There’s nothing wrong with Kafka. You don’t have to look at him like that. He’s just an average Joe, our Kafka, dreaming of erotic love but reacting with complete terror when presented with the act itself. For decades, Kafka scholars have struggled to explain his aversion to sex, especially in light of his evident fondness for women—was he gay? Did he have some kind of body issue? No, his biographer Reiner Stach says: he was just petrified of venereal disease, as were many men in his era. “I read a lot of books on sexuality published in the 1900s, books usually intended for young girls and men. They are just focused on risks, never about sexuality as a source of happiness. It is not about morality or religion—just medical risks … But look at the historical and psychological context—men and women were really separated at the time … They were educated in completely different ways. So when they met for the first time, often in their early twenties, this was often very embarrassing and very frightening … [Kafka was] unable to integrate his own sexuality into his self-image because he regarded it as something both physically and ethically impure, and therefore incapable of developing human intimacy with women who actively drew him into this filth—this anti-sensual and misogynist syndrome was shared by millions of middle-class men, whose upbringing simply did not allow for erotic happiness.”
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