Soren Kierkegaard

edly between his legs and leave .Other theorists, on the other hand, believe
that Kierkegaard had managed to do the deed, but that in so doing he
had contracted syphilis or some other unpleasantness, not excluding having,
against his wishes, fathered a child .Still other researchers take a firm grasp
on the very root of the matter, speculating on the size and shape of Kierke-
gaard’s generative organ, including the possibility that he might have been
equipped with a curved penis, whose vaginal maneuverability would in all
probability have been somewhat limited.
If we stick to the source materials, however, the bordello story turns out
to have little meat on its bones .First of all, it was not particularly unusual
for Barfod to mislay journal entries .As noted earlier, this happened quite
frequently, so the disappearance of the journal entries in question is probably
better accounted for by ordinary slovenliness than by any concern for Kier-
kegaard’s posthumous reputation .Second, in his index Barfod used a clear
bracket mark to group the entry about bestial sniggering with the two suc-
ceeding entries—both of which had to do with scenes from a Danish version
ofDonJuan—and, to emphasize the connection between the three entries,
Barfod wrote “Don Juan” outside his bracket .And as a third and final bit
of evidence we ought to note that in the introduction to his index, Barfod
wrote that he had used double underlining for everything “that could be
said in theleastway to touch upon or even hint at the morepersonalaspects
of the life of the deceased or at his biography in the narrower sense of the
term.” The journal entries in question werenotdouble underlined .The
textual basis for hypotheses about doing deeds, bent instruments, and other
such seems to be lacking.
It would furthermore have been very unlike Kierkegaard to have dis-
coursed in his journals about a night at a bordello .Not only in his youth,
but throughout his entire life, Kierkegaard was very buttoned up with respect
to his sexual proclivities .Unlike Hans Christian Andersen, Kierkegaard
would never have dreamed of burdening posterity with journal entries about
his sore testicles, nor would he ever have marked his calendar with an X for
every day he masturbated .Even less would Kierkegaard have imitated Strind-
berg, who would carefully measure his erect member with a ruler and then
consult his physician about whether his six and one-quarter inches was
above or below average .The closest we get to these delicate subjects is a
journal entry from 1843 in which Kierkegaard confessed that the only per-
son with whom he “had ever had a lewd conversation” was a seventy-four-
year-old “captain from the China trade,” who was a regular at Mini’s cafe ́,
where he would sit and brag about all the wenches he had bedded, over
the years, all the way from Manila to London .He would give them a “glass
of grog,” because they liked it .Kierkegaard did not really believe him “be-