Fantasies of Hermaphroditism

FANTASIZING HERMAPHRODITISM: TWO-SEXED METAPHORS IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY by Jessica L. Lewis-Turner Diploma Date May 2017 Examining Committee Members: James Salazar, Advisory Chair, Department of English Suzanne Gauch, Department of English Susan Wells, Department of English Laura Levitt, External Member, Department of Religion © Copyright 2017 by Jessica Lewis- Turner All Rights Reserved ii ABSTRACT In nineteenth-century medicine, it was generally agreed that “true hermaphroditism,” or the equal combination of male and female sexual characteristics in one body, was impossible in humans. Yet true hermaphroditism remained a significant presence in both fictional and non-fictional texts. Much of the scholarly literature is on the history of hermaphroditism as a history of intersexuality. Fantasizing Hermaphroditism: Two-Sexed Metaphors in Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Culture is a study of both hermaphroditism and the hermaphrodite as a fantasy. My approach is a combination of historicization and close reading. The chapters are in chronological order, and each chapter is centered on a single text. Chapter 1 addresses Julia Ward Howe’s fictional manuscript, The Hermaphrodite; Chapter 2, S.H. Harris’ case narrative on “A Case of Doubtful Sex”; Chapter 3, James Kiernan’s theoretical treatise on “Responsibility in Sexual Perversion”; and Chapter 4, a memoir by an author who went by the names Ralph Werther and Earl Lind, titled Autobiography of an Androgyne. I begin with the broader cultural moment of the text’s writing, and then explore the text’s language and structure in greater depth. This range of texts demonstrates that the hermaphrodite was a fantasy for nineteenth century authors, described as an impossibility but inspiring very real fear and pleasure. The language that they—and we—use in fantasies about the unreal hermaphrodite can help us to unpack these anxieties and desires around marriage, the body, race, and the definition of the individual. iii For Mom and Dad iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There were a few people that have seen this through from the very beginning. Sara Davis offered me solidarity at key moments, and became my sit-up girl in arms. Sarah Gardam remained a true friend, and brought a sense of humor in dire times. Christopher Rothschild was my roommate and my friend. Divya Victor and Sarah Dowling were delightful officemates who taught me the value of being deeply sarcastic about the academic institution. Several study groups were instrumental to the completion of this project. The Disability Studies reading group, Amanda DiLodovico, Elizabeth Justine White, Rachel Kamel, and Kelly George, offered me new perspective. My PhD writing group, Desirée Melonas, Sheena Sood, and Doñela Wright, gave me models for success. Finally, the central members of an informal philosophy reading group, Colbert Root, David Lee, Juliana Rausch, and Sachio Takashima, reminded me that there can be delight in reading and learning. Sachio and Juliana came to my aid again in the final stages of the dissertation, as part of an essential support system. I also found a surprising number of friends during graduate school, both in my program and out. Leslie Allison, Lorraine Savage, Beth Seltzer, Nicole Cesare, Jaclyn Partyka, Michelle Vider, Ashley Gumtow, Nathaniel Reed, and Emily Barrale all deserve my thanks for their humor and support. Two friends ushered this project to its conclusion: Nicole Steinberg, who was there with takeout and terrible TV, and Dana Miller-Cotto, without whom this dissertation would never have been finished. v Many faculty members aided me during this process. Miles Orvell was essential to my early studies. Kate Henry served as a teaching mentor. Patricia Melzer and Rebecca Alpert were essential to my progress as a teacher and student. As members of my committee, Suzanne Gauch and Sue Wells provided immensely helpful feedback on the drafts of my chapters, and Laura Levitt swooped in to help me both at the beginning and the end of my process. Finally, this would simply have been impossible without my advisor, James Salazar. He was open and thoughtful in his responses to my work; his intellectual generosity cannot be overstated. My work would not have been possible without financial support, including fellowships and adjunct opportunities provided by Temple University, travel grants from the College of Liberal Arts, and a research grant from the Center for Humanities at Temple. Finally, as in every acknowledgments section, I must acknowledge the central characters in my story. Although Malcolm and Booker cannot read this, I feel honor- bound to acknowledge them. My parents, Delia Turner and Stephen Lewis, offered me every kind of support I could possibly need. Finally, Anthony Borzotta defined partnership for me during this process; his generosity of spirit went beyond what I could have asked for or even imagined. