The Sexual Relations of Mankind

Paolo Mantegazza is remembered mainly as a “sex writer”, which is sometimes a term of reproach, sometimes a term of honor. As a delineator of love, Mantegazza has never been surpassed and rarely equaled; he has faults as a writer, but they are invariably the faults of superabundance – from the depths of his nature there poured a thousand pages surcharged with passion – and never of emotional poverty. When Mantegazza wrote about love, he could not be calm. For everywhere he saw sex, the source of the profoundest of human emotions, bringing tragedy instead of happiness to mankind. As a pioneer sexologist, Mantegazza naturally encountered much opposition. In the Era of the Fig-leaf, they did not understand, and often assailed the writer of the Trilogia. In this warfare, Mantegazza could not retreat; his pen was as a lance striking in dark places, unloosening rusty hinges from the rotting door of prudery. “You who have known me for a long time as a physician and friend,” he said, “know that I have the courage to work in the open, and that I have never been among those who applaud the lasciviousness of a ballet dancer, and place fig leaves on Greek statues.” Paolo Mantegazza (1831- 1910) was an Italian physician, anthropologist and author.