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by Sigmund Freud
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Title: Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex
Author: Sigmund Freud
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Language: English
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NERVOUS AND MENTAL DISEASE MONOGRAPH SERIES NO. 7
THREE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE THEORY OF SEX
_SECOND EDITION_
_SECOND REPRINTING_
BY
PROF. SIGMUND FREUD, LL.D.
VIENNA
AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION BY
A.A. BRILL, PH.B., M.D.
CLINICAL ASSISTANT, DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHIATRY AND NEUROLOGY, COLUMBIA
UNIVERSITY; ASSISTANT IN MENTAL DISEASES, BELLEVUE HOSPITAL; ASSISTANT
VISITING PHYSICIAN, HOSPITAL FOR NERVOUS DISEASES
WITH INTRODUCTION BY
JAMES J. PUTNAM, M.D.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION TO TRANSLATION v
AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION ix
AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION x
I. THE SEXUAL ABERRATIONS 1
II. THE INFANTILE SEXUALITY 36
III. THE TRANSFORMATION OF PUBERTY 68
INTRODUCTION TO TRANSLATION
The somewhat famous "Three Essays," which Dr. Brill is here bringing to
the attention of an English-reading public, occupy--brief as they
are--an important position among the achievements of their author, a
great investigator and pioneer in an important line. It is not claimed
that the facts here gathered are altogether new. The subject of the
sexual instinct and its aberrations has long been before the scientific
world and the names of many effective toilers in this vast field are
known to every student. When one passes beyond the strict domains of
science and considers what is reported of the sexual life in folkways
and art-lore and the history of primitive culture and in romance, the
sources of information are immense. Freud has made considerable
additions to this stock of knowledge, but he has done also something of
far greater consequence than this. He has worked out, with incredible
penetration, the part which this instinct plays in every phase of human
life and in the development of human character, and has been able to
establish on a firm footing the remarkable thesis that psychoneurotic
illnesses never occur with a perfectly normal sexual life. Other sorts
of emotions contribute to the result, but some aberration of the sexual
life is always present, as the cause of especially insistent emotions
and repressions.
The instincts with which every child is born furnish desires or cravings
which must be dealt with in some fashion. They may be refined
("sublimated"), so far as is necessary and desirable, into energies of
other sorts--as happens readily with the play-instinct--or they may
remain as the source of perversions and inversions, and of cravings of
new sorts substituted for those of the more primitive kinds under the
pressure of a conventional civilization. The symptoms of the functional
psychoneuroses represent, after a fashion, some of these distorted
attempts to find a substitute for the imperative cravings born of the
sexual instincts, and their form often depends, in part at least, on the
peculiarities of the sexual life in infancy and early childhood. It is
Freud's service to have investigated this inadequately chronicled period
of existence with extraordinary acumen. In so doing he made it plain
that the "perversions" and "inversions," which reappear later under such
striking shapes, belong to the normal sexual life of the young child and
are seen, in veiled forms, in almost every case of nervous illness.
It cannot too often be repeated that these discoveries represent no
fanciful deductions, but are the outcome of rigidly careful observations
which any one who will sufficiently prepare himself can verify. Critics
fret over the amount of "sexuality" that Freud finds evidence of in the
histories of his patients, and assume that he puts it there. But such
criticisms are evidences of misunderstandings and proofs of ignorance.
Freud had learned that the amnesias of hypnosis and of hysteria were not
absolute but relative and that in covering the lost memories, much more,
of unexpected sort, was often found. Others, too, had gone as far as
this, and stopped. But this investigator determined that nothing but the
absolute impossibility of going further should make him cease from
urging his patients into an inexorable scrutiny of the unconscious
regions of their memories and thoughts, such as never had been made
before. Every species of forgetfulness, even the forgetfulness of
childhood's years, was made to yield its hidden stores of knowledge;
dreams, even though apparently absurd, were found to be interpreters of
a varied class of thoughts, active, although repressed as out of harmony
with the selected life of consciousness; layer after layer, new sets of
motives underlying motives were laid bare, and each patient's interest
was strongly enlisted in the task of learning to know himself in order
more truly and wisely to "sublimate" himself. Gradually other workers
joined patiently in this laborious undertaking, which now stands, for
those who have taken pains to comprehend it, as by far the most
important movement in psychopathology.
It must, however, be recognized that these essays, of which Dr. Brill
has given a translation that cannot but be timely, concern a subject
which is not only important but unpopular. Few physicians read the works
of v. Krafft-Ebing, Magnus Hirschfeld, Moll, and others of like sort.
The remarkable volumes of Havelock Ellis were refused publication in his
native England. The sentiments which inspired this hostile attitude
towards the study of the sexual life are still active, though growing
steadily less common. One may easily believe that if the facts which
Freud's truth-seeking researches forced him to recognize and to publish
had not been of an unpopular sort, his rich and abundant contributions
to observational psychology, to the significance of dreams, to the
etiology and therapeutics of the psychoneuroses, to the interpretation
of mythology, would have won for him, by universal acclaim, the same
recognition among all physicians that he has received from a rapidly
increasing band of followers and colleagues.
May Dr. Brill's translation help toward this end.
There are two further points on which some comments should be made. The
first is this, that those who conscientiously desire to learn all that
they can from Freud's remarkable contributions should not be content to
read any one of them alone. His various publications, such as "The
Selected Papers on Hysteria and Other Psychoneuroses,"[1] "The
Interpretation of Dreams,"[2] "The Psychopathology of Everyday Life,"[3]
"Wit and its Relation to the Unconscious,"[4] the analysis of the case
of the little boy called Hans, the study of Leonardo da Vinci,[4a] and
the various short essays in the four Sammlungen kleiner Schriften, not
only all hang together, but supplement each other to a remarkable
extent. Unless a course of study such as this is undertaken many critics
may think various statements and inferences in this volume to be far
fetched or find them too obscure for comprehension.
The other point is the following: One frequently hears the
psychoanalytic method referred to as if it was customary for those
practicing it to exploit the sexual experiences of their patients and
nothing more, and the insistence on the details of the sexual life,
presented in this book, is likely to emphasize that notion. But the fact
is, as every thoughtful inquirer is aware, that the whole progress of
civilization, whether in the individual or the race, consists largely in
a "sublimation" of infantile instincts, and especially certain portions
of the sexual instinct, to other ends than those which they seemed
designed to serve. Art and poetry are fed on this fuel and the evolution
of character and mental force is largely of the same origin. All the
forms which this sublimation, or the abortive attempts at sublimation,
may take in any given case, should come out in the course of a thorough
psychoanalysis. It is not the sexual life alone, but every interest and
every motive, that must be inquired into by the physician who is seeking
to obtain all the data about the patient, necessary for his reeducation
and his cure. But all the thoughts and emotions and desires and motives
which appear in the man or woman of adult years were once crudely
represented in the obscure instincts of the infant, and among these
instincts those which were concerned directly or indirectly with the
sexual emotions, in a wide sense, are certain to be found in every case
to have been the most important for the end-result.
JAMES J. PUTNAM.
BOSTON, August 23, 1910.
[1] Translated by A.A. Brill, NERVOUS AND MENTAL DISEASE MONOGRAPH
SERIES, NO. 4.
[2] Translated by A.A. Brill, The Macmillan Co., New York, and Allen &
Unwin, London.
[3] Translated by A.A. Brill, The Macmillan Co., New York.
[4] Translated by A.A. Brill, Moffatt, Yard & Co., New York.
[4a] Translated by A.A. Brill, Moffatt, Yard & Co., New York.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
Although the author is fully aware of the gaps and obscurities contained
in this small volume, he has, nevertheless, resisted a temptation to add
to it the results obtained from the investigations of the last five
years, fearing that thus its unified and documentary character would be
destroyed. He accordingly reproduces the original text with but slight
modifications, contenting himself with the addition of a few footnotes.
For the rest, it is his ardent wish that this book may speedily become
antiquated--to the end that the new material brought forward in it may
be universally accepted, while the shortcomings it displays may give
place to juster views.
VIENNA, December, 1909.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION
After watching for ten years the reception accorded to this book and the
effect it has produced, I wish to provide the third edition of it with
some prefatory remarks dealing with the misunderstandings of the book
and the demands, insusceptible of fulfillment, made against it. Let me
emphasize in the first place that whatever is here presented is derived
entirely from every-day medical experience which is to be made more
profound and scientifically important through the results of
psychoanalytic investigation. The "Three Contributions to the Theory of
Sex" can contain nothing except what psychoanalysis obliges them to
accept or what it succeeds in corroborating. It is therefore excluded
that they should ever be developed into a "theory of sex," and it is
also quite intelligible that they will assume no attitude at all towards
some important problems of the sexual life. This should not however give
the impression that these omitted chapters of the great theme were
unfamiliar to the author, or that they were neglected by him as
something of secondary importance.
The dependence of this work on the psychoanalytic experiences which have
determined the writing of it, shows itself not only in the selection but
also in the arrangement of the material. A certain succession of stages
was observed, the occasional factors are rendered prominent, the
constitutional ones are left in the background, and the ontogenetic
development receives greater consideration than the phylogenetic. For
the occasional factors play the principal rôle in analysis, and are
almost completely worked up in it, while the constitutional factors only
become evident from behind as elements which have been made functional
through experience, and a discussion of these would lead far beyond the
working sphere of psychoanalysis.
A similar connection determines the relation between ontogenesis and
phylogenesis. Ontogenesis may be considered as a repetition of
phylogenesis insofar as the latter has not been varied by a more recent
experience. The phylogenetic disposition makes itself visible behind the
ontogenetic process. But fundamentally the constitution is really the
precipitate of a former experience of the species to which the newer
experience of the individual being is added as the sum of the occasional
factors.
Beside its thoroughgoing dependence on psychoanalytic investigation I
must emphasize as a character of this work of mine its intentional
independence of biological investigation. I have carefully avoided the
inclusion of the results of scientific investigation in general sex
biology or of particular species of animals in this study of human
sexual functions which is made possible by the technique of
psychoanalysis. My aim was indeed to find out how much of the biology of
the sexual life of man can be discovered by means of psychological
investigation; I was able to point to additions and agreements which
resulted from this examination, but I did not have to become confused if
the psychoanalytic methods led in some points to views and results which
deviated considerably from those merely based on biology.
I have added many passages in this edition, but I have abstained from
calling attention to them, as in former editions, by special marks. The
scientific work in our sphere has at present been retarded in its
progress, nevertheless some supplements to this work were indispensable
if it was to remain in touch with our newer psychoanalytic literature.
VIENNA, October, 1914.
I
THE SEXUAL ABERRATIONS[1]
The fact of sexual need in man and animal is expressed in biology by the
assumption of a "sexual impulse." This impulse is made analogous to the
impulse of taking nourishment, and to hunger. The sexual expression
corresponding to hunger not being found colloquilly, science uses the
expression "libido."[2]
Popular conception makes definite assumptions concerning the nature and
qualities of this sexual impulse. It is supposed to be absent during
childhood and to commence about the time of and in connection with the
maturing process of puberty; it is supposed that it manifests itself in
irresistible attractions exerted by one sex upon the other, and that its
aim is sexual union or at least such actions as would lead to union.
But we have every reason to see in these assumptions a very
untrustworthy picture of reality. On closer examination they are found
to abound in errors, inaccuracies and hasty conclusions.
If we introduce two terms and call the person from whom the sexual
attraction emanates the _sexual object_, and the action towards which
the impulse strives the _sexual aim_, then the scientifically examined
experience shows us many deviations in reference to both sexual object
and sexual aim, the relations of which to the accepted standard require
thorough investigation.
1. DEVIATION IN REFERENCE TO THE SEXUAL OBJECT
The popular theory of the sexual impulse corresponds closely to the
poetic fable of dividing the person into two halves--man and woman--who
strive to become reunited through love. It is therefore very surprising
to hear that there are men for whom the sexual object is not woman but
man, and that there are women for whom it is not man but woman. Such
_persons_ are called contrary sexuals, or better, inverts; the
_condition_, that of inversion. The number of such individuals is
considerable though difficult of accurate determination.[3]
A. _Inversion_
*The Behavior of Inverts.*--The above-mentioned persons behave in many
ways quite differently.
(_a_) They are absolutely inverted; _i.e._, their sexual object must be
always of the same sex, while the opposite sex can never be to them an
object of sexual longing, but leaves them indifferent or may even evoke
sexual repugnance. As men they are unable, on account of this
repugnance, to perform the normal sexual act or miss all pleasure in its
performance.
(_b_) They are amphigenously inverted (psychosexually hermaphroditic);
_i.e._, their sexual object may belong indifferently to either the same
or to the other sex. The inversion lacks the character of exclusiveness.
(_c_) They are occasionally inverted; _i.e._, under certain external
conditions, chief among which are the inaccessibility of the normal
sexual object and initiation, they are able to take as the sexual
object a person of the same sex and thus find sexual gratification.
The inverted also manifest a manifold behavior in their judgment about
the peculiarities of their sexual impulse. Some take the inversion as a
matter of course, just as the normal person does regarding his libido,
firmly demanding the same rights as the normal. Others, however, strive
against the fact of their inversion and perceive in it a morbid
compulsion.[4]
Other variations concern the relations of time. The characteristics of
the inversion in any individual may date back as far as his memory goes,
or they may become manifest to him at a definite period before or after
puberty.[5] The character is either retained throughout life, or it
occasionally recedes or represents an episode on the road to normal
development. A periodical fluctuation between the normal and the
inverted sexual object has also been observed. Of special interest are
those cases in which the libido changes, taking on the character of
inversion after a painful experience with the normal sexual object.
These different categories of variation generally exist independently of
one another. In the most extreme cases it can regularly be assumed that
the inversion has existed at all times and that the person feels
contented with his peculiar state.
Many authors will hesitate to gather into a unit all the cases
enumerated here and will prefer to emphasize the differences rather than
the common characters of these groups, a view which corresponds with
their preferred judgment of inversions. But no matter what divisions may
be set up, it cannot be overlooked that all transitions are abundantly
met with, so that the formation of a series would seem to impose itself.
*Conception of Inversion.*--The first attention bestowed upon inversion
gave rise to the conception that it was a congenital sign of nervous
degeneration. This harmonized with the fact that doctors first met it
among the nervous, or among persons giving such an impression. There are
two elements which should be considered independently in this
conception: the congenitality, and the degeneration.
*Degeneration.*--This term _degeneration_ is open to the objections
which may be urged against the promiscuous use of this word in general.
It has in fact become customary to designate all morbid manifestations
not of traumatic or infectious origin as degenerative. Indeed, Magnan's
classification of degenerates makes it possible that the highest general
configuration of nervous accomplishment need not exclude the application
of the concept of degeneration. Under the circumstances, it is a
question what use and what new content the judgment of "degeneration"
still possesses. It would seem more appropriate not to speak of
degeneration: (1) Where there are not many marked deviations from the
normal; (2) where the capacity for working and living do not in general
appear markedly impaired.[6]
That the inverted are not degenerates in this qualified sense can be
seen from the following facts:
1. The inversion is found among persons who otherwise show no marked
deviation from the normal.
2. It is found also among persons whose capabilities are not disturbed,
who on the contrary are distinguished by especially high intellectual
development and ethical culture.[7]
3. If one disregards the patients of one's own practice and strives to
comprehend a wider field of experience, he will in two directions
encounter facts which will prevent him from assuming inversions as a
degenerative sign.
(_a_) It must be considered that inversion was a frequent manifestation
among the ancient nations at the height of their culture. It was an
institution endowed with important functions. (_b_) It is found to be
unusually prevalent among savages and primitive races, whereas the term
degeneration is generally limited to higher civilization (I. Bloch).
