author
Iwan Bloch
1872–1922
A pioneering German physician and writer, he helped lay the groundwork for the scientific study of human sexuality. His books brought medical history, cultural criticism, and bold social questions to a much wider audience.
2 Audiobooks
About the author
Born in Delmenhorst in 1872, Iwan Bloch trained as a physician and built his career in Berlin as a dermatologist and venereologist. He is often remembered as one of the early founders of sexology, working at a time when sexuality was rarely studied in a serious, scientific way.
Bloch argued that sexuality should be understood through many lenses at once, including medicine, history, psychology, and culture. He is especially associated with the idea of Sexualwissenschaft, or the science of sexuality, and his 1907 book Das Sexualleben unserer Zeit in seinen Beziehungen zur modernen Kultur became one of his best-known works.
He also wrote on the history of prostitution, venereal disease, and erotic literature, sometimes under pseudonyms. Part scholar and part reform-minded public intellectual, Bloch helped open conversations that later researchers would continue, and his work still marks an important early chapter in the history of modern sexual science.