[Richard Freiherr v. Krafft-Ebing and Sigmund Freud--discourse on the "normality" and "perversion" of human sexuality at the close of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century].

Sexuality has been defined a central feature of personal identity since the epoch of enlightenment and has gradually become a decisive issue also in societal and political terms. A major transfer from religion and religious institutions to medicine and medical experts and later on to neuropsychiatrists has to be underlined in the primary position to assess "normal" and "deviant" manifestations of sexuality. Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing and Sigmund Freund play an eminent role in this "discourse on sexuality" (M. Foucault) during the nineteenth and beginning twentieth century on the way to modern sexology. Within this overarching context Krafft-Ebing's and Freud's theoretical conceptualizations of sexuality and perversion will be sketched and basic clinical and societal implications there out will be discussed.