Even among the most civilized nations of Europe, climate and race have a
most powerful influence on the distribution of, and attitude toward,
inversion.[8]
*Innateness.*--Only for the first and most extreme class of inverts, as
can be imagined, has innateness been claimed, and this from their own
assurance that at no time in their life has their sexual impulse
followed a different course. The fact of the existence of two other
classes, especially of the third, is difficult to reconcile with the
assumption of its being congenital. Hence, the propensity of those
holding this view to separate the group of absolute inverts from the
others results in the abandonment of the general conception of
inversion. Accordingly in a number of cases the inversion would be of a
congenital character, while in others it might originate from other
causes.
In contradistinction to this conception is that which assumes inversion
to be an _acquired_ character of the sexual impulse. It is based on the
following facts. (1) In many inverts (even absolute ones) an early
affective sexual impression can be demonstrated, as a result of which
the homosexual inclination developed. (2) In many others outer
influences of a promoting and inhibiting nature can be demonstrated,
which in earlier or later life led to a fixation of the inversion--among
which are exclusive relations with the same sex, companionship in war,
detention in prison, dangers of hetero-sexual intercourse, celibacy,
sexual weakness, etc. (3) Hypnotic suggestion may remove the inversion,
which would be surprising in that of a congenital character.
In view of all this, the existence of congenital inversion can certainly
be questioned. The objection may be made to it that a more accurate
examination of those claimed to be congenitally inverted will probably
show that the direction of the libido was determined by a definite
experience of early childhood, which has not been retained in the
conscious memory of the person, but which can be brought back to memory
by proper influences (Havelock Ellis). According to that author
inversion can be designated only as a frequent variation of the sexual
impulse which may be determined by a number of external circumstances of
life.
The apparent certainty thus reached is, however, overthrown by the
retort that manifestly there are many persons who have experienced even
in their early youth those very sexual influences, such as seduction,
mutual onanism, without becoming inverts, or without constantly
remaining so. Hence, one is forced to assume that the alternatives
congenital and acquired are either incomplete or do not cover the
circumstances present in inversions.
*Explanation of Inversion.*--The nature of inversion is explained
neither by the assumption that it is congenital nor that it is acquired.
In the first case, we need to be told what there is in it of the
congenital, unless we are satisfied with the roughest explanation,
namely, that a person brings along a congenital sexual impulse connected
with a definite sexual object. In the second case it is a question
whether the manifold accidental influences suffice to explain the
acquisition unless there is something in the individual to meet them
half way. The negation of this last factor is inadmissible according to
our former conclusions.
*The Relation of Bisexuality.*--Since the time of Frank Lydston,
Kiernan, and Chevalier, a new series of ideas has been introduced for
the explanation of the possibility of sexual inversion. This contains a
new contradiction to the popular belief which assumes that a human being
is either a man or a woman. Science shows cases in which the sexual
characteristics appear blurred and thus the sexual distinction is made
difficult, especially on an anatomical basis. The genitals of such
persons unite the male and female characteristics (hermaphroditism). In
rare cases both parts of the sexual apparatus are well developed (true
hermaphroditism), but usually both are stunted.[9]
The importance of these abnormalities lies in the fact that they
unexpectedly facilitate the understanding of the normal formation. A
certain degree of anatomical hermaphroditism really belongs to the
normal. In no normally formed male or female are traces of the apparatus
of the other sex lacking; these either continue functionless as
rudimentary organs, or they are transformed for the purpose of assuming
other functions.
The conception which we gather from this long known anatomical fact is
the original predisposition to bisexuality, which in the course of
development has changed to monosexuality, leaving slight remnants of the
stunted sex.
It was natural to transfer this conception to the psychic sphere and to
conceive the inversion in its aberrations as an expression of psychic
hermaphroditism. In order to bring the question to a decision, it was
only necessary to have one other circumstance, viz., a regular
concurrence of the inversion with the psychic and somatic signs of
hermaphroditism.
But this second expectation was not realized. The relations between the
assumed psychical and the demonstrable anatomical androgyny should never
be conceived as being so close. There is frequently found in the
inverted a diminution of the sexual impulse (H. Ellis) and a slight
anatomical stunting of the organs. This, however, is found frequently
but by no means regularly or preponderately. Thus we must recognize that
inversion and somatic hermaphroditism are totally independent of each
other.
Great importance has also been attached to the so-called secondary and
tertiary sex characters and their aggregate occurrence in the inverted
has been emphasized (H. Ellis). There is much truth in this but it
should not be forgotten that the secondary and tertiary sex
characteristics very frequently manifest themselves in the other sex,
thus indicating androgyny without, however, involving changes in the
sexual object in the sense of an inversion.
Psychic hermaphroditism would gain in substantiality if parallel with
the inversion of the sexual object there should be at least a change in
the other psychic qualities, such as in the impulses and distinguishing
traits characteristic of the other sex. But such inversion of character
can be expected with some regularity only in inverted women; in men the
most perfect psychic manliness may be united with the inversion. If one
firmly adheres to the hypothesis of a psychic hermaphroditism, one must
add that in certain spheres its manifestations allow the recognition of
only a very slight contrary determination. The same also holds true in
the somatic androgyny. According to Halban, the appearance of individual
stunted organs and secondary sex characters are quite independent of
each other.[10]
A spokesman of the masculine inverts stated the bisexual theory in its
crudest form in the following words: "It is a female brain in a male
body." But we do not know the characteristics of a "female brain." The
substitution of the anatomical for the psychological is as frivolous as
it is unjustified. The tentative explanation by v. Krafft-Ebing seems to
be more precisely formulated than that of Ulrich but does not
essentially differ from it. v. Krafft-Ebing thinks that the bisexual
predisposition gives to the individual male and female brain centers as
well as somatic sexual organs. These centers develop first towards
puberty mostly under the influence of the independent sex glands. We
can, however, say the same of the male and female "centers" as of the
male and female brains; and, moreover, we do not even know whether we
can assume for the sexual functions separate brain locations ("centers")
such as we may assume for language.
After this discussion, two notions, at all events, persist; first, that
a bisexual predisposition is to be presumed for the inversion also, only
we do not know of what it consists beyond the anatomical formations;
and, second, that we are dealing with disturbances which are experienced
by the sexual impulse during its development.[11]
*The Sexual Object of Inverts.*--The theory of psychic hermaphroditism
presupposed that the sexual object of the inverted is the reverse of the
normal. The inverted man, like the woman, succumbs to the charms
emanating from manly qualities of body and mind; he feels himself like a
woman and seeks a man.
But however true this may be for a great number of inverts, it by no
means indicates the general character of inversion. There is no doubt
that a great part of the male inverted have retained the psychic
character of virility, that proportionately they show but little of the
secondary characters of the other sex, and that they really look for
real feminine psychic features in their sexual object. If that were not
so it would be incomprehensible why masculine prostitution, in offering
itself to inverts, copies in all its exterior, to-day as in antiquity,
the dress and attitudes of woman. This imitation would otherwise be an
insult to the ideal of the inverts. Among the Greeks, where the most
manly men were found among inverts, it is quite obvious that it was not
the masculine character of the boy which kindled the love of man, but it
was his physical resemblance to woman as well as his feminine psychic
qualities, such as shyness, demureness, and the need of instruction and
help. As soon as the boy himself became a man he ceased to be a sexual
object for men and in turn became a lover of boys. The sexual object in
this case as in many others is therefore not of the like sex, but it
unites both sex characters, a compromise between the impulses striving
for the man and for the woman, but firmly conditioned by the masculinity
of body (the genitals).[12]
The conditions in the woman are more definite; here the active inverts,
with special frequency, show the somatic and psychic characters of man
and desire femininity in their sexual object; though even here greater
variation will be found on more intimate investigation.
*The Sexual Aim of Inverts.*--The important fact to bear in mind is that
no uniformity of the sexual aim can be attributed to inversion.
Intercourse per anum in men by no means goes with inversion;
masturbation is just as frequently the exclusive aim; and the limitation
of the sexual aim to mere effusion of feelings is here even more
frequent than in hetero-sexual love. In women, too, the sexual aims of
the inverted are manifold, among which contact with the mucous membrane
of the mouth seems to be preferred.
*Conclusion.*--Though from the material on hand we are by no means in a
position satisfactorily to explain the origin of inversion, we can say
that through this investigation we have obtained an insight which can
become of greater significance to us than the solution of the above
problem. Our attention is called to the fact that we have assumed a too
close connection between the sexual impulse and the sexual object. The
experience gained from the so called abnormal cases teaches us that a
connection exists between the sexual impulse and the sexual object which
we are in danger of overlooking in the uniformity of normal states where
the impulse seems to bring with it the object. We are thus instructed to
separate this connection between the impulse and the object. The sexual
impulse is probably entirely independent of its object and is not
originated by the stimuli proceeding from the object.
B. _The Sexually Immature and Animals as Sexual Objects_
Whereas those sexual inverts whose sexual object does not belong to the
normally adapted sex, appear to the observer as a collective number of
perhaps otherwise normal individuals, the persons who choose for their
sexual object the sexually immature (children) are apparently from the
first sporadic aberrations. Only exceptionally are children the
exclusive sexual objects. They are mostly drawn into this rôle by a
faint-hearted and impotent individual who makes use of such substitutes,
or when an impulsive urgent desire cannot at the time secure the proper
object. Still it throws some light on the nature of the sexual impulse,
that it should suffer such great variation and depreciation of its
object, a thing which hunger, adhering more energetically to its object,
would allow only in the most extreme cases. The same may be said of
sexual relations with animals--a thing not at all rare among
farmers--where the sexual attraction goes beyond the limits of the
species.
For esthetic reasons one would fain attribute this and other excessive
aberrations of the sexual impulse to the insane, but this cannot be
done. Experience teaches that among the latter no disturbances of the
sexual impulse can be found other than those observed among the sane, or
among whole races and classes. Thus we find with gruesome frequency
sexual abuse of children by teachers and servants merely because they
have the best opportunities for it. The insane present the aforesaid
aberration only in a somewhat intensified form; or what is of special
significance is the fact that the aberration becomes exclusive and takes
the place of the normal sexual gratification.
This very remarkable relation of sexual variations ranging from the
normal to the insane gives material for reflection. It seems to me that
the fact to be explained would show that the impulses of the sexual life
belong to those which even normally are most poorly controlled by the
higher psychic activities. He who is in any way psychically abnormal, be
it in social or ethical conditions, is, according to my experience,
regularly so in his sexual life. But many are abnormal in their sexual
life who in every other respect correspond to the average; they have
followed the human cultural development, but sexuality remained as their
weak point.
As a general result of these discussions we come to see that, under
numerous conditions and among a surprising number of individuals, the
nature and value of the sexual object steps into the background. There
is something else in the sexual impulse which is the essential and
constant.[13]
2. DEVIATION IN REFERENCE TO THE SEXUAL AIM
The union of the genitals in the characteristic act of copulation is
taken as the normal sexual aim. It serves to loosen the sexual tension
and temporarily to quench the sexual desire (gratification analogous to
satisfaction of hunger). Yet even in the most normal sexual process
those additions are distinguishable, the development of which leads to
the aberrations described as _perversions_. Thus certain intermediary
relations to the sexual object connected with copulation, such as
touching and looking, are recognized as preliminary to the sexual aim.
These activities are on the one hand themselves connected with pleasure
and on the other hand they enhance the excitement which persists until
the definite sexual aim is reached. One definite kind of contiguity,
consisting of mutual approximation of the mucous membranes of the lips
in the form of a kiss, has received among the most civilized nations a
sexual value, though the parts of the body concerned do not belong to
the sexual apparatus but form the entrance to the digestive tract. This
therefore supplies the factors which allow us to bring the perversions
into relation with the normal sexual life, and which are available also
for their classification. The perversions are either (_a_) anatomical
_transgressions_ of the bodily regions destined for sexual union, or (_b_)
a _lingering_ at the intermediary relations to the sexual object which
should normally be rapidly passed on the way to the definite sexual aim.
(_a_) _Anatomical Transgression_
*Overestimation of the Sexual Object.*--The psychic estimation in which
the sexual object as a goal of the sexual impulse shares is only in the
rarest cases limited to the genitals; generally it embraces the whole
body and tends to include all sensations emanating from the sexual
object. The same overestimation spreads over the psychic sphere and
manifests itself as a logical blinding (diminished judgment) in the face
of the psychic attainments and perfections of the sexual object, as well
as a blind obedience to the judgments issuing from the latter. The full
faith of love thus becomes an important, if not the primordial source of
authority.[14]
It is this sexual overvaluation, which so ill agrees with the
restriction of the sexual aim to the union of the genitals only, that
assists other parts of the body to participate as sexual aims.[15] In
the development of this most manifold anatomical overestimation there is
an unmistakable desire towards variation, a thing denominated by Hoche
as "excitement-hunger" (Reiz-hunger).[16]
*Sexual Utilization of the Mucous Membrane of the Lips and Mouth.*--The
significance of the factor of sexual overestimation can be best studied
in the man, in whom alone the sexual life is accessible to
investigation, whereas in the woman it is veiled in impenetrable
darkness, partly in consequence of cultural stunting and partly on
account of the conventional reticence and dishonesty of women.
The employment of the mouth as a sexual organ is considered as a
perversion if the lips (tongue) of the one are brought into contact with
the genitals of the other, but not when the mucous membrane of the lips
of both touch each other. In the latter exception we find the connection
with the normal. He who abhors the former as perversions, though these
since antiquity have been common practices among mankind, yields to a
distinct _feeling of loathing_ which protects him from adopting such
sexual aims. The limit of such loathing is frequently purely
conventional; he who kisses fervently the lips of a pretty girl will
perhaps be able to use her tooth brush only with a sense of loathing,
though there is no reason to assume that his own oral cavity for which
he entertains no loathing is cleaner than that of the girl. Our
attention is here called to the factor of loathing which stands in the
way of the libidinous overestimation of the sexual aim, but which may
in turn be vanquished by the libido. In the loathing we may observe one
of the forces which have brought about the restrictions of the sexual
aim. As a rule these forces halt at the genitals; there is, however, no
doubt that even the genitals of the other sex themselves may be an
object of loathing. Such behavior is characteristic of all hysterics,
especially women. The force of the sexual impulse prefers to occupy
itself with the overcoming of this loathing (see below).
*Sexual Utilization of the Anal Opening.*--It is even more obvious than
in the former case that it is the loathing which stamps as a perversion
the use of the anus as a sexual aim. But it should not be interpreted as
espousing a cause when I observe that the basis of this
loathing--namely, that this part of the body serves for the excretion
and comes in contact with the loathsome excrement--is not more plausible
than the basis which hysterical girls have for the disgust which they
entertain for the male genital because it serves for urination.
The sexual rôle of the mucous membrane of the anus is by no means
limited to intercourse between men; its preference has nothing
characteristic of the inverted feeling. On the contrary, it seems that
the _pedicatio_ of the man owes its rôle to the analogy with the act in
the woman, whereas among inverts it is mutual masturbation which is the
most common sexual aim.
*The Significance of Other Parts of the Body.*--Sexual infringement on
the other parts of the body, in all its variations, offers nothing new;
it adds nothing to our knowledge of the sexual impulse which herein only
announces its intention to dominate the sexual object in every way.
Besides the sexual overvaluation, a second and generally unknown factor
may be mentioned among the anatomical transgressions. Certain parts of
the body, like the mucous membrane of the mouth and anus, which
repeatedly appear in such practices, lay claim as it were to be
considered and treated as genitals. We shall hear how this claim is
justified by the development of the sexual impulse, and how it is
fulfilled in the symptomatology of certain morbid conditions.
