Given the subject matter here—sexual deviance, described by the now largely discredited German physician Richard von Krafft-Ebing—it had enormous potential to be titillating, shocking, and educational (in a historical sense). However, these oddly acted period dramas, inspired by his 1886 text, mainly arouse confusion. Are they supposed to be spoofs? You’re never quite sure. (There’s very little nudity in the film. It’s more Kinsey, tinged with kitsch and Guy Maddin, than porn flick.) Granted, Krafft-Ebing (1840–1902) compiled his case studies of perverse sexual desires, then supposedly “cured” his patients, during that confusing intersection of Victorian mores and Freudian analysis.

Section I, “Manifestations,” introduces us to the sexually repressed J.H., whose taste for blood eventually leads us to scenes of S&M at a brothel—golden showers, leeches, etc. Then there’s a guy who, when cruising for gay sex, only has a thing for men with mustaches, especially those that are “thick, bushy, and hardly groomed.” So it wasn’t just a ’70s thing, I guess.

In Section II, “Methods of Treatment,” we peek inside a sanatorium, where J.H. has been sent by his mother. He’s given shock therapy, while more seriously disturbed patients get lobotomies. The mustache fetishist is made to repeat a long speech about how “love for men is against religion, nature, and law.” His homosexuality is diagnosed as an aberration, likely brought upon by an experience with a woman that went wrong. These brainwashing scenes are more horrifying than the tame brothel S&M stuff.

Finally, in “The Blessing and Curse of Womanhood,” two lesbians are anguished because they cannot show their love in public. The poetry (with anachronistic modern-day accent) is a little silly, but the sentiment is clear: They just want to be able to live and love freely, without society treating them like freaks. But then, didn’t we already know as much from the X-Men movies?