A vida sexual (The sexual life), by Egas Moniz: Eugenics, psychoanalysis, and the pathologization of the female sexed body

Abstract

An analysis is presented of A vida sexual (The sexual life), by Portuguese neurologist Egas Moniz, in which the author divulged medical instructions about the sexed body. Complied in two volumes – “Physiology” and “Pathology” – in 1902, it was edited 19 times until it was censored under the Portuguese military dictatorship in 1933. In the work, Moniz devises a discourse of sexual differentiation anchored in an extensive bibliography produced between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in a context of intense debate about gender roles. Moniz drew on several theories to define sexuality – including eugenics and Freudian theory – to express his idea that “man is essentially sexual, woman is essentially mother.”.