*Unfit Substitutes for the Sexual Object. Fetichism.*--We are especially
impressed by those cases in which for the normal sexual object another
is substituted which is related to it but which is totally unfit for the
normal sexual aim. According to the scheme of the introduction we should
have done better to mention this most interesting group of aberrations
of the sexual impulse among the deviations in reference to the sexual
object, but we have deferred mention of these until we became acquainted
with the factor of sexual overestimation, upon which these
manifestations, connected with the relinquishing of the sexual aim,
depend.
The substitute for the sexual object is generally a part of the body but
little adapted for sexual purposes, such as the foot, or hair, or an
inanimate object which is in demonstrable relation with the sexual
person, and preferably with the sexuality of the same (fragments of
clothing, white underwear). This substitution is not unjustly compared
with the fetich in which the savage sees the embodiment of his god.
The transition to the cases of fetichism, with a renunciation of a
normal or of a perverted sexual aim, is formed by cases in which a
fetichistic determination is demanded in the sexual object if the sexual
aim is to be attained (definite color of hair, clothing, even physical
blemishes). No other variation of the sexual impulse verging on the
pathological claims our interest as much as this one, owing to the
peculiarity occasioned by its manifestations. A certain diminution in
the striving for the normal sexual aim may be presupposed in all these
cases (executive weakness of the sexual apparatus).[17] The connection
with the normal is occasioned by the psychologically necessary
overestimation of the sexual object, which inevitably encroaches upon
everything associatively related to it (sexual object). A certain degree
of such fetichism therefore regularly belong to the normal, especially
during those stages of wooing when the normal sexual aim seems
inaccessible or its realization deferred.
"Get me a handkerchief from her bosom--a garter of my love."
--FAUST.
The case becomes pathological only when the striving for the fetich
fixes itself beyond such determinations and takes the place of the
normal sexual aim; or again, when the fetich disengages itself from the
person concerned and itself becomes a sexual object. These are the
general determinations for the transition of mere variations of the
sexual impulse into pathological aberrations.
The persistent influence of a sexual impress mostly received in early
childhood often shows itself in the selection of a fetich, as Binet
first asserted, and as was later proven by many illustrations,--a thing
which may be placed parallel to the proverbial attachment to a first
love in the normal ("On revient toujours à ses premiers amours"). Such a
connection is especially seen in cases with only fetichistic
determinations of the sexual object. The significance of early sexual
impressions will be met again in other places.
In other cases it was mostly a symbolic thought association, unconscious
to the person concerned, which led to the replacing of the object by
means of a fetich. The paths of these connections can not always be
definitely demonstrated. The foot is a very primitive sexual symbol
already found in myths.[18] Fur is used as a fetich probably on account
of its association with the hairiness of the mons veneris. Such
symbolism seems often to depend on sexual experiences in childhood.[19]
(_b_) _Fixation of Precursory Sexual Aims_
*The Appearance of New Intentions.*--All the outer and inner
determinations which impede or hold at a distance the attainment of the
normal sexual aim, such as impotence, costliness of the sexual object,
and dangers of the sexual act, will conceivably strengthen the
inclination to linger at the preparatory acts and to form them into new
sexual aims which may take the place of the normal. On closer
investigation it is always seen that the ostensibly most peculiar of
these new intentions have already been indicated in the normal sexual
act.
*Touching and Looking.*--At least a certain amount of touching is
indispensable for a person in order to attain the normal sexual aim. It
is also generally known that the touching of the skin of the sexual
object causes much pleasure and produces a supply of new excitement.
Hence, the lingering at the touching can hardly be considered a
perversion if the sexual act is proceeded with.
The same holds true in the end with looking which is analogous to
touching. The manner in which the libidinous excitement is frequently
awakened is by the optical impression, and selection takes account of
this circumstance--if this teleological mode of thinking be
permitted--by making the sexual object a thing of beauty. The covering
of the body, which keeps abreast with civilization, serves to arouse
sexual inquisitiveness, which always strives to restore for itself the
sexual object by uncovering the hidden parts. This can be turned into
the artistic ("sublimation") if the interest is turned from the genitals
to the form of the body.[20] The tendency to linger at this intermediary
sexual aim of the sexually accentuated looking is found to a certain
degree in most normals; indeed it gives them the possibility of
directing a certain amount of their libido to a higher artistic aim. On
the other hand, the fondness for looking becomes a perversion (_a_) when
it limits itself entirely to the genitals; (_b_) when it becomes connected
with the overcoming of loathing (voyeurs and onlookers at the functions
of excretion); and (_c_) when instead of preparing for the normal sexual
aim it suppresses it. The latter, if I may draw conclusions from a
single analysis, is in a most pronounced way true of exhibitionists, who
expose their genitals so as in turn to bring to view the genitals of
others.
In the perversion which consists in striving to look and be looked at we
are confronted with a very remarkable character which will occupy us
even more intensively in the following aberration. The sexual aim is
here present in twofold formation, in an _active_ and a _passive_ form.
The force which is opposed to the peeping mania and through which it is
eventually abolished is _shame_ (like the former loathing).
*Sadism and Masochism.*--The desire to cause pain to the sexual object
and its opposite, the most frequent and most significant of all
perversions, was designated in its two forms by v. Krafft-Ebing as
sadism or the active form, and masochism or the passive form. Other
authors prefer the narrower term algolagnia which emphasizes the
pleasure in pain and cruelty, whereas the terms selected by v.
Krafft-Ebing place the pleasure secured in all kinds of humility and
submission in the foreground.
The roots of active algolagnia, sadism, can be readily demonstrable in
the normal. The sexuality of most men shows a taint of _aggression_, it
is a propensity to subdue, the biological significance of which lies in
the necessity of overcoming the resistance of the sexual object by
actions other than mere _courting_. Sadism would then correspond to an
aggressive component of the sexual impulse which has become independent
and exaggerated and has been brought to the foreground by displacement.
The conception of sadism fluctuates in the usage of language from a mere
active or impetuous attitude towards the sexual object to the exclusive
attachment of the gratification to the subjection and maltreatment of
the object. Strictly speaking only the last extreme case has a claim to
the name of perversion.
Similarly, the designation of masochism comprises all passive attitude
to the sexual life and to the sexual object; in its most extreme form
the gratification is connected with suffering of physical or mental pain
at the hands of the sexual object. Masochism as a perversion seems to be
still more remote from the normal sexual life by forming a contrast to
it; it may be doubted whether it ever appears as a primary form or
whether it does not more regularly originate through transformation from
sadism. It can often be recognized that the masochism is nothing but a
continuation of the sadism turning against one's own person in which the
latter at first takes the place of the sexual object. Analysis of
extreme cases of masochistic perversions show that there is a
coöperation of a large series of factors which exaggerate and fix the
original passive sexual attitude (castration complex, conscience).
The pain which is here overcome ranks with the loathing and shame which
were the resistances opposed to the libido.
Sadism and masochism occupy a special place among the perversions, for
the contrast of activity and passivity lying at their bases belong to
the common traits of the sexual life.
That cruelty and sexual impulse are most intimately connected is beyond
doubt taught by the history of civilization, but in the explanation of
this connection no one has gone beyond the accentuation of the
aggressive factors of the libido. The aggression which is mixed with the
sexual impulse is according to some authors a remnant of cannibalistic
lust, a participation on the part of the domination apparatus
(Bemächtigungsapparatus), which served also for the gratification of the
great wants of the other, ontogenetically the older impulse.[21] It has
also been claimed that every pain contains in itself the possibility of
a pleasurable sensation. Let us be satisfied with the impression that
the explanation of this perversion is by no means satisfactory and that
it is possible that many psychic efforts unite themselves into one
effect.
The most striking peculiarity of this perversion lies in the fact that
its active and passive forms are regularly encountered together in the
same person. He who experiences pleasure by causing pain to others in
sexual relations is also able to experience the pain emanating from
sexual relations as pleasure. A sadist is simultaneously a masochist,
though either the active or the passive side of the perversion may be
more strongly developed and thus represent his preponderate sexual
activity.[22]
We thus see that certain perverted propensities regularly appear in
_contrasting pairs_, a thing which, in view of the material to be
produced later, must claim great theoretical value. It is furthermore
clear that the existence of the contrast, sadism and masochism, can not
readily be attributed to the mixture of aggression. On the other hand
one may be tempted to connect such simultaneously existing contrasts
with the united contrast of male and female in bisexuality, the
significance of which is reduced in psychoanalysis to the contrast of
activity and passivity.
3. GENERAL STATEMENTS APPLICABLE TO ALL PERVERSIONS
*Variation and Disease.*--The physicians who at first studied the
_perversions_ in pronounced cases and under peculiar conditions were
naturally inclined to attribute to them the character of a morbid or
degenerative sign similar to the _inversions_. This view, however, is
easier to refute in this than in the former case. Everyday experience
has shown that most of these transgressions, at least the milder ones,
are seldom wanting as components in the sexual life of normals who look
upon them as upon other intimacies. Wherever the conditions are
favorable such a perversion may for a long time be substituted by a
normal person for the normal sexual aim or it may be placed near it. In
no normal person does the normal sexual aim lack some designable
perverse element, and this universality suffices in itself to prove the
inexpediency of an opprobrious application of the name perversion. In
the realm of the sexual life one is sure to meet with exceptional
difficulties which are at present really unsolvable, if one wishes to
draw a sharp line between the mere variations within physiological
limits and morbid symptoms.
Nevertheless, the quality of the new sexual aim in some of these
perversions is such as to require special notice. Some of the
perversions are in content so distant from the normal that we cannot
help calling them "morbid," especially those in which the sexual
impulse, in overcoming the resistances (shame, loathing, fear, and pain)
has brought about surprising results (licking of feces and violation of
cadavers). Yet even in these cases one ought not to feel certain of
regularly finding among the perpetrators persons of pronounced
abnormalities or insane minds. We can not lose sight of the fact that
persons who otherwise behave normally are recorded as sick in the realm
of the sexual life where they are dominated by the most unbridled of all
impulses. On the other hand, a manifest abnormality in any other
relation in life generally shows an undercurrent of abnormal sexual
behavior.
In the majority of cases we are able to find the morbid character of the
perversion not in the content of the new sexual aim but in its relation
to the normal. It is morbid if the perversion does not appear beside the
normal (sexual aim and sexual object), where favorable circumstances
promote it and unfavorable impede the normal, or if it has under all
circumstances repressed and supplanted the normal; _the exclusiveness_
and _fixation_ of the perversion justifies us in considering it a morbid
symptom.
*The Psychic Participation in the Perversions.*--Perhaps it is precisely
in the most abominable perversions that we must recognize the most
prolific psychic participation for the transformation of the sexual
impulse. In these cases a piece of psychic work has been accomplished in
which, in spite of its gruesome success, the value of an idealization of
the impulse can not be disputed. The omnipotence of love nowhere perhaps
shows itself stronger than in this one of her aberrations. The highest
and the lowest everywhere in sexuality hang most intimately together.
("From heaven through the world to hell.")
*Two Results.*--In the study of perversions we have gained an insight
into the fact that the sexual impulse has to struggle against certain
psychic forces, resistances, among which shame and loathing are most
prominent. We may presume that these forces are employed to confine the
impulse within the accepted normal limits, and if they have become
developed in the individual before the sexual impulse has attained its
full strength, it is really they which have directed it in the course of
development.[23]
We have furthermore remarked that some of the examined perversions can
be comprehended only by assuming the union of many motives. If they are
amenable to analysis--disintegration--they must be of a composite
nature. This may give us a hint that the sexual impulse itself may not
be something simple, that it may on the contrary be composed of many
components which detach themselves to form perversions. Our clinical
observation thus calls our attention to _fusions_ which have lost their
expression in the uniform normal behavior.
4. THE SEXUAL IMPULSE IN NEUROTICS
*Psychoanalysis.*--A proper contribution to the knowledge of the sexual
impulse in persons who are at least related to the normal can be gained
only from one source, and is accessible only by one definite path. There
is only one way to obtain a thorough and unerring solution of problems
in the sexual life of so-called psychoneurotics (hysteria, obsessions,
the wrongly-named neurasthenia, and surely also dementia præcox, and
paranoia), and that is by subjecting them to the psychoanalytic
investigations propounded by J. Breuer and myself in 1893, which we
called the "cathartic" treatment.
I must repeat what I have said in my published work, that these
psychoneuroses, as far as my experience goes, are based on sexual motive
powers. I do not mean that the energy of the sexual impulse merely
contributes to the forces supporting the morbid manifestations
(symptoms), but I wish distinctly to maintain that this supplies the
only constant and the most important source of energy in the neurosis,
so that the sexual life of such persons manifests itself either
exclusively, preponderately, or partially in these symptoms. As I have
already stated in different places, the symptoms are the sexual
activities of the patient. The proof for this assertion I have obtained
from the psychoanalysis of hysterics and other neurotics during a period
of twenty years, the results of which I hope to give later in a detailed
account.
Psychoanalysis removes the symptoms of hysteria on the supposition that
they are the substitutes--the transcriptions as it were--for a series of
emotionally accentuated psychic processes, wishes, and desires, to which
a passage for their discharge through the conscious psychic activities
has been cut off by a special process (repression). These thought
formations which are restrained in the state of the unconscious strive
for expression, that is, for _discharge_, in conformity to their
affective value, and find such in hysteria through a process of
_conversion_ into somatic phenomena--the hysterical symptoms. If, _lege
artis_, and with the aid of a special technique, retrogressive
transformations of the symptoms into the affectful and conscious
thoughts can be effected, it then becomes possible to get the most
accurate information about the nature and origin of these previously
unconscious psychic formations.
*Results of Psychoanalysis.*--In this manner it has been discovered that
the symptoms represent the equivalent for the strivings which received
their strength from the source of the sexual impulse. This fully concurs
with what we know of the character of hysterics, which we have taken as
models for all psycho-neurotics, before they have become diseased, and
with what we know concerning the causes of the disease. The hysterical
character evinces a part of sexual repression which reaches beyond the
normal limits, an exaggeration of the resistances against the sexual
impulse which we know as shame and loathing. It is an instinctive flight
from intellectual occupation with the sexual problem, the consequence of
which in pronounced cases is a complete sexual ignorance, which is
preserved till the age of sexual maturity is attained.[24]
This feature, so characteristic of hysteria, is not seldom concealed in
crude observation by the existence of the second constitutional factor
of hysteria, namely, the enormous development of the sexual craving. But
the psychological analysis will always reveal it and solves the very
contradictory enigma of hysteria by proving the existence of the
contrasting pair, an immense sexual desire and a very exaggerated sexual
rejection.
The provocation of the disease in hysterically predisposed persons is
brought about if in consequence of their progressive maturity or
external conditions of life they are earnestly confronted with the real
sexual demand. Between the pressure of the craving and the opposition of
the sexual rejection an outlet for the disease results, which does not
remove the conflict but seeks to elude it by transforming the libidinous
strivings into symptoms. It is an exception only in appearance if a
hysterical person, say a man, becomes subject to some banal emotional
disturbance, to a conflict in the center of which there is no sexual
interest. Psychoanalysis will regularly show that it is the sexual
components of the conflict which make the disease possible by
withdrawing the psychic processes from normal adjustment.
*Neurosis and Perversion.*--A great part of the opposition to my
assertion is explained by the fact that the sexuality from which I
deduce the psychoneurotic symptoms is thought of as coincident with the
normal sexual impulse. But psychoanalysis teaches us better than this.
It shows that the symptoms do not by any means result at the expense
only of the so called normal sexual impulse (at least not exclusively or
preponderately), but they represent the converted expression of impulses
which in a broader sense might be designated as _perverse_ if they could
manifest themselves directly in phantasies and acts without deviating
from consciousness. The symptoms are therefore partially formed at the
cost of abnormal sexuality. _The neurosis is, so to say, the negative of
the perversion._[25]
The sexual impulse of the psychoneurotic shows all the aberrations which
we have studied as variations of the normal and as manifestations of
morbid sexual life.
