.⁸ Greater sexual freedom and self-determination for both men and women would usher in a “spring day of humanity” and would ultimately help humankind achieve a higher state of evolution.⁹ For Stöcker and like-minded others, Friedrich Nietzsche’s aphorism “Do not just reproduce yourselves but advance!” (Nicht nur fort Euch zu pflanzen, sondern hinauf!) provided a powerful motto and mission statement.¹⁰

Much can be said about the substance of Stöcker’s beliefs; what I want to draw attention to here is the temporal consciousness evident in the foregoing statements. Stöcker’s description of the hegemonic morality as old, her ruminations on human progress, her assessments of cultural standards, and her imperatives to advance all suggest that she thought certain sexual norms, values, and behaviors are appropriate or suited to certain times and places. For league members like Stöcker, sexuality was not static or fixed, and change was unavoidable (and...