Sex and Character: An Investigation of Fundamental Principles Book

I remember, when I was in my late teens, I had finally worked my way into the bedroom of a schoolmate I had a crush on since my pre-teen years. He was a brown skinned, confident athlete with an air of cool and an incredible body that I couldn't wait to discover. Everything was going swimmingly in our newfound courtship, until I unzipped his pants for the first time. After a fair amount of eager fumbling and foolish adolescent foreplay, I took off his pants, only to find attached this tiny, almost inconceivably small resemblance of a raisin - a miniscule currant from the most malnourished Saxifragaceae bush. I had taken my previous boyfriend from flaccid to firm before, so it wasn't the mere fact that my beau nouveau wasn't yet erect that was disappointing. It was the brutal reality that there wasn't even enough flesh to be noticeable when fully hard. At his most erect point, he couldn't possibly have been more than a baby thumb length's long or wide. That was one of the most disappointing days of my life. The second most disappointing day was when I actually wasted a whole two hours reading Otto Weininger's "Sex And Character". To avoid posttraumatic depression, I have to try hard not to think about those valuable minutes of my life that I will never be able to replace.

What I was hoping to be intelligent, philosophical observations of human behavior and sexuality turned out to be a hatred filled diatribe about the evil brought into the world, by women, Jews and other "minorities". I suppose this incredible let down was my own fault for not having looked more closely into Mr. Weininger's biography as a woman hating anti-Semite (he would argue that point), but the simple fact that this book has been held in such high esteem and that this guy actually earned himself the title of 'genius," hinted that perhaps he actually did have something to offer besides a slew of hostility and contempt towards any creature on this earth that is not an Aryan male. Whatever was I thinking? Perhaps my misguidance came from the fact that the first chapter I read from this book was actually somewhat unique and forward-thinking. At several points, the chapter entitled "Motherhood and Prostitution" noted a very underdog concept of the professional companion. Weininger gave praise to the courtesan for being like a great politician, for being an elevated sort of woman, offering more beauty and education to the world than average female (whose only concern, he claims, is to procreate). While, at points, he contradicted himself, in other points, he stood up for women who are often looked down on. "This is a man who embraces alternative perspectives," I thought, "a socially-educated, open-minded and interesting man'. I was wrong.

Allow me to offer you a small slice of the absurdity and dullness of this so-called "genius" with a few quotes taken from his "masterpiece":

Himself a Jew who converted to Protestantism, Weininger comments on the materialistic, unintelligent, effeminate, egotistical, sexually impotent Jew:

"The true conception of the State is foreign to the Jew, because he, like the woman,
is wanting in personality; his failure to grasp the idea of true society is due to his lack
of free intelligible ego. Like women, Jews tend to adhere together, but they do not
associate as free independent individuals mutually respecting each other's
individuality. "

"As there is no real dignity in women, so what is meant by the word "gentleman"
does not exist amongst the Jews."

"The Jew is always more absorbed by sexual matters than the Aryan, although he is notably less potent sexually and less liable to be enmeshed in a great passion. The Jews are habitual matchmakers, and in no race does it so often happen that marriages for love are so rare. The organic disposition of the Jews towards matchmaking is associated with their racial failure to comprehend
asceticism."

"We have now reached the fundamental difference between the Jew and the woman.
Neither believe in themselves; but the woman believes in others, in her husband, her
lover, or her children, or in love itself; she has a centre of gravity, although it is
outside her own being. The Jew believes in nothing, within him or without him. His
want of desire for permanent landed property and his attachment to movable goods
are more than symbolical. "

"Just as Jews and women are without extreme good and extreme evil, so they never
show either genius or the depth of stupidity of which mankind is capable. The
specific kind of intelligence for which Jews and women alike are notorious is due
simply to the alertness of an exaggerated egotism; it is due, moreover, to the
boundless capacity shown by both for pursuing any object with equal zeal, because
they have no intrinsic standard of value - nothing in their own soul by which to judge
of the worthiness of any particular object. And so they have unhampered natural
instincts, such as are not present to help the Aryan man when his transcendental
standard fails him. "

"Although the humanity of Jews, negroes, and still more of women, is weighed down by many immoral impulses…"

The inferiority and soullessness of the physically revolting woman:

"The phenomena of courtesy and chivalry are simply additional proofs that women have no souls."

"Woman has no faculty for the affairs of State or politics, as she has no social inclinations…"

"The imagination of women is composed of lies and errors."

"It is inconceivable why women can be considered good as doctors…"

"But even in the details of her body a woman is not wholly beautiful, not even if she
is a flawless, perfect type of her sex. The genitalia are the chief difficulty in the way
of regarding her as theoretically beautiful."

"A woman's nude body is distasteful to man because it offends his sense of shame. "

"The female, therefore, is credulous, uncritical, and quite unable to understand Protestantism."

"And, therefore, I must again assert that the woman of the highest standard is immeasurably beneath the man of lowest standard."

Weininger on the shame and lowliness of love and eroticism:

"Love is murder. The sexual impulse destroys the body and mind of the woman, and the psychical eroticism destroys her psychical existence. Ordinary sexuality regards the woman only as a means of gratifying passion or of begetting children. The higher eroticism is merciless to the woman, requiring her to be merely the vehicle of a projected personality, or the mother of psychical children. Love is not only anti-logical, as it denies the objective truth of the woman and requires only an illusory image of her, but it is anti-ethical with regard to her. "

Weininger on male and female interaction:

"But the man who is not superficial, who has depth of thought as well as of purpose, the depth which not only makes him desire right but endows him with determination and strength to do right, must always look on woman from the oriental standpoint:- as a possession, as private property, as something born to serve and be dependent on him - he must see the marvellous reasonableness of the Asiatic instinct of superiority over women, as the Greeks of old saw it, those worthy successors and disciples of the Eastern school."

Speculation that Weininger developed his misogyny due to his secret love for men, is not all that far fetched. He had nothing negative to say about sexual attraction between two people of the same gender and actually suggested that it is natural for men to love men:

"There is no friendship between men that has not an element of sexuality in it, however little accentuated it may be in the nature of the friendship, and however painful the idea of the sexual element would be. But it is enough to remember that
there can be no friendship unless there has been some attraction to draw the men together. Much of the affection, protection, and nepotism between men is due to the presence of unsuspected sexual compatibility. "

"Sexual inverts must be brought to sexual inverts, from homo-sexualists to Sapphists,
each in their grades. Knowledge of such a solution should lead to repeal of the
ridiculous laws of England, Germany and Austria directed against homo-sexuality, so
far at least as to make the punishments the lightest possible. In the second part of this
book it will be made clear why both the active and the passive parts in male homo-
sexuality appear disgraceful, although the desire is greater than in the case of the
normal relation of a man and woman. "

Apparently, while it's immoral and inferior for women and men to have sexual attraction to each other, a man having sexual attraction to other men is completely pure and perfectly understandable.

His displeasure with the human race extends beyond this. Weininger also has plenty of contempt and distaste for the "incapable, effeminate Chinaman", the "immoral and uneducated Negroes" and "the unproductive English".

Of course one would expect a person born in 1880 to have thoughts and opinions that don't necessarily reflect what is socially accepted in modern days, but to have written such a talked about and long-standing philosophical bible on the human condition, one would also expect this "genius" to have been much more of the superior being that this incredible narcissist considered himself to be.

Weininger committed suicide at the age of 23 by shooting himself in the heart; a loss of life, yes, but no loss of genius. Unless you particularly enjoy squandering your time reading ignorant claims from youthful bombastic egoists, you may want to skip this one.