(_a_) In all the neurotics without exception we find feelings of inversion
in the unconscious psychic life, fixation of libido on persons of the
same sex. It is impossible, without a deep and searching discussion,
adequately to appreciate the significance of this factor for the
formation of the picture of the disease; I can only assert that the
unconscious propensity to inversion is never wanting and is particularly
of immense service in explaining male hysteria.[26]
(_b_) All the inclinations to anatomical transgression can be demonstrated
in psychoneurotics in the unconscious and as symptom-creators. Of
special frequency and intensity are those which impart to the mouth and
the mucous membrane of the anus the rôle of genitals.
(_c_) The partial desires which usually appear in contrasting pairs play
a very prominent rôle among the symptom-creators in the psychoneuroses.
We have learned to know them as carriers of new sexual aims, such as
peeping mania, exhibitionism, and the actively and passively formed
impulses of cruelty. The contribution of the last is indispensable for
the understanding of the morbid nature of the symptoms; it almost
regularly controls some portion of the social behavior of the patient.
The transformation of love into hatred, of tenderness into hostility,
which is characteristic of a large number of neurotic cases and
apparently of all cases of paranoia, takes place by means of the union
of cruelty with the libido.
The interest in these deductions will be more heightened by certain
peculiarities of the diagnosis of facts.
Alpha. There is nothing in the unconscious streams of thought of
the neuroses which would correspond to an inclination towards fetichism;
a circumstance which throws light on the psychological peculiarity of
this well understood perversion.
Beta. Wherever any such impulse is found in the unconscious which
can be paired with a contrasting one, it can regularly be demonstrated
that the latter, too, is effective. Every active perversion is here
accompanied by its passive counterpart. He who in the unconscious is an
exhibitionist is at the same time a voyeur, he who suffers from sadistic
feelings as a result of repression will also show another reinforcement
of the symptoms from the source of masochistic tendencies. The perfect
concurrence with the behavior of the corresponding positive perversions
is certainly very noteworthy. In the picture of the disease, however,
the preponderant rôle is played by either one or the other of the
opposing tendencies.
Gamma. In a pronounced case of psychoneurosis we seldom find the
development of one single perverted impulse; usually there are many and
regularly there are traces of all perversions. The individual impulse,
however, on account of its intensity, is independent of the development
of the others, but the study of the positive perversions gives us the
accurate counterpart to it.
PARTIAL IMPULSES AND EROGENOUS ZONES
Keeping in mind what we have learned from the examination of the
positive and negative perversions, it becomes quite obvious that they
can be referred to a number of "partial impulses," which are not,
however, primary but are subject to further analysis. By an "impulse" we
can understand in the first place nothing but the psychic representative
of a continually flowing internal somatic source of excitement, in
contradistinction to the "stimulus" which is produced by isolated
excitements coming from without. The impulse is thus one of the concepts
marking the limits between the psychic and the physical. The simplest
and most obvious assumption concerning the nature of the impulses would
be that in themselves they possess no quality but are only taken into
account as a measure of the demand for effort in the psychic life. What
distinguishes the impulses from one another and furnishes them with
specific attributes is their relation to their somatic _sources_ and to
their _aims_. The source of the impulse is an exciting process in an
organ, and the immediate aim of the impulse lies in the elimination of
this organic stimulus.
Another preliminary assumption in the theory of the impulse which we
cannot relinquish, states that the bodily organs furnish two kinds of
excitements which are determined by differences of a chemical nature.
One of these forms of excitement we designate as the specifically sexual
and the concerned organ as the _erogenous zone_, while the sexual
element emanating from it is the partial impulse.[27]
In the perversions which claim sexual significance for the oral cavity
and the anal opening the part played by the erogenous zone is quite
obvious. It behaves in every way like a part of the sexual apparatus. In
hysteria these parts of the body, as well as the tracts of mucous
membrane proceeding from them, become the seat of new sensations and
innervating changes in a manner similar to the real genitals when under
the excitement of normal sexual processes.
The significance of the erogenous zones in the psychoneuroses, as
additional apparatus and substitutes for the genitals, appears to be
most prominent in hysteria though that does not signify that it is of
lesser validity in the other morbid forms. It is not so recognizable in
compulsion neurosis and paranoia because here the symptom formation
takes place in regions of the psychic apparatus which lie at a great
distance from the central locations for bodily control. The more
remarkable thing in the compulsion neurosis is the significance of the
impulses which create new sexual aims and appear independently of the
erogenous zones. Nevertheless, the eye corresponds to an erogenous zone
in the looking and exhibition mania, while the skin takes on the same
part in the pain and cruelty components of the sexual impulse. The skin,
which in special parts of the body becomes differentiated as sensory
organs and modified by the mucous membrane, is the erogenous zone,
[Greek: kat] ex ogen.[28]
EXPLANATION OF THE MANIFEST PREPONDERANCE OF SEXUAL PERVERSIONS IN THE
PSYCHONEUROSES
The sexuality of psychoneurotics has perhaps been placed in a false
light by the above discussions. It appears that the sexual behavior of
the psychoneurotic approaches in predisposition to the pervert and
deviates by just so much from the normal. Nevertheless, it is very
possible that the constitutional disposition of these patients besides
containing an immense amount of sexual repression and a predominant
force of sexual impulse also possesses an unusual tendency to
perversions in the broadest sense. However, an examination of milder
cases shows that the last assumption is not an absolute requisite, or at
least that in pronouncing judgment on the morbid effects one ought to
discount the effect of one of the factors. In most psychoneurotics the
disease first appears after puberty following the demands of the normal
sexual life. Against these the repression above all directs itself. Or
the disease comes on later, owing to the fact that the libido is unable
to attain normal sexual gratification. In both cases the libido behaves
like a stream the principal bed of which is dammed; it fills the
collateral roads which until now perhaps have been empty. Thus the
manifestly great (though to be sure negative) tendency to perversion in
psychoneurotics may be collaterally conditioned; at any rate, it is
certainly collaterally increased. The fact of the matter is that the
sexual repression has to be added as an inner factor to such external
ones as restriction of freedom, inaccessibility to the normal sexual
object, dangers of the normal sexual act, etc., which cause the origin
of perversions in individuals who might have otherwise remained normal.
In individual cases of neurosis the behavior may be different; now the
congenital force of the tendency to perversion may be more decisive and
at other times more influence may be exerted by the collateral increase
of the same through the deviation of the libido from the normal sexual
aim and object. It would be unjust to construe a contrast where a
cooperation exists. The greatest results will always be brought about by
a neurosis if constitution and experience cooperate in the same
direction. A pronounced constitution may perhaps be able to dispense
with the assistance of daily impressions, while a profound disturbance
in life may perhaps bring on a neurosis even in an average constitution.
These views similarly hold true in the etiological significance
of the congenital and the accidental experiences in other spheres.
If, however, preference is given to the assumption that an especially
formed tendency to perversions is characteristic of the psychoneurotic
constitution, there is a prospect of being able to distinguish a
multiformity of such constitutions in accordance with the congenital
preponderance of this or that erogenous zone, or of this or that partial
impulse. Whether there is a special relationship between the
predisposition to perversions and the selection of the morbid picture
has not, like many other things in this realm, been investigated.
REFERENCE TO THE INFANTILISM OF SEXUALITY
By demonstrating the perverted feelings as symptomatic formations in
psychoneurotics, we have enormously increased the number of persons who
can be added to the perverts. This is not only because neurotics
represent a very large proportion of humanity, but we must consider also
that the neuroses in all their gradations run in an uninterrupted series
to the normal state. Moebius was quite justified in saying that we are
all somewhat hysterical. Hence, the very wide dissemination of
perversions urged us to assume that the predisposition to perversions is
no rare peculiarity but must form a part of the normally accepted
constitution.
We have heard that it is a question whether perversions should be
referred to congenital determinations or whether they originate from
accidental experiences, just as Binet showed in fetichisms. Now we are
forced to the conclusion that there is indeed something congenital at
the basis of perversions, but it is something _which is congenital in
all persons_, which as a predisposition may fluctuate in intensity and
is brought into prominence by influences of life. We deal here with
congenital roots in the constitution of the sexual impulse which in one
series of cases develop into real carriers of sexual activity
(perverts); while in other cases they undergo an insufficient
suppression (repression), so that as morbid symptoms they are enabled to
attract to themselves in a round-about way a considerable part of the
sexual energy; while again in favorable cases between the two extremes
they originate the normal sexual life through effective restrictions and
other elaborations.
But we must also remember that the assumed constitution which shows the
roots of all perversions will be demonstrable only in the child, though
all impulses can be manifested in it only in moderate intensity. If we
are led to suppose that neurotics conserve the infantile state of their
sexuality or return to it, our interest must then turn to the sexual
life of the child, and we will then follow the play of influences which
control the processes of development of the infantile sexuality up to
its termination in a perversion, a neurosis or a normal sexual life.
[1] The facts contained in the first "Contribution" have been gathered
from the familiar publications of Krafft-Ebing, Moll, Moebius, Havelock
Ellis, Schrenk-Notzing, Löwenfeld, Eulenberg, J. Bloch, and M.
Hirschfeld, and from the later works published in the "Jahrbuch für
sexuelle Zwischenstufen." As these publications also mention the other
literature bearing on this subject I may forbear giving detailed
references.
The conclusions reached through the investigation of sexual inverts are
all based on the reports of J. Sadger and on my own experience.
[2] For general use the word "libido" is best translated by "craving."
(Prof. James J. Putnam, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Vol. IV, 6.)
[3] For the difficulties entailed in the attempt to ascertain the
proportional number of inverts compare the work of M. Hirschfeld in the
Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen, 1904. Cf. also Brill, The
Conception of Homosexuality, Journal of the A.M.A., August 2, 1913.
[4] Such a striving against the compulsion to inversion favors cures by
suggestion of psychoanalysis.
[5] Many have justly emphasized the fact that the autobiographic
statements of inverts, as to the time of the appearance of their
tendency to inversion, are untrustworthy as they may have repressed from
memory any evidences of heterosexual feelings.
Psychoanalysis has confirmed this suspicion in all cases of inversion
accessible, and has decidedly changed their anamnesis by filling up the
infantile amnesias.
[6] With what reserve the diagnosis of degeneration should be made and
what slight practical significance can be attributed to it can be
gathered from the discussions of Moebius (Ueber Entartung; Grenzfragen
des Nerven- und Seelenlebens, No. III, 1900). He says: "If we review the
wide sphere of degeneration upon which we have here turned some light we
can conclude without further ado that it is really of little value to
diagnose degeneration."
[7] We must agree with the spokesman of "Uranism" that some of the most
prominent men known have been inverts and perhaps absolute inverts.
[8] In the conception of inversion the pathological features have been
Separated from the anthropological. For this credit is due to I. Bloch
(Beiträge zur Ätiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis, 2 Teile, 1902-3), who
has also brought into prominence the existence of inversion in the old
civilized nations.
[9] Compare the last detailed discussion of somatic hermaphroditism
(Taruffi, Hermaphroditismus und Zeugungsunfähigkeit, German edit. by R.
Teuscher, 1903), and the works of Neugebauer in many volumes of the
Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen.
[10] J. Halban, "Die Entstehung der Geschlechtscharaktere," Arch. für
Gynäkologie, Bd. 70, 1903. See also there the literature on the subject.
[11] According to a report in Vol. 6 of the Jahrbuch f. sexuelle
Zwischenstufen, E. Gley is supposed to have been the first to mention
bisexuality as an explanation of inversion. He published a paper (Les
Abérrations de l'instinct Sexuel) in the Revue Philosophique as early as
January, 1884. It is moreover noteworthy that the majority of authors
who trace the inversion to bisexuality assume this factor not only for
the inverts but also for those who have developed normally, and justly
interpret the inversion as a result of a disturbance in development.
Among these authors are Chevalier (Inversion Sexuelle, 1893), and v.
Krafft-Ebing ("Zur Erklärung der konträren Sexualempfindung," Jahrbücher
f. Psychiatrie u. Nervenheilkunde, XIII), who states that there are a
number of observations "from which at least the virtual and continued
existence of this second center (of the underlying sex) results." A Dr.
Arduin (Die Frauenfrage und die sexuellen Zwischenstufen, 2d vol. of the
Jahrbuch f. sexuelle Zwischenstufen, 1900) states that "in every man
there exist male and female elements." See also the same Jahrbuch, Bd.
I, 1899 ("Die objektive Diagnose der Homosexualitat," by M. Hirschfeld,
pp. 8-9). In the determination of sex, as far as heterosexual persons
are concerned, some are disproportionately more strongly developed than
others. G. Herman is firm in his belief "that in every woman there are
male, and in every man there are female germs and qualities" (Genesis,
das Gesetz der Zeugung, 9 Bd., Libido und Manie, 1903). As recently as
1906 W. Fliess (Der Ablauf des Lebens) has claimed ownership of the idea
of bisexuality (in the sense of double sex). Psychoanalytic
investigation very strongly opposes the attempt to separate homosexuals
from other persons as a group of a special nature. By also studying
sexual excitations other than the manifestly open ones it discovers that
all men are capable of homosexual object selection and actually
accomplish this in the unconscious. Indeed the attachments of libidinous
feelings to persons of the same sex play no small rôle as factors in
normal psychic life, and as causative factors of disease they play a
greater rôle than those belonging to the opposite sex. According to
psychoanalysis, it rather seems that it is the independence of the
object, selection of the sex of the object, the same free disposal over
male and female objects, as observed in childhood, in primitive states
and in prehistoric times, which forms the origin from which the normal
as well as the inversion types developed, following restrictions in this
or that direction. In the psychoanalytic sense the exclusive sexual
interest of the man for the woman is also a problem requiring an
explanation, and is not something that is self-evident and explainable
on the basis of chemical attraction. The determination as to the
definite sexual behavior does not occur until after puberty and is the
result of a series of as yet not observable factors, some of which are
of a constitutional, while some are of an accidental nature. Certainly
some of these factors can turn out to be so enormous that by their
character they influence the result. In general, however, the
multiplicity of the determining factors is reflected by the manifoldness
of the outcomes in the manifest sexual behavior of the person. In the
inversion types it can be ascertained that they are altogether
controlled by an archaic constitution and by primitive psychic
mechanisms. The importance of the _narcissistic object selection_ and
the _clinging_ to the erotic significance of the _anal_ zone seem to be
their most essential characteristics. But one gains nothing by
separating the most extreme inversion types from the others on the basis
of such constitutional peculiarities. What is found in the latter as
seemingly an adequate determinant can also be demonstrated only in
lesser force in the constitution of transitional types and in manifestly
normal persons. The differences in the results may be of a qualitative
nature, but analysis shows that the differences in the determinants are
only quantitative. As a remarkable factor among the accidental
influences of the object selection, we found the sexual rejection or the
early sexual intimidation, and our attention was also called to the fact
that the existence of both parents plays an important rôle in the
child's life. The disappearance of a strong father in childhood not
infrequently favors the inversion. Finally, one might demand that the
inversion of the sexual object should notionally be strictly separated
from the mixing of the sex characteristics in the subject. A certain
amount of independence is unmistakable also in this relation.
[12] Although psychoanalysis has not yet given us a full explanation for
the origin of inversion, it has revealed the psychic mechanism of its
genesis and has essentially enriched the problems in question. In all
the cases examined we have ascertained that the later inverts go through
in their childhood a phase of very intense but short-lived fixation on
the woman (usually on the mother) and after overcoming it they identify
themselves with the woman and take themselves as the sexual object; that
is, proceeding on a narcissistic basis, they look for young men
resembling themselves in persons whom they wish to love as their mother
has loved them. We have, moreover, frequently found that alleged inverts
are by no means indifferent to the charms of women, but the excitation
evoked by the woman is always transferred to a male object. They thus
repeat through life the mechanism which gave origin to their inversion.
