[The roots of sexual medicine in Germany : A personal retrospective]

The first steps toward an academic sexual medicine were made half a century ago in the Federal Republic of Germany. After the so-called sexual revolution, the first approaches to an academicization of the field of sexual science were located in Hamburg and Frankfurt, where independent institutes and chairs were set up. Through empirical studies, the ignorance of physicians and medical students in sexuality-related topics could be demonstrated and subsequently addressed. In the early 1970s a journal named Sexualmedizin was founded, the first education courses for physicians in sexual medicine were held and in Frankfurt the first "special" university outpatient clinic in the country was opened with a department for sexual science. During the following decades, several textbooks were published and the professional training of physicians was expanded. As a university specialty, however, sexual medicine is still one of the most threatened medical subjects, being represented in only a few German faculties.Prof. Dr. Volkmar Sigusch, a pioneer of modern sexual research, looks back on events and personal experiences and gives an overview of the actors and sexual-scientific publications of the time.