Sexual Anorexia - History of The Term

History of The Term

The concept of sexual anorexia was first mentioned by psychologist Nathan Hare in 1975, in an unpublished dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment for a Ph.D. at the California School of Professional Psychology in San Francisco. Ellen Goodman, the nationally syndicated columnist, wrote about psychiatrist Sylvia Kaplan's use of the concept in 1981 and this was noted in the editor's "Notes" in the journal Black Male/Female Relationships.

A book by psychologist Patrick Carnes called Sexual Anorexia was published in 1997. Hare's Ph.D. dissertation on Black Male-Female Relations (1975) as well as the now defunct journal called Black Male/Female Relationships (1979–1982) are available in University Microfilms, from the University of Michigan. See also Nathan and Julia Hare, "Sexual Anorexia," Crisis in Black Sexual Politics, published in 1989 by The Black Think Tank, San Francisco, pp. 137–140, ISBN 0-9613086-2. Julia Hare has also used it in a book, The Sexual and Political Anorexia of the Black Woman (June 2008, ISBN 0-981-7999-09).