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT …………………………………………………………………………… iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ……………………………………………………………… v LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS……………………………………………………………viii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION …………………………………………………………………… 1 2. “NEVER THE HALF OF ANOTHER”: THE FAILURE OF THE IDEAL IN JULIA WARD HOWE’S THE HERMAPHRODITE ………………………………. 12 3. “A NEW ORDER OF BEINGS”: THE LEGIBLE BODY IN S.H. HARRIS’ “A CASE OF DOUBTFUL SEX …………………………………………………… 53 4. “REVERSIONS TO THE ANCESTRAL TYPE”: THE EVOLUTION OF INVERSION IN JAMES GEORGE KIERNAN’S “RESPONSIBILITY IN SEXUAL PERVERSION” ………………………………………………………… 95 5. “SEMPER DEVORABAM”: CONSUMING MEN IN RALPH WERTHER’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN ANDROGYNE ……………………………………… 129 REFERENCES CITED ……………………………………………………………… 168 vii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure Page 1. Simpson’s taxonomy of hermaphroditism………………………………………… 66 2. Medico-Legal Journal advertisement for Autobiography of an Androgyne viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION It may be most useful to begin with a clear statement of what I will not do: I will not talk about people who have differences in sexual development. This is a work about hermaphrodites. The difference is crucial to understand. People with differences in sexual development have anatomical or chromosomal differences from the accepted binary.1 The concept of differences in sexual development is thoroughly modern; the first use of the term “intersex” to mean disorders in sexual development was in 1917, in Richard Goldschmidt’s “Intersexuality and the Endocrine Aspect of Sex,” and “disorders of sex development” began to enter the lexicon in the early 21st century.2 Increasingly, people with differences in sexual development tell their own stories, reacting critically to the medical and social discourses that create these supposed “disorders.” There is ample work to be done on this literature—and important work has already been done—but I will not undertake it. I begin with this assertion because it is the foundation of my argument: this study deals not with the person at the heart of each text, but with the author’s fantasy of and about that person. 1 Karkazis (2008) briefly summarizes two common definitions of intersex/DSD and the debate between them. On the one hand, many authors on the subject adhere to the broader definition of intersex/DSD as any condition “that deviates from the Platonic ideal of physical dimorphism at the chromosomal, genital, gonadal, or hormonal levels” (qtd Karkazis 23). Others, such as Leonard Sax, argue for a clinical definition in which intersex/DSD is limited to “conditions in which the phenotype (outward, physical characteristics) is not classifiable as either male or female, or in which the chromosomal type (e.g., 46,xx) is inconsistent with phenotype” (Karkazis 23). 2 Hughes (2008) offers a consensus statement about the importance of using “disorders of sexual development” over the more common term “intersex,” although the term is still used critically and within the community; for the latter, see Holmes, ed. (2009). 1 My approach to the task was to focus each chapter on a single text—Julia Ward Howe’s The Hermaphrodite, S.H. Harris’ “A Case of Doubtful Sex,” James George Kiernan’s “Responsibility in Sexual Perversion,” and Ralph Werther’s Autobiography of an Androgyne—but to place each of these texts into the context of their literary and cultural moment (specifically historical forces and other texts). The contextual placement allowed for a deeper understanding of the sociocultural anxieties the authors felt, while the focus on a single text allowed me to close read the language that the authors used in their fantasies. What I found was that these texts reflected not only the authors’ anxieties and hopes about sex and sexual differences, but their anxieties and hopes about things like love, the body, race, and selfhood. This methodology points to the primary contribution of this dissertation, the understanding that the hermaphrodite was a fantasy for nineteenth century authors, described as an impossibility but inspiring very real fear and pleasure; and that the language that we use in our fantasies about the unreal can unpack these anxieties and desires. The terms “hermaphrodite” and “hermaphroditism” are, of course, accurate to the language of the texts that I study here, all of which were written between the 1840s and the 1910s. However—and more importantly—the terms “hermaphrodite” and “hermaphroditism” signify a phantasmatic construct. In other words, I address fantasies of hermaphroditism. In each of the texts I cite here, nineteenth-and early-twentieth- century American authors fantasize about the hermaphrodite as a person with an impossible body. They all agree that the “true hermaphrodite”—a nineteenth-century medical phrase indicating the combination of male and female gonadal tissue in one 2 body—does not exist, but the texts I study here repeatedly ask what if it could? True hermaphroditism is a fantastic question for them, a vehicle for speculation on the nature of sex. Understanding these texts, which include not only fiction but seemingly objective non-fictional accounts, as fantasy inspires the important questions that shape this study.

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