Sexuality in Austria

Gunter Bischof · Anton Pelinka · Dagmar Herzog

Dec 2011 · Austrian Studies Book 1 · Transaction Publishers

About this ebook

Scholars have increasingly been investigating human sexu- ality as an important field of social history in particular national cultures. This volume examines both continuities and changing patterns of sexual behavior in Austria. Sexuality in Austria reflects the broad variety of such recent research. Maria Mesner surveys the growing number of sex counseling organizations in interwar Vienna, some driven by eugenics, others by social concerns. Ties with Margaret Sanger's birth control movement in the U.S. are also documented. Ingrid Bauer and Renate Huber are the first scholars to treat the "foreign encounters" between Austrian women and occupation soldiers during the postwar quadripartite Austrian occupation regime in a comparative framework. Franz Eder traces the growing presence of sexual issues in post-World War II popular media and suggests parallels with the German case. Marcel Scheffknecht shows how Austria was not spared the changes in sexual mores during the "sexual revolution" of the 1960s and 1970s. Matti Bunzl analyses the legal penalties for homosexuality in postwar Austria and the liberation of the gay movement as a result of EU pressures after Austria joined the European Union in 1995. Peter Judson analyzes the major influence of the Catholic Church on Austrian sexuality through the lens of a recent gay and sex abuse scandals in the church hierarchy. In "romancing the foreigner" Julia Woesthoff analyzes the growing presence of foreign workers (gastarbeiter) in postwar Austria and their sexual contacts with natives. In a "non-topical essay" Katharina Wegan views the Austrian historical memory of the Austrian State Treaty through the fiftieth anniversary celebrations in 2005. Review essays and book reviews and the annual review of Austrian politics complete this volume. Sexuality in Austria will be of interest to cultural studies specialists, historians, psychologists, and sociologists.

About the author

Günter Bischof is the Marshall Plan Professor of History and director of CenterAustria at the University of New Orleans. Anton Pelinka was professor of political science at the University of Innsbruck (1975–2006). Since 2006 he is professor of nationalism studies and political science at the Central European University, Budapest. He has written extensively in the field of comparative European politics and democratic theory. Dagmar Herzog is professor of history and Daniel Rose Faculty Scholar at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She teaches courses on European history, the history of the Holocaust, and the histories of religion and sexuality. She is also the author of Sex After Fascism: Memory and Morality in Twentieth-Century Germany (2005), and the editor of Sexuality and German Fascism (2004) and Lessons and Legacies VII: The Holocaust in International Perspective (2006), as well as co-editor of Sexuality in Austria, a special issue of Contemporary Austrian Studies (Transaction 2007).