Their obsessive striving for the man proves to be determined by their
restless flight from the woman.
[13] The most pronounced difference between the sexual life
(Liebesleben) of antiquity and ours lies in the fact that the ancients
placed the emphasis on the impulse itself, while we put it on its
object. The ancients extolled the impulse and were ready to ennoble
through it even an inferior object, while we disparage the activity of
the impulse as such and only countenance it on account of the merits of
the object.
[14] I must mention here that the blind obedience evinced by the
hypnotized subject to the hypnotist causes me to think that the nature
of hypnosis is to be found in the unconscious fixation of the libido on
the person of the hypnotizer (by means of the masochistic component of
the sexual impulse).
Ferenczi connects this character of suggestibility with the "parent
complex" (Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische und psychopathologische
Forschungen, I, 1909).
[15] Moreover, it is to be noted that sexual overvaluation does not
become pronounced in all mechanisms of object selection, and that we
shall later learn to know another and more direct explanation for the
sexual rôle of the other parts of the body.
[16] Further investigations lead to the conclusion that I. Bloch has
overestimated the factor of excitement-hunger (Reizhunger). The various
roads upon which the libido moves behave to each other from the very
beginning like communicating pipes; the factor of collateral streaming
must also be considered.
[17] This weakness corresponds to the constitutional predisposition. The
early sexual intimidation which pushes the person away from the normal
sexual aim and urges him to seek a substitute, has been demonstrated by
psychoanalysis, as an accidental determinant.
[18] The shoe or slipper is accordingly a symbol for the female
genitals.
[19] Psychoanalysis has filled up the gap in the understanding of
fetichisms by showing that the selection of the fetich depends on a
coprophilic smell-desire which has been lost by repression. Feet and
hair are strong smelling objects which are raised to fetiches after the
renouncing of the now unpleasant sensation of smell. Accordingly, only
the filthy and ill-smelling foot is the sexual object in the perversion
which corresponds to the foot fetichism. Another contribution to the
explanation of the fetichistic preference of the foot is found in the
Infantile Sexual Theories (see later). The foot replaces the penis which
is so much missed in the woman. In some cases of foot fetichism it could
be shown that the desire for looking originally directed to the
genitals, which wished to reach its object from below, was stopped on
the way by prohibition and repression, and therefore adhered to the foot
or shoe as a fetich. In conformity with infantile expectation, the
female genital was hereby imagined as a male genital.
[20] I have no doubt that the conception of the "beautiful" is rooted in
the soil of sexual excitement and originally signified the sexual
excitant. The more remarkable, therefore, is the fact that the genitals,
the sight of which provokes the greatest sexual excitement, can really
never be considered "beautiful."
[21] Cf. here the later communication on the pregenital phases of the
sexual development, in which this view is confirmed. See below,
"Ambivalence."
[22] Instead of substantiating this statement by many examples I will
merely cite Havelock Ellis (The Sexual Impulse, 1903): "All known cases
of sadism and masochism, even those cited by v. Krafft-Ebing, always
show (as has already been shown by Colin, Scott, and Féré) traces of
both groups of manifestations in the same individual."
[23] On the other hand the restricting forces of the sexual
evolution--disgust, shame, morality--must also be looked upon as
historic precipitates of the outer inhibitions which the sexual impulse
experienced in the psychogenesis of humanity. One can observe that they
appear in their time during the development of the individual almost
spontaneously at the call of education and influence.
[24] Studien über Hysterie, 1895, J. Breuer tells of the patient on whom
he first practiced the cathartic method: "The sexual factor was
surprisingly undeveloped."
[25] The well-known fancies of perverts which under favorable conditions
are changed into contrivances, the delusional fears of paranoiacs which
are in a hostile manner projected on others, and the unconscious fancies
of hysterics which are discovered in their symptoms by psychoanalysis,
agree as to content in the minutest details.
[26] A psychoneurosis very often associates itself with a manifest
inversion in which the heterosexual feeling becomes subjected to
complete repression.--It is but just to state that the necessity of a
general recognition of the tendency to inversion in psychoneurotics was
first imparted to me personally by Wilh. Fliess, of Berlin, after I had
myself discovered it in some cases.
[27] It is not easy to justify here this assumption which was taken from
a definite class of neurotic diseases. On the other hand, it would be
impossible to assert anything definite concerning the impulses if one
did not take the trouble of mentioning these presuppositions.
[28] One should here think of Moll's assertion, who divides the sexual
impulse into the impulses of contrectation and detumescence.
Contrectation signifies a desire to touch the skin.
II
THE INFANTILE SEXUALITY
It is a part of popular belief about the sexual impulse that it is
absent in childhood and that it first appears in the period of life
known as puberty. This, though a common error, is serious in its
consequences and is chiefly due to our present ignorance of the
fundamental principles of the sexual life. A comprehensive study of the
sexual manifestations of childhood would probably reveal to us the
existence of the essential features of the sexual impulse, and would
make us acquainted with its development and its composition from various
sources.
*The Neglect of the Infantile.*--It is remarkable that those writers who
endeavor to explain the qualities and reactions of the adult individual
have given so much more attention to the ancestral period than to the
period of the individual's own existence--that is, they have attributed
more influence to heredity than to childhood. As a matter of fact, it
might well be supposed that the influence of the latter period would be
easier to understand, and that it would be entitled to more
consideration than heredity.[1] To be sure, one occasionally finds in
medical literature notes on the premature sexual activities of small
children, about erections and masturbation and even actions resembling
coitus, but these are referred to merely as exceptional occurrences, as
curiosities, or as deterring examples of premature perversity. No author
has to my knowledge recognized the normality of the sexual impulse in
childhood, and in the numerous writings on the development of the child
the chapter on "Sexual Development" is usually passed over.[2]
*Infantile Amnesia.*--This remarkable negligence is due partly to
conventional considerations, which influence the writers on account of
their own bringing up, and partly to a psychic phenomenon which has thus
far remained unexplained. I refer to the peculiar amnesia which veils
from most people (not from all!) the first years of their childhood,
usually the first six or eight years. So far it has not occurred to us
that this amnesia ought to surprise us, though we have good reasons for
surprise. For we are informed that in those years from which we later
obtain nothing except a few incomprehensible memory fragments, we have
vividly reacted to impressions, that we have manifested pain and
pleasure like any human being, that we have evinced love, jealousy, and
other passions as they then affected us; indeed we are told that we have
uttered remarks which proved to grown-ups that we possessed
understanding and a budding power of judgment. Still we know nothing of
all this when we become older. Why does our memory lag behind all our
other psychic activities? We really have reason to believe that at no
time of life are we more capable of impressions and reproductions than
during the years of childhood.[3]
On the other hand we must assume, or we may convince ourselves through
psychological observations on others, that the very impressions which we
have forgotten have nevertheless left the deepest traces in our psychic
life, and acted as determinants for our whole future development. We
conclude therefore that we do not deal with a real forgetting of
infantile impressions but rather with an amnesia similar to that
observed in neurotics for later experiences, the nature of which
consists in their being detained from consciousness (repression). But
what forces bring about this repression of the infantile impressions? He
who can solve this riddle will also explain hysterical amnesia.
We shall not, however, hesitate to assert that the existence of the
infantile amnesia gives us a new point of comparison between the psychic
states of the child and those of the psychoneurotic. We have already
encountered another point of comparison when confronted by the fact that
the sexuality of the psychoneurotic preserves the infantile character or
has returned to it. May there not be an ultimate connection between the
infantile and the hysterical amnesias?
The connection between the infantile and the hysterical amnesias is
really more than a mere play of wit. The hysterical amnesia which serves
the repression can only be explained by the fact that the individual
already possesses a sum of recollections which have been withdrawn from
conscious disposal and which by associative connection now seize that
which is acted upon by the repelling forces of the repression emanating
from consciousness.[4] We may say that without infantile amnesia there
would be no hysterical amnesia.
I believe that the infantile amnesia which causes the individual to look
upon his childhood as if it were a _prehistoric_ time and conceals from
him the beginning of his own sexual life--that this amnesia is
responsible for the fact that one does not usually attribute any value
to the infantile period in the development of the sexual life. One
single observer cannot fill the gap which has been thus produced in our
knowledge. As early as 1896 I had already emphasized the significance of
childhood for the origin of certain important phenomena connected with
the sexual life, and since then I have not ceased to put into the
foreground the importance of the infantile factor for sexuality.
THE SEXUAL LATENCY PERIOD OF CHILDHOOD AND ITS INTERRUPTIONS
The extraordinary frequent discoveries of apparently abnormal and
exceptional sexual manifestations in childhood, as well as the
discovery of infantile reminiscences in neurotics, which were hitherto
unconscious, allow us to sketch the following picture of the sexual
behavior of childhood.[5]
It seems certain that the newborn child brings with it the germs of
sexual feelings which continue to develop for some time and then succumb
to a progressive suppression, which is in turn broken through by the
proper advances of the sexual development and which can be checked by
individual idiosyncrasies. Nothing is known concerning the laws and
periodicity of this oscillating course of development. It seems,
however, that the sexual life of the child mostly manifests itself in
the third or fourth year in some form accessible to observation.[6]
*The Sexual Inhibition.*--It is during this period of total or at least
partial latency that the psychic forces develop which later act as
inhibitions on the sexual life, and narrow its direction like dams.
These psychic forces are loathing, shame, and moral and esthetic ideal
demands. We may gain the impression that the erection of these dams in
the civilized child is the work of education; and surely education
contributes much to it. In reality, however, this development is
organically determined and can occasionally be produced without the help
of education. Indeed education remains properly within its assigned
realm only if it strictly follows the path of the organic determinant
and impresses it somewhat cleaner and deeper.
*Reaction Formation and Sublimation.*--What are the means that
accomplish these very important constructions so significant for the
later personal culture and normality? They are probably brought about at
the cost of the infantile sexuality itself, the influx of which has not
stopped even in this latency period--the energy of which indeed has been
turned away either wholly or partially from sexual utilization and
conducted to other aims. The historians of civilization seem to be
unanimous in the opinion that such deviation of sexual motive powers
from sexual aims to new aims, a process which merits the name of
_sublimation_, has furnished powerful components for all cultural
accomplishments. We will therefore add that the same process acts in the
development of every individual, and that it begins to act in the sexual
latency period.[7]
We can also venture an opinion about the mechanisms of such sublimation.
The sexual feelings of these infantile years on the one hand could not
be utilizable, since the procreating functions are postponed,--this is
the chief character of the latency period; on the other hand, they would
in themselves be perverse, as they would emanate from erogenous zones
and would be born of impulses which in the individual's course of
development could only evoke a feeling of displeasure. They therefore
awaken contrary forces (feelings of reaction), which in order to
suppress such displeasure, build up the above mentioned psychic dams:
loathing, shame, and morality.[8]
*The Interruptions of the Latency Period.*--Without deluding ourselves
as to the hypothetical nature and deficient clearness of our
understanding regarding the infantile period of latency and delay, we
will return to reality and state that such a utilization of the
infantile sexuality represents an ideal bringing up from which the
development of the individual usually deviates in some measure and often
very considerably. A portion of the sexual manifestation which has
withdrawn from sublimation occasionally breaks through, or a sexual
activity remains throughout the whole duration of the latency period
until the reinforced breaking through of the sexual impulse in puberty.
In so far as they have paid any attention to infantile sexuality the
educators behave as if they shared our views concerning the formation of
the moral forces of defence at the cost of sexuality, and as if they
knew that sexual activity makes the child uneducable; for the educators
consider all sexual manifestations of the child as an "evil" in the face
of which little can be accomplished. We have, however, every reason for
directing our attention to those phenomena so much feared by the
educators, for we expect to find in them the solution of the primitive
formation of the sexual impulse.
THE MANIFESTATIONS OF THE INFANTILE SEXUALITY
For reasons which we shall discuss later we will take as a model of the
infantile sexual manifestations thumbsucking (pleasure-sucking), to
which the Hungarian pediatrist, Lindner, has devoted an excellent
essay.[9]
*Thumbsucking.*--Thumbsucking, which manifests itself in the nursing
baby and which may be continued till maturity or throughout life,
consists in a rhythmic repetition of sucking contact with the mouth (the
lips), wherein the purpose of taking nourishment is excluded. A part of
the lip itself, the tongue, which is another preferable skin region
within reach, and even the big toe--may be taken as objects for sucking.
Simultaneously, there is also a desire to grasp things, which manifests
itself in a rhythmical pulling of the ear lobe and which may cause the
child to grasp a part of another person (generally the ear) for the same
purpose. The pleasure-sucking is connected with an entire exhaustion of
attention and leads to sleep or even to a motor reaction in the form of
an orgasm.[10] Pleasure-sucking is often combined with a rubbing contact
with certain sensitive parts of the body, such as the breast and
external genitals. It is by this road that many children go from
thumb-sucking to masturbation.
Lindner himself has recognized the sexual nature of this action and
openly emphasized it. In the nursery thumbsucking is often treated in
the same way as any other sexual "naughtiness" of the child. A very
strong objection was raised against this view by many pediatrists and
neurologists which in part is certainly due to the confusion of the
terms "sexual" and "genital." This contradiction raises the difficult
question, which cannot be rejected, namely, in what general traits do we
wish to recognize the sexual manifestations of the child. I believe that
the association of the manifestations into which we gained an insight
through psychoanalytic investigation justify us in claiming thumbsucking
as a sexual activity and in studying through it the essential features
of the infantile sexual activity.
*Autoerotism.*--It is our duty here to arrange this state of affairs
differently. Let us insist that the most striking character of this
sexual activity is that the impulse is not directed against other
persons but that it gratifies itself on its own body; to use the happy
term invented by Havelock Ellis, we will say that it is autoerotic.[11]
It is, moreover, clear that the action of the thumbsucking child is
determined by the fact that it seeks a pleasure which has already been
experienced and is now remembered. Through the rhythmic sucking on a
portion of the skin or mucous membrane it finds the gratification in the
simplest way. It is also easy to conjecture on what occasions the child
first experienced this pleasure which it now strives to renew. The first
and most important activity in the child's life, the sucking from the
mother's breast (or its substitute), must have acquainted it with this
pleasure. We would say that the child's lips behaved like an _erogenous
zone_, and that the excitement through the warm stream of milk was
really the cause of the pleasurable sensation. To be sure, the
gratification of the erogenous zone was at first united with the
gratification of taking nourishment. He who sees a satiated child sink
back from the mother's breast, and fall asleep with reddened cheeks and
blissful smile, will have to admit that this picture remains as typical
of the expression of sexual gratification in later life. But the desire
for repetition of the sexual gratification is separated from the desire
for taking nourishment; a separation which becomes unavoidable with the
appearance of the teeth when the nourishment is no longer sucked in but
chewed. The child does not make use of a strange object for sucking but
prefers its own skin because it is more convenient, because it thus
makes itself independent of the outer world which it cannot yet control,
and because in this way it creates for itself, as it were, a second,
even if an inferior, erogenous zone. The inferiority of this second
region urges it later to seek the same parts, the lips of another
person. ("It is a pity that I cannot kiss myself," might be attributed
to it.)
Not all children suck their thumbs. It may be assumed that it is found
only in children in whom the erogenous significance of the lip-zone is
constitutionally reënforced. Children in whom this is retained are
habitual kissers as adults and show a tendency to perverse kissing, or
as men they have a marked desire for drinking and smoking. But if
repression comes into play they experience disgust for eating and evince
hysterical vomiting. By virtue of the community of the lip-zone the
repression encroaches upon the impulse of nourishment. Many of my female
patients showing disturbances in eating, such as hysterical globus,
choking sensations, and vomiting, have been energetic thumbsuckers
during infancy.
