The Misfits: A Study of Sexual Outsiders (1988) - Colin Wilson
Related: Pierre Janet and the reality function - Colin Wilson - imagination - literature - outsider - perversion
The Misfits: A Study of Sexual Outsiders (1988) - Colin Wilson [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
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Description
From Publishers Weekly
True pornography began in the mid-1700s with Samuel Richardson's voyeuristic novels Pamela and Clarissa , in Wilson's odd estimate. The author of The Outsider , etc., further maintains that sexual perversions such as those catalogued by Richard von Krafft-Ebing scarcely existed before 1740; only after Romanticism unleashed modern imaginations did sexual deviance flourish, he asserts. The "sexual outsiders" whose deliciously naughty doings are chronicled in this thought-provoking, entertaining mishmash are men who used libido as rocket fuel to escape the body's confines and soar toward higher consciousness. They include Swinburne and T. E. Lawrence, both of whom liked to be flogged; Yukio Mishima, trapped inside his womb-like subjective world; Byron, titillated by an incestuous affair with his half-sister; egoist Henry Miller; and guilt-ridden, promiscuous homosexual Ludwig Wittgenstein. Wilson's starting-point is Charlotte Bach (born Carl Hajdu), a Hungarian male transvestite of whose farfetched theory of eros and evolution the author makes too much as he hammers home his thesis that sex resides as much in the heart and the imagination as in the loins.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Crime and sexual perversion
Wilson seeks to establish a link between crime and perversion.
On Sade
In his excellent Misfits, Colin Wilson states that Marquis de Sade's philosophy was one of extreme selfishness, mentioning Sade's denial of the existence of benevolence and altruism. Wilson's portrait of Sade is the first well-balanced I encountered, neither villifying (as it was customary during the 19th century) nor exalting him as it was done in the 20th century (see De Beauvoir and Apollinaire). [Sept 2005]
Biographies
D.H. Lawrence, Wittgenstein, Swinburne, Joyce, Mishima, H. Miller, P. Tillich, A. Koestler, Percy Grainger, Havelock Ellis, Magnus Hirschfeld
Synopsis
The history of human civilization is the history of imagination (tale, drama novel, sexual imaganation, sex crime, ...)
Carl Hajdu aka "Dr Charlotte Bach" (1920-81)
"Dr Charlotte Bach" (1920-81) was one of the Twentieth Century's most extraordinary characters. Philosopher, con artist, Baron, prostitute, prophet, jailbird, embezzler, Mayfair psychotherapist, journalist, author, petty thief, cult figure, transvestite, philanderer, shaman, founder of a radical new theory of evolution.
Character' is an apt description - her name was not Charlotte Bach, she was not a doctor, nor was she a 'she.
"Dr Charlotte Bach" was the invention of Carl Hajdu, son of a poor Budapest tailor. Hajdu fled his native Hungary after the Soviet occupation in 1948. It was not the first time Hajdu had re-invented himself in his quest for identity, but "Charlotte" was his most successful 'character'. In what was undoubtedly one of the most remarkable cross-dressing performances in history.
Hajdu's masquerade convinced everyone who encountered him during the last twelve years of his life: writers, artists, film-makers, academics, leading figures in the Gay Movement, even fellow transvestites.And out of "her" experience, Charlotte evolved a radical new theory of evolution, a theory so difficult no one could understand it, a theory whose slogan "Sexual Deviation Is The Mainspring of Evolution" was so provocative - and so much misunderstood - that few even bothered to try.
"Charlotte" is the subject of a recently-published biography by the journalist, broadcaster and writer Francis Wheen (author of the highly-acclaimed bestseller "Karl Marx") and also of a film-in-progress by Malachite Productions --http://www.charlottebach.com/ [Dec 2004]
Who Was Dr.Charlotte Bach? (2002) - Francis Wheen [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Synopsis
In 1971 a curious new character appeared on the London academic scene, her name was Charlotte Bach. She was a former lecturer at the University of Budapest and she had a new theory of sex and evolution. At the height of her cult status, she would be compared to Einstein and Freud. Francis Wheen unravels the bizarre life story of an elusive Hungarian with a genius for deception. Academic, aristocrat, "agony aunt", prostitute, hypnotherapist, dominatrix - who really was Charlotte Bach? --via Amazon.co.uk
Kurzbeschreibung
Francis Wheen unravels the bizarre life story of an elusive Hungarian with a genius for deception, who made the remarkable transition from Magyar peasant to leading female sexologist, and who became one of the leading lights of the London academic scene in the early 70s. There will be a }Guardian Weekend{ serial, radio interviews and a London-based series of author events to support. --via Amazon.de
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