In the thumbsucking or pleasure-sucking we have already been able to
observe the three essential characters of an infantile sexual
manifestation. The latter has its origin in conjunction with a bodily
function which is very important for life, it does not yet know any
sexual object, it is _autoerotic_ and its sexual aim is under the
control of an _erogenous zone_. Let us assume for the present that these
characters also hold true for most of the other activities of the
infantile sexual impulse.
THE SEXUAL AIM OF THE INFANTILE SEXUALITY
*The Characters of the Erogenous Zones.*--From the example of
thumbsucking we may gather a great many points useful for the
distinguishing of an erogenous zone. It is a portion of skin or mucous
membrane in which the stimuli produce a feeling of pleasure of definite
quality. There is no doubt that the pleasure-producing stimuli are
governed by special determinants which we do not know. The rhythmic
characters must play some part in them and this strongly suggests an
analogy to tickling. It does not, however, appear so certain whether the
character of the pleasurable feeling evoked by the stimulus can be
designated as "peculiar," and in what part of this peculiarity the
sexual factor exists. Psychology is still groping in the dark when it
concerns matters of pleasure and pain, and the most cautious assumption
is therefore the most advisable. We may perhaps later come upon reasons
which seem to support the peculiar quality of the sensation of pleasure.
The erogenous quality may adhere most notably to definite regions of the
body. As is shown by the example of thumbsucking, there are predestined
erogenous zones. But the same example also shows that any other region
of skin or mucous membrane may assume the function of an erogenous zone;
it must therefore carry along a certain adaptability. The production of
the sensation of pleasure therefore depends more on the quality of the
stimulus than on the nature of the bodily region. The thumbsucking child
looks around on his body and selects any portion of it for
pleasure-sucking, and becoming accustomed to it, he then prefers it. If
he accidentally strikes upon a predestined region, such as breast,
nipple or genitals, it naturally has the preference. A quite analogous
tendency to displacement is again found in the symptomatology of
hysteria. In this neurosis the repression mostly concerns the genital
zones proper; these in turn transmit their excitation to the other
erogenous zones, usually dormant in mature life, which then behave
exactly like genitals. But besides this, just as in thumbsucking, any
other region of the body may become endowed with the excitation of the
genitals and raised to an erogenous zone. Erogenous and hysterogenous
zones show the same characters.[12]
*The Infantile Sexual Aim.*--The sexual aim of the infantile impulse
consists in the production of gratification through the proper
excitation of this or that selected erogenous zone. In order to leave a
desire for its repetition this gratification must have been previously
experienced, and we may be sure that nature has devised definite means
so as not to leave this occurrence to mere chance. The arrangement which
has fulfilled this purpose for the lip-zone we have already discussed;
it is the simultaneous connection of this part of the body with the
taking of nourishment. We shall also meet other similar mechanisms as
sources of sexuality. The state of desire for repetition of
gratification can be recognized through a peculiar feeling of tension
which in itself is rather of a painful character, and through a
centrally-determined feeling of itching or sensitiveness which is
projected into the peripheral erogenous zone. The sexual aim may
therefore be formulated as follows: the chief object is to substitute
for the projected feeling of sensitiveness in the erogenous zone that
outer stimulus which removes the feeling of sensitiveness by evoking the
feeling of gratification. This external stimulus consists usually in a
manipulation which is analogous to sucking.
It is in full accord with our physiological knowledge if the desire
happens to be awakened also peripherally through an actual change in the
erogenous zone. The action is puzzling only to some extent as one
stimulus for its suppression seems to want another applied to the same
place.
THE MASTURBATIC SEXUAL MANIFESTATIONS[13]
It is a matter of great satisfaction to know that there is nothing
further of greater importance to learn about the sexual activity of the
child after the impulse of one erogenous zone has become comprehensible
to us. The most pronounced differences are found in the action necessary
for the gratification, which consists in sucking for the lip zone and
which must be replaced by other muscular actions according to the
situation and nature of the other zones.
*The Activity of the Anal Zone.*--Like the lip zone the anal zone is,
through its position, adapted to conduct the sexuality to the other
functions of the body. It should be assumed that the erogenous
significance of this region of the body was originally very large.
Through psychoanalysis one finds, not without surprise, the many
transformations that are normally undertaken with the usual excitations
emanating from here, and that this zone often retains for life a
considerable fragment of genital irritability.[14] The intestinal
catarrhs so frequent during infancy produce intensive irritations in
this zone, and we often hear it said that intestinal catarrh at this
delicate age causes "nervousness." In later neurotic diseases they exert
a definite influence on the symptomatic expression of the neurosis,
placing at its disposal the whole sum of intestinal disturbances.
Considering the erogenous significance of the anal zone which has been
retained at least in transformation, one should not laugh at the
hemorrhoidal influences to which the old medical literature attached so
much weight in the explanation of neurotic states.
Children utilizing the erogenous sensitiveness of the anal zone can be
recognized by their holding back of fecal masses until through
accumulation there result violent muscular contractions; the passage of
these masses through the anus is apt to produce a marked irritation of
the mucus membrane. Besides the pain this must produce also a sensation
of pleasure. One of the surest premonitions of later eccentricity or
nervousness is when an infant obstinately refuses to empty his bowel
when placed on the chamber by the nurse and reserves this function at
its own pleasure. It does not concern him that he will soil his bed; all
he cares for is not to lose the subsidiary pleasure while defecating.
The educators have again the right inkling when they designate children
who withhold these functions as bad. The content of the bowel which is
an exciting object to the sexually sensitive surface of mucous membrane
behaves like the precursor of another organ which does not become active
until after the phase of childhood. In addition it has other important
meanings to the nursling. It is evidently treated as an additional part
of the body, it represents the first "donation," the disposal of which
expresses the pliability while the retention of it can express the
spite of the little being towards its environment. From the idea of
"donation" he later gains the meaning of the "babe" which according to
one of the infantile sexual theories is acquired through eating and is
born through the bowel.
The retention of fecal masses, which is at first intentional in order to
utilize them, as it were, for masturbatic excitation of the anal zone,
is at least one of the roots of constipation so frequent in neuropaths.
The whole significance of the anal zone is mirrored in the fact that
there are but few neurotics who have not their special scatologic
customs, ceremonies, etc., which they retain with cautious secrecy.
Real masturbatic irritation of the anal zone by means of the fingers,
evoked through either centrally or peripherally supported itching, is
not at all rare in older children.
*The Activity of the Genital Zone.*--Among the erogenous zones of the
child's body there is one which certainly does not play the main rôle,
and which cannot be the carrier of earliest sexual feeling--which,
however, is destined for great things in later life. In both male and
female it is connected with the voiding of urine (penis, clitoris), and
in the former it is enclosed in a sack of mucous membrane, probably in
order not to miss the irritations caused by the secretions which may
arouse the sexual excitement at an early age. The sexual activities of
this erogenous zone, which belongs to the real genitals, are the
beginning of the later normal sexual life.
Owing to the anatomical position, the overflowing of secretions, the
washing and rubbing of the body, and to certain accidental excitements
(the wandering of intestinal worms in the girl), it happens that the
pleasurable feeling which these parts of the body are capable of
producing makes itself noticeable to the child even during the sucking
age, and thus awakens desire for its repetition. When we review all the
actual arrangements, and bear in mind that the measures for cleanliness
have the same effect as the uncleanliness itself, we can then scarcely
mistake nature's intention, which is to establish the future primacy of
these erogenous zones for the sexual activity through the infantile
onanism from which hardly an individual escapes. The action of removing
the stimulus and setting free the gratification consists in a rubbing
contiguity with the hand or in a certain previously-formed pressure
reflex effected by the closure of the thighs. The latter procedure seems
to be the more primitive and is by far the more common in girls. The
preference for the hand in boys already indicates what an important part
of the male sexual activity will be accomplished in the future by the
impulse to mastery (Bemächtigungstrieb).[15] It can only help towards
clearness if I state that the infantile masturbation should be divided
into three phases. The first phase belongs to the nursing period, the
second to the short flourishing period of sexual activity at about the
fourth year, only the third corresponds to the one which is often
considered exclusively as onanism of puberty.
The infantile onanism seems to disappear after a brief time, but it may
continue uninterruptedly till puberty and thus represent the first
marked deviation from the development desirable for civilized man. At
some time during childhood after the nursing period, the sexual impulse
of the genitals reawakens and continues active for some time until it is
again suppressed, or it may continue without interruption. The possible
relations are very diverse and can only be elucidated through a more
precise analysis of individual cases. The details, however, of this
_second_ infantile sexual activity leave behind the profoundest
(unconscious) impressions in the persons's memory; if the individual
remains healthy they determine his character and if he becomes sick
after puberty they determine the symptomatology of his neurosis.[16] In
the latter case it is found that this sexual period is forgotten and the
conscious reminiscences pointing to them are displaced; I have already
mentioned that I would like to connect the normal infantile amnesia with
this infantile sexual activity. By psychoanalytic investigation it is
possible to bring to consciousness the forgotten material, and thereby
to remove a compulsion which emanates from the unconscious psychic
material.
*The Return of the Infantile Masturbation.*--The sexual excitation of
the nursing period returns during the designated years of childhood as a
centrally determined tickling sensation demanding onanistic
gratification, or as a pollution-like process which, analogous to the
pollution of maturity, may attain gratification without the aid of any
action. The latter case is more frequent in girls and in the second half
of childhood; its determinants are not well understood, but it often,
though not regularly, seems to have as a basis a period of early active
onanism. The symptomatology of this sexual manifestation is poor; the
genital apparatus is still undeveloped and all signs are therefore
displayed by the urinary apparatus which is, so to say, the guardian of
the genital apparatus. Most of the so-called bladder disturbances of
this period are of a sexual nature; whenever the enuresis nocturna does
not represent an epileptic attack it corresponds to a pollution.
The return of the sexual activity is determined by inner and outer
causes which can be conjectured from the formation of the symptoms of
neurotic diseases and definitely revealed by psychoanalytic
investigations. The internal causes will be discussed later, the
accidental outer causes attain at this time a great and permanent
significance. As the first outer cause we have the influence of
seduction which prematurely treats the child as a sexual object; under
conditions favoring impressions this teaches the child the gratification
of the genital zones, and thus usually forces it to repeat this
gratification in onanism. Such influences can come from adults or other
children. I cannot admit that I overestimated its frequency or its
significance in my contributions to the etiology of hysteria,[17] though
I did not know then that normal individuals may have the same
experiences in their childhood, and hence placed a higher value on
seductions than on the factors found in the sexual constitution and
development.[18] It is quite obvious that no seduction is necessary to
awaken the sexual life of the child, that such an awakening may come on
spontaneously from inner sources.
*Polymorphous-perverse Disposition.*--It is instructive to know that
under the influence of seduction the child may become
polymorphous-perverse and may be misled into all sorts of
transgressions. This goes to show that it carries along the adaptation
for them in its disposition. The formation of such perversions meets but
slight resistance because the psychic dams against sexual
transgressions, such as shame, loathing and morality--which depend on
the age of the child--are not yet erected or are only in the process of
formation. In this respect the child perhaps does not behave differently
from the average uncultured woman in whom the same polymorphous-perverse
disposition exists. Such a woman may remain sexually normal under usual
conditions, but under the guidance of a clever seducer she will find
pleasure in every perversion and will retain the same as her sexual
activity. The same polymorphous or infantile disposition fits the
prostitute for her professional activity, and in the enormous number of
prostitutes and of women to whom we must attribute an adaptation for
prostitution, even if they do not follow this calling, it is absolutely
impossible not to recognize in their uniform disposition for all
perversions the universal and primitive human.
*Partial Impulses.*--For the rest, the influence of seduction does not
aid us in unravelling the original relations of the sexual impulse, but
rather confuses our understanding of the same, inasmuch as it
prematurely supplies the child with the sexual object at a time when the
infantile sexual impulse does not yet evince any desire for it. We must
admit, however, that the infantile sexual life, though mainly under the
control of erogenous zones, also shows components in which from the very
beginning other persons are regarded as sexual objects. Among these we
have the impulses for looking and showing off, and for cruelty, which
manifest themselves somewhat independently of the erogenous zones and
which only later enter into intimate relationship with the sexual life;
but along with the erogenous sexual activity they are noticeable even in
the infantile years as separate and independent strivings. The little
child is above all shameless, and during its early years it evinces
definite pleasure in displaying its body and especially its sexual
organs. A counterpart to this desire which is to be considered as
perverse, the curiosity to see other persons' genitals, probably appears
first in the later years of childhood when the hindrance of the feeling
of shame has already reached a certain development. Under the influence
of seduction the looking perversion may attain great importance for the
sexual life of the child. Still, from my investigations of the childhood
years of normal and neurotic patients, I must conclude that the impulse
for looking can appear in the child as a spontaneous sexual
manifestation. Small children, whose attention has once been directed to
their own genitals--usually by masturbation--are wont to progress in
this direction without outside interference, and to develop a vivid
interest in the genitals of their playmates. As the occasion for the
gratification of such curiosity is generally afforded during the
gratification of both excrementitious needs, such children become
_voyeurs_ and are zealous spectators at the voiding of urine and feces
of others, After this tendency has been repressed, the curiosity to see
the genitals of others (one's own or those of the other sex) remains as
a tormenting desire which in some neurotic cases furnishes the strongest
motive power for the formation of symptoms.
The cruelty component of the sexual impulse develops in the child with
still greater independence of those sexual activities which are
connected with erogenous zones. Cruelty is especially near the childish
character, since the inhibition which restrains the impulse to mastery
before it causes pain to others--that is, the capacity for
sympathy--develops comparatively late. As we know, a thorough
psychological analysis of this impulse has not as yet been successfully
accomplished; we may assume that the cruel feelings emanate from the
impulse to mastery and appear at a period in the sexual life before the
genitals have taken on their later rôle. It then dominates a phase of
the sexual life, which we shall later describe as the pregenital
organization. Children who are distinguished for evincing especial
cruelty to animals and playmates may be justly suspected of intensive
and premature sexual activity in the erogenous zones; and in a
simultaneous prematurity of all sexual impulses, the erogenous sexual
activity surely seems to be primary. The absence of the barrier of
sympathy carries with it the danger that the connections between cruelty
and the erogenous impulses formed in childhood cannot be broken in later
life.
An erogenous source of the passive impulse for cruelty (masochism) is
found in the painful irritation of the gluteal region which is familiar
to all educators since the confessions of J.J. Rousseau. This has justly
caused them to demand that physical punishment, which usually concerns
this part of the body, should be withheld from all children in whom the
libido might be forced into collateral roads by the later demands of
cultural education.[19]
THE INFANTILE SEXUAL INVESTIGATION
*Inquisitiveness.*--At the same time when the sexual life of the child
reaches its first bloom, from the age of three to the age of five, it
also evinces the beginning of that activity which is ascribed to the
impulse for knowledge and investigation. The desire for knowledge can
neither be added to the elementary components of the impulses nor can it
be altogether subordinated under sexuality. Its activity corresponds on
the one hand to a sublimating mode of acquisition and on the other hand
it labors with the energy of the desire for looking. Its relations to
the sexual life, however, are of particular importance, for we have
learned from psychoanalysis that the inquisitiveness of children is
attracted to the sexual problems unusually early and in an unexpectedly
intensive manner, indeed it perhaps may first be awakened by the sexual
problems.
*The Riddle of the Sphinx.*--It is not theoretical but practical
interests which start the work of the investigation activity in the
child. The threat to the conditions of his existence through the actual
or expected arrival of a new child, the fear of the loss in care and
love which is connected with this event, cause the child to become
thoughtful and sagacious. Corresponding with the history of this
awakening, the first problem with which it occupies itself is not the
question as to the difference between the sexes, but the riddle: from
where do children come? In a distorted form, which can easily be
unraveled, this is the same riddle which was given by the Theban Sphinx.
The fact of the two sexes is usually first accepted by the child without
struggle and hesitation. It is quite natural for the male child to
presuppose in all persons it knows a genital like his own, and to find
it impossible to harmonize the lack of it with his conception of others.
*The Castration Complex.*--This conviction is energetically adhered to
by the boy and tenaciously defended against the contradictions which
soon result, and are only given up after severe internal struggles
(castration complex). The substitutive formations of this lost penis of
the woman play a great part in the formation of many perversions.
The assumption of the same (male) genital in all persons is the first of
the remarkable and consequential infantile sexual theories. It is of
little help to the child when biological science agrees with his
preconceptions and recognizes the feminine clitoris as the real
substitute for the penis. The little girl does not react with similar
refusals when she sees the differently formed genital of the boy. She
is immediately prepared to recognize it, and soon becomes envious of the
penis; this envy reaches its highest point in the consequentially
important wish that she also should be a boy.
*Birth Theories.*--Many people can remember distinctly how intensely
they interested themselves, in the prepubescent period, in the question
where children came from. The anatomical solutions at that time read
very differently; the children come out of the breast or are cut out of
the body, or the navel opens itself to let them out. Outside of analysis
one only seldom remembers the investigation corresponding to the early
childhood years; it had long merged into repression but its results were
thoroughly uniform. One gets children by eating something special (as in
the fairy tale) and they are born through the bowel like a passage.
These infantile theories recall the structures in the animal kingdom,
especially do they recall the cloaca of the types which stand lower than
the mammals.
*Sadistic Conception of the Sexual Act.*--If children of so delicate an
age become spectators of the sexual act between grown-ups, for which an
occasion is furnished by the conviction of the grown-ups that little
children cannot understand anything sexual, they cannot help conceiving
the sexual act as a kind of maltreating or overpowering, that is, it
impresses them in a sadistic sense. Psychoanalysis also teaches us that
such an early childhood impression contributes much to the disposition
for a later sadistic displacement of the sexual aim. Besides this
children also occupy themselves with the problem of what the sexual act
consists in or, as they grasp it, of what marriage consists, and seek
the solution of the mystery mostly in an association to which the
functions of urination and defecation give occasion.
*The Typical Failure of the Infantile Sexual Investigation.*--It can be
stated in general about the infantile sexual theories that they are
reproductions of the child's own sexual constitution, and that despite
their grotesque mistakes they evince more understanding of the sexual
processes than is credited to their creators. Children also perceive the
pregnancy of the mother and know how to interpret it correctly; the
stork fable is very often related before auditors who confront it with a
deep, but mostly mute suspicion. But as two elements remain unknown to
the infantile sexual investigation, namely, the rôle of the propagating
semen and the female genital opening--precisely the same points in which
the infantile organization is still backward--the effort of the
infantile investigator regularly remains fruitless, and ends in a
renunciation which not infrequently leaves a lasting injury to the
desire for knowledge. The sexual investigation of these early childhood
years is always conducted alone, it signifies the first step towards
independent orientation in the world, and causes a marked estrangement
between the child and the persons of his environment who formerly
enjoyed its full confidence.
*The Phases of Development of the Sexual Organization.*--As
characteristics of the infantile sexuality we have hitherto emphasized
the fact that it is essentially autoerotic (it finds its object in its
own body), and that its individual partial impulses, which on the whole
are unconnected and independent of one another, are striving for the
acquisition of pleasure. The end of this development forms the so-called
normal sexual life of the adult in which the acquisition of pleasure has
been put into the service of the function of propagation, and the
partial impulses, under the primacy of one single erogenous zone, have
formed a firm organization for the attainment of the sexual aim in a
strange sexual object.
*Pregenital Organizations.*--The study, with the help of
psychoanalysis, of the inhibitions and disturbances in this course of
development now permits us to recognize additions and primary stages of
such organization of the partial impulses which likewise furnish a sort
of sexual regime. These phases of the sexual organization normally will
pass over smoothly and will only be recognizable by slight indications.
Only in pathological cases do they become active and discernible to
coarse observation.
Organizations of the sexual life in which the genital zones have not yet
assumed the dominating rôle we would call the _pregenital_ phase. So far
we have become acquainted with two of them which recall reversions to
early animal states.
One of the first of such pregenital sexual organizations is the _oral_,
or if we wish, the cannibalistic. Here the sexual activity is not yet
separated from the taking of nourishment, and the contrasts within the
same not yet differentiated. The object of the one activity is also that
of the other, the sexual aim consists in the _incorporating_ into one's
own body of the object, it is the prototype of that which later plays
such an important psychic rôle as _identification_. As a remnant of this
fictitious phase of organization forced on us by pathology we can
consider thumbsucking. Here the sexual activity became separated from
the nourishment activity and the strange object was given up in favor of
one from his own body.
A second pregenital phase is the sadistic-anal organization. Here the
contrasts which run through the whole sexual life are already developed,
but cannot yet be designated as _masculine_ and _feminine_, but must be
called _active_ and _passive_. The activity is supplied by the
musculature of the body through the mastery impulse; the erogenous
mucous membrane of the bowel manifests itself above all as an organ with
a passive sexual aim, for both strivings there are objects present,
which however do not merge together. Besides them there are other
partial impulses which are active in an autoerotic manner. The sexual
polarity and the strange object can thus already be demonstrated in this
phase. The organization and subordination under the function of
propagation are still lacking.
*Ambivalence.*--This form of the sexual organization could be retained
throughout life and continue to draw to itself a large part of the
sexual activity. The prevalence of sadism and the rôle of the cloaca of
the anal zone stamps it with an exquisitely archaic impression. As
another characteristic belonging to it we can mention the fact that the
contrasting pair of impulses are developed in almost the same manner, a
behavior which was designated by Bleuler with the happy name of
_ambivalence_.
The assumption of the pregenital organizations of the sexual life is
based on the analysis of the neuroses and hardly deserves any
consideration without a knowledge of the same. We may expect that
continued analytic efforts will furnish us with still more disclosures
concerning the structure and development of the normal sexual function.
To complete the picture of the infantile sexual life one must add that
frequently or regularly an object selection takes place even in
childhood which is as characteristic as the one we have represented for
the phase of development of puberty. This object selection proceeds in
such a manner that all the sexual strivings proceed in the direction of
one person in whom they wish to attain their aim. This is then the
nearest approach to the definitive formation of the sexual life after
puberty, that is possible in childhood. It differs from the latter only
in the fact that the collection of the partial impulses and their
subordination to the primacy of the genitals is very imperfectly or not
at all accomplished in childhood. The establishment of this primacy in
the service of propagation is therefore the last phase through which the
sexual organization passes.
*The Two Periods of Object Selection.*--That the object selection takes
place in two periods, or in two shifts, can be spoken of as a typical
occurrence. The first shift has its origin between the age of three and
five years, and is brought to a stop or to retrogression by the latency
period; it is characterized by the infantile nature of its sexual aims.
The second shift starts with puberty and determines the definitive
formation of the sexual life.
The fact of the double object selection which is essentially due to the
effect of the latency period, becomes most significant for the
disturbance of this terminal state. The results of the infantile object
selection reach into the later period; they are either preserved as such
or are even refreshed at the time of puberty. But due to the development
of the repression which takes place between the two phases they turn out
as unutilizable. The sexual aims have become softened and now represent
what we can designate as the _tender_ streams of the sexual life. Only
psychoanalytic investigation can demonstrate that behind this
tenderness, such as honoring and esteeming, there is concealed the old
sexual strivings of the infantile partial impulses which have now become
useless. The object selection of the pubescent period must renounce the
infantile objects and begin anew as a sensuous stream. The fact that the
two streams do not meet often enough has as a result that one of the
ideals of the sexual life, namely, the union of all desires in one
object, can not be attained.
THE SOURCES OF THE INFANTILE SEXUALITY
In our effort to follow up the origins of the sexual impulse, we have
thus far found that the sexual excitement originates (_a_) as an imitation
of a gratification which has been experienced in conjunction with other
organic processes; (_b_) through the appropriate peripheral stimulation of
erogenous zones; (_c_) and as an expression of some "impulse," like the
looking and cruelty impulses, the origin of which we do not yet fully
understand. The psychoanalytic investigation of later life which leads
back to childhood and the contemporary observation of the child itself
coöperate to reveal to us still other regularly-flowing sources of the
sexual excitement. The observation of childhood has the disadvantage of
treating easily misunderstood material, while psychoanalysis is made
difficult by the fact that it can reach its objects and conclusions only
by great detours; still the united efforts of both methods achieve a
sufficient degree of positive understanding.
In investigating the erogenous zones we have already found that these
skin regions merely show the special exaggeration of a form of
sensitiveness which is to a certain degree found over the whole surface
of the skin. It will therefore not surprise us to learn that certain
forms of general sensitiveness in the skin can be ascribed to very
distinct erogenous action. Among these we will above all mention the
temperature sensitiveness; this will perhaps prepare us for the
understanding of the therapeutic effects of warm baths.
*Mechanical Excitation.*--We must, moreover, describe here the
production of sexual excitation by means of rhythmic mechanical shaking
of the body. There are three kinds of exciting influences: those acting
on the sensory apparatus of the vestibular nerves, those acting on the
skin, and those acting on the deep parts, such as the muscles and
joints. The sexual excitation produced by these influences seems to be
of a pleasurable nature--it is worth emphasizing that for some time we
shall continue to use indiscriminately the terms "sexual excitement" and
"gratification" leaving the search for an explanation of the terms to a
later time--and that the pleasure is produced by mechanical stimulation
is proved by the fact that children are so fond of play involving
passive motion, like swinging or flying in the air, and repeatedly
demand its repetition.[20] As we know, rocking is regularly used in
putting restless children to sleep. The shaking sensation experienced in
wagons and railroad trains exerts such a fascinating influence on older
children, that all boys, at least at one time in their lives, want to
become conductors and drivers. They are wont to ascribe to railroad
activities an extraordinary and mysterious interest, and during the age
of phantastic activity (shortly before puberty) they utilize these as a
nucleus for exquisite sexual symbolisms. The desire to connect railroad
travelling with sexuality apparently originates from the pleasurable
character of the sensation of motion. When the repression later sets in
and changes so many of the childish likes into their opposites, these
same persons as adolescents and adults then react to the rocking and
rolling with nausea and become terribly exhausted by a railroad journey,
or they show a tendency to attacks of anxiety during the journey, and by
becoming obsessed with railroad phobia they protect themselves against a
repetition of the painful experiences.
This also fits in with the not as yet understood fact that the
concurrence of fear with mechanical shaking produces the severest
hysterical forms of traumatic neurosis. It may at least be assumed that
inasmuch as even a slight intensity of these influences becomes a source
of sexual excitement, the action of an excessive amount of the same will
produce a profound disorder in the sexual mechanism.
*Muscular Activity.*--It is well known that the child has need for
strong muscular activity, from the gratification of which it draws
extraordinary pleasure. Whether this pleasure has anything to do with
sexuality, whether it includes in itself sexual satisfaction? or can be
the occasion of sexual excitement; all this may be refuted by critical
consideration, which will probably be directed also to the position
taken above that the pleasure in the sensations of passive movement are
of sexual character or that they are sexually exciting. The fact
remains, however, that a number of persons report that they experienced
the first signs of excitement in their genitals during fighting or
wrestling with playmates, in which situation, besides the general
muscular exertion, there is an intensive contact with the opponent's
skin which also becomes effective. The desire for muscular contest with
a definite person, like the desire for word contest in later years, is a
good sign that the object selection has been directed toward this
person. "Was sich liebt, das neckt sich."[21] In the promotion of sexual
excitement through muscular activity we might recognize one of the
sources of the sadistic impulse. The infantile connection between
fighting and sexual excitement acts in many persons as a determinant for
the future preferred course of their sexual impulse.[22]
*Affective Processes.*--The other sources of sexual excitement in the
child are open to less doubt. Through contemporary observations, as well
as through later investigations, it is easy to ascertain that all more
intensive affective processes, even excitements of a terrifying nature,
encroach upon sexuality; this can at all events furnish us with a
contribution to the understanding of the pathogenic action of such
emotions. In the school child, fear of a coming examination or exertion
expended in the solution of a difficult task can become significant for
the breaking through of sexual manifestations as well as for his
relations to the school, inasmuch as under such excitements a sensation
often occurs urging him to touch the genitals, or leading to a
pollution-like process with all its disagreeable consequences. The
behavior of children at school, which is so often mysterious to the
teacher, ought surely to be considered in relation with their
germinating sexuality. The sexually-exciting influence of some painful
affects, such as fear, shuddering, and horror, is felt by a great many
people throughout life and readily explains why so many seek
opportunities to experience such sensations, provided that certain
accessory circumstances (as under imaginary circumstances in reading, or
in the theater) suppress the earnestness of the painful feeling.
If we might assume that the same erogenous action also reaches the
intensive painful feelings, especially if the pain be toned down or held
at a distance by a subsidiary determination, this relation would then
contain the main roots of the masochistic-sadistic impulse, into the
manifold composition of which we are gaining a gradual insight.
*Intellectual Work.*--Finally, is is evident that mental application or
the concentration of attention on an intellectual accomplishment will
result, especially often in youthful persons, but in older persons as
well, in a simultaneous sexual excitement, which may be looked upon as
the only justified basis for the otherwise so doubtful etiology of
nervous disturbances from mental "overwork."
If we now, in conclusion, review the evidences and indications of the
sources of the infantile sexual excitement, which have been reported
neither completely nor exhaustively, we may lay down the following
general laws as suggested or established. It seems to be provided in the
most generous manner that the process of sexual excitement--the nature
of which certainly remains quite mysterious to us--should be set in
motion. The factor making this provision in a more or less direct way is
the excitation of the sensible surfaces of the skin and sensory organs,
while the most immediate exciting influences are exerted on certain
parts which are designated as erogenous zones. The criterion in all
these sources of sexual excitement is really the quality of the stimuli,
though the factor of intensity (in pain) is not entirely unimportant.
But in addition to this there are arrangements in the organism which
induce sexual excitement as a subsidiary action in a large number of
inner processes as soon as the intensity of these processes has risen
above certain quantitative limits. What we have designated as the
partial impulses of sexuality are either directly derived from these
inner sources of sexual excitation or composed of contributions from
such sources and from erogenous zones. It is possible that nothing of
any considerable significance occurs in the organism that does not
contribute its components to the excitement of the sexual impulse.
It seems to me at present impossible to shed more light and certainty on
these general propositions, and for this I hold two factors responsible;
first, the novelty of this manner of investigation, and secondly, the
fact that the nature of the sexual excitement is entirely unfamiliar to
us. Nevertheless, I will not forbear speaking about two points which
promise to open wide prospects in the future.
*Diverse Sexual Constitutions.*--(_a_) We have considered above the
possibility of establishing the manifold character of congenital sexual
constitutions through the diverse formation of the erogenous zones; we
may now attempt to do the same in dealing with the indirect sources of
sexual excitement. We may assume that, although these different sources
furnish contributions in all individuals, they are not all equally
strong in all persons; and that a further contribution to the
differentiation of the diverse sexual constitution will be found in the
preferred developments of the individual sources of sexual excitement.
*The Paths of Opposite Influences.*--(_b_) Since we are now dropping the
figurative manner of expression hitherto employed, by which we spoke of
_sources_ of sexual excitement, we may now assume that all the
connecting ways leading from other functions to sexuality must also be
passable in the reverse direction. For example, if the lip zone, the
common possession of both functions, is responsible for the fact that
the sexual gratification originates during the taking of nourishment,
the same factor offers also an explanation for the disturbances in the
taking of nourishment if the erogenous functions of the common zone are
disturbed. As soon as we know that concentration of attention may
produce sexual excitement, it is quite natural to assume that acting on
the same path, but in a contrary direction, the state of sexual
excitement will be able to influence the availability of the voluntary
attention. A good part of the symptomatology of the neuroses which I
trace to disturbance of sexual processes manifests itself in
disturbances of the other non-sexual bodily functions, and this hitherto
incomprehensible action becomes less mysterious if it only represents
the counterpart of the influences controlling the production of the
sexual excitement.
However the same paths through which sexual disturbances encroach upon
the other functions of the body must in health be supposed to serve
another important function. It must be through these paths that the
attraction of the sexual motive-powers to other than sexual aims, the
sublimation of sexuality, is accomplished. We must conclude with the
admission that very little is definitely known concerning the paths
beyond the fact that they exist, and that they are probably passable in
both directions.
[1] For it is really impossible to have a correct knowledge of the part
belonging to heredity without first understanding the part belonging to
the infantile.
[2] This assertion on revision seemed even to myself so bold that I
decided to test its correctness by again reviewing the literature. The
result of this second review did not warrant any change in my original
statement. The scientific elaboration of the physical as well as the
psychic phenomena of the infantile sexuality is still in its initial
stages. One author (S. Bell, "A Preliminary Study of the Emotions of
Love Between the Sexes," American Journal of Psychology, XIII, 1902)
says: "I know of no scientist who has given a careful analysis of the
emotion as it is seen in the adolescent." The only attention given to
somatic sexual manifestations occurring before the age of puberty was in
connection with degenerative manifestations, and these were referred to
as a sign of degeneration. A chapter on the sexual life of children is
not to be found in all the representative psychologies of this age which
I have read. Among these works I can mention the following: Preyer;
Baldwin (The Development of the Mind in the Child and in the Race,
1898); Pérez (L'enfant de 3-7 ans, 1894); Strümpel (Die pädagogische
Pathologie, 1899); Karl Groos (Das Seelenleben des Kindes, 1904); Th.
Heller (Grundriss der Heilpädagogic, 1904); Sully (Observations
Concerning Childhood, 1897). The best impression of the present
situation of this sphere can be obtained from the journal Die
Kinderfehler (issued since 1896). On the other hand one gains the
impression that the existence of love in childhood is in no need of
demonstration. Pérez (l.c.) speaks for it; K. Groos (Die Spiele der
Menschen, 1899) states that some children are very early subject to
sexual emotions, and show a desire to touch the other sex (p. 336); S.
Bell observed the earliest appearance of sex-love in a child during the
middle part of its third year. See also Havelock Ellis, The Sexual
Impulse, Appendix II.
The above-mentioned judgment concerning the literature of infantile
sexuality no longer holds true since the appearance of the great and
important work of G. Stanley Hall (Adolescence, Its Psychology and its
Relation to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion,
and Education, 2 vols., New York, 1908). The recent book of A. Moll, Das
Sexualleben des Kindes, Berlin, 1909, offers no occasion for such a
modification. See, on the other hand, Bleuler, Sexuelle abnormitäten der
Kinder (Jahrbuch der Schweizerischen Gesellschaft für
Schulgesundheitspflege, IX, 1908). A book by Mrs. Dr. H.v. Hug-Hellmuth,
Aus dem Seelenleben des Kindes (1913), has taken full account of the
neglected sexual factors. [Translated in Monograph Series.]
[3] I have attempted to solve the problems presented by the earliest
infantile recollections in a paper, "Über Deckerinnerungen"
(Monatsschrift für Psychiatrie und Neurologie, VI, 1899). Cf. also The
Psychopathology of Everyday Life, The Macmillan Co., New York, and
Unwin, London.
[4] One cannot understand the mechanism of repression when one takes
into consideration only one of the two cooperating processes. As a
comparison one may think of the way the tourist is despatched to the top
of the great pyramid of Gizeh; he is pushed from one side and pulled
from the other.
[5] The use of the latter material is justified by the fact that the
years of childhood of those who are later neurotics need not necessarily
differ from those who are later normal except in intensity and
distinctness.
[6] An anatomic analogy to the behavior of the infantile sexual function
formulated by me is perhaps given by Bayer (Deutsches Archiv für
klinische Medizin, Bd. 73) who claims that the internal genitals
(uterus) are regularly larger in newborn than in older children.
However, Halban's conception, that after birth there is also an
involution of the other parts of the sexual apparatus, has not been
verified. According to Halban (Zeitschrift für Geburtshilfe u.
Gynäkologie, LIII, 1904) this process of involution ends after a few
weeks of extra-uterine life.
[7] The expression "sexual latency period" (sexuelle latenz-periode) I
have borrowed from W. Fliess.
[8] In the case here discussed the sublimation of the sexual motive
powers proceed on the road of reaction formations. But in general it is
necessary to separate from each other sublimation and reaction formation
as two diverse processes. Sublimation may also result through other and
simpler mechanisms.
[9] Jahrbuch für Kinderheilkunde, N.F., XIV, 1879.
[10] This already shows what holds true for the whole life, namely, that
sexual gratification is the best hypnotic. Most nervous insomnias are
traced to lack of sexual gratification. It is also known that
unscrupulous nurses calm crying children to sleep by stroking their
genitals.
[11] Ellis spoils, however, the sense of his invented term by comprising
under the phenomena of autoerotism the whole of hysteria and
masturbation in its full extent.
[12] Further reflection and observation lead me to attribute the quality
of erogenity to all parts of the body and inner organs. See later on
narcism.
[13] Compare here the very comprehensive but confusing literature on
onanism, _e.g._, Rohleder, Die Masturbation, 1899. Cf. also the
pamphlet, "Die Onanie," which contains the discussion of the Vienna
Psychoanalytic Society, Wiesbaden, 1912.
[14] Compare here the essay on "Charakter und Analerotic" in the
Sammlung kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre, Zweite Folge, 1909. Cf.
also Brill, Psychanalysis, Chap. XIII, Anal Eroticism and Character,
W.B. Saunders, Philadelphia.
[15] Unusual techniques in the performance of onanism seem to point to
the influence of a prohibition against onanism which has been overcome.
[16] Why neurotics, when conscience stricken, regularly connect it with
their onanistic activity, as was only recently recognized by Bleuler, is
a problem which still awaits an exhaustive analysis.
[17] Freud, Selected Papers on Hysteria and Other Psychoneuroses, 3d
edition, translated by A.A. Brill, N.Y. Nerv. and Ment. Dis. Pub. Co.
Nervous and Mental Disease Monograph, Series No. 4.
[18] Havelock Ellis, in an appendix to his study on the Sexual Impulse,
1903, gives a number of autobiographic reports of normal persons
treating their first sexual feelings in childhood and the causes of the
same. These reports naturally show the deficiency due to infantile
amnesia; they do not cover the prehistoric time in the sexual life and
therefore must be supplemented by psychoanalysis of individuals who
became neurotic. Notwithstanding this these reports are valuable in more
than one respect, and information of a similar nature has urged me to
modify my etiological assumption as mentioned in the text.
[19] The above-mentioned assertions concerning the infantile sexuality
were justified in 1905, in the main through the results of
psychoanalytic investigations in adults. Direct observation of the child
could not at the time be utilized to its full extent and resulted only
in individual indications and valuable confirmations. Since then it has
become possible through the analysis of some cases of nervous disease in
the delicate age of childhood to gain a direct understanding of the
infantile psychosexuality (Jahrbuch für psychoanalytische und
psychopathologische Forschungen, Bd. 1, 2, 1909). I can point with
satisfaction to the fact that direct observation has fully confirmed the
conclusion drawn from psychoanalysis, and thus furnishes good evidence
for the reliability of the latter method of investigation.
Moreover, the "Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-year-old Boy" (Jahrbuch,
Bd. 1) has taught us something new for which psychoanalysis had not
prepared us, to wit, that sexual symbolism, the representation of the
sexual by non-sexual objects and relations--reaches back into the years
when the child is first learning to master the language. My attention
has also been directed to a deficiency in the above-cited statement
which for the sake of clearness described any conceivable separation
between the two phases of autoerotism and object love as a temporal
separation. From the cited analysis (as well as from the above-mentioned
work of Bell) we learn that children from three to five are capable of
evincing a very strong object-selection which is accompanied by strong
affects.
[20] Some persons can recall that the contact of the moving air in
swinging caused them direct sexual pleasure in the genitals.
[21] "Those who love each other tease each other."
[22] The analyses of neurotic disturbances of walking and of agoraphobia
remove all doubt as to the sexual nature of the pleasure of motion. As
everybody knows modern cultural education utilizes sports to a great
extent in order to turn away the youth from sexual activity; it would be
more proper to say that it replaces the sexual pleasure by motion
pleasure, and forces the sexual activity back upon one of its autoerotic
components.
III
THE TRANSFORMATION OF PUBERTY
With the beginning of puberty the changes set in which transform the
infantile sexual life into its definite normal form. Hitherto the sexual
impulse has been preponderantly autoerotic; it now finds the sexual
object. Thus far it has manifested itself in single impulses and in
erogenous zones seeking a certain pleasure as a single sexual aim. A new
sexual aim now appears for the production of which all partial impulses
coöperate, while the erogenous zones subordinate themselves to the
primacy of the genital zone.[1] As the new sexual aim assigns very
different functions to the two sexes their sexual developments now part
company. The sexual development of the man is more consistent and easier
to understand, while in the woman there even appears a form of
regression. The normality of the sexual life is guaranteed only by the
exact concurrence of the two streams directed to the sexual object and
sexual aim. It is like the piercing of a tunnel from opposite sides.
The new sexual aim in the man consists in the discharging of the sexual
products; it is not contradictory to the former sexual aim, that of
obtaining pleasure; on the contrary, the highest amount of pleasure is
connected with this final act in the sexual process. The sexual impulse
now enters into the service of the function of propagation; it becomes,
so to say, altruistic. If this transformation is to succeed its process
must be adjusted to the original dispositions and all the peculiarities
of the impulses.
Just as on every other occasion where new connections and compositions
are to be formed in complicated mechanisms, here, too, there is a
possibility for morbid disturbance if the new order of things does not
get itself established. All morbid disturbances of the sexual life may
justly be considered as inhibitions of development.
THE PRIMACY OF THE GENITAL ZONES AND THE FORE-PLEASURE
From the course of development as described we can clearly see the issue
and the end aim. The intermediary transitions are still quite obscure
and many a riddle will have to be solved in them.
The most striking process of puberty has been selected as its most
characteristic; it is the manifest growth of the external genitals which
have shown a relative inhibition of growth during the latency period of
childhood. Simultaneously the inner genitals develop to such an extent
as to be able to furnish sexual products or to receive them for the
purpose of forming a new living being. A most complicated apparatus is
thus formed which waits to be claimed.
This apparatus can be set in motion by stimuli, and observation teaches
that the stimuli can affect it in three ways: from the outer world
through the familiar erogenous zones; from the inner organic world by
ways still to be investigated; and from the psychic life, which merely
represents a depository of external impressions and a receptacle of
inner excitations. The same result follows in all three cases, namely, a
state which can be designated as "sexual excitation" and which manifests
itself in psychic and somatic signs. The psychic sign consists in a
peculiar feeling of tension of a most urgent character, and among the
manifold somatic signs the many changes in the genitals stand first.
They have a definite meaning, that of readiness; they constitute a
preparation for the sexual act (the erection of the penis and the
glandular activity of the vagina).
*The Sexual Tension*--The character of the tension of sexual excitation
is connected with a problem the solution of which is as difficult as it
would be important for the conception of the sexual process. Despite all
divergence of opinion regarding it in psychology, I must firmly maintain
that a feeling of tension must carry with it the character of
displeasure. For me it is conclusive that such a feeling carries with it
the impulse to alter the psychic situation, and acts incitingly, which
is quite contrary to the nature of perceived pleasure. But if we ascribe
the tension of the sexual excitation to the feelings of displeasure we
encounter the fact that it is undoubtedly pleasurably perceived. The
tension produced by sexual excitation is everywhere accompanied by
pleasure; even in the preparatory changes of the genitals there is a
distinct feeling of satisfaction. What relation is there between this
unpleasant tension and this feeling of pleasure?
Everything relating to the problem of pleasure and pain touches one of
the weakest spots of present-day psychology. We shall try if possible to
learn something from the determinations of the case in question and to
avoid encroaching on the problem as a whole. Let us first glance at the
manner in which the erogenous zones adjust themselves to the new order
of things. An important rôle devolves upon them in the preparation of
the sexual excitation. The eye which is very remote from the sexual
object is most often in position, during the relations of object wooing,
to become attracted by that particular quality of excitation, the motive
of which we designate as beauty in the sexual object. The excellencies
of the sexual object are therefore also called "attractions." This
attraction is on the one hand already connected with pleasure, and on
the other hand it either results in an increase of the sexual excitation
or in an evocation of the same where it is still wanting. The effect is
the same if the excitation of another erogenous zone, _e.g._, the
touching hand, is added to it. There is on the one hand the feeling of
pleasure which soon becomes enhanced by the pleasure from the
preparatory changes, and on the other hand there is a further increase
of the sexual tension which soon changes into a most distinct feeling of
displeasure if it cannot proceed to more pleasure. Another case will
perhaps be clearer; let us, for example, take the case where an
erogenous zone, like a woman's breast, is excited by touching in a
person who is not sexually excited at the time. This touching in itself
evokes a feeling of pleasure, but it is also best adapted to awaken
sexual excitement which demands still more pleasure. How it happens that
the perceived pleasure evokes the desire for greater pleasure, that is
the real problem.
*Fore-pleasure Mechanism.*--But the rôle which devolves upon the
erogenous zones is clear. What applies to one applies to all. They are
all utilized to furnish a certain amount of pleasure through their own
proper excitation, which increases the tension, and which is in turn
destined to produce the necessary motor energy in order to bring to a
conclusion the sexual act. The last part but one of this act is again a
suitable excitation of an erogenous zone; _i.e._, the genital zone
proper of the glans penis is excited by the object most fit for it, the
mucous membrane of the vagina, and through the pleasure furnished by
this excitation it now produces reflexly the motor energy which conveys
to the surface the sexual substance. This last pleasure is highest in
its intensity, and differs from the earliest ones in its mechanism. It
is altogether produced through discharge, it is altogether gratification
pleasure and the tension of the libido temporarily dies away with it.
It does not seem to me unjustified to fix by name the distinction in the
nature of these pleasures, the one through the excitation of the
erogenous zones, and the other through the discharge of the sexual
substance. In contradistinction to the end-pleasure, or pleasure of
gratification of sexual activity, we can properly designate the first as
_fore-pleasure_. The fore-pleasure is then the same as that furnished by
the infantile sexual impulse, though on a reduced scale; while the
_end-pleasure_ is new and is probably connected with determinations
which first appear at puberty. The formula for the new function of the
erogenous zones reads as follows: they are utilized for the purpose of
making possible the production of the greater pleasure of gratification
by means of the fore-pleasure which is gained from them as in infantile
life.
I have recently been able to elucidate another example from a quite
different realm of the psychic life, in which likewise a greater feeling
of pleasure is achieved by means of a lesser feeling of pleasure which
thereby acts as an alluring premium. We had there also the opportunity
of entering more deeply into the nature of pleasure.[2]
*Dangers of the Fore-pleasure.*--However the connection of fore-pleasure
with the infantile life is strengthened by the pathogenic rôle which may
devolve upon it. In the mechanism through which the fore-pleasure is
expressed there exists an obvious danger to the attainment of the normal
sexual aim. This occurs if it happens that there is too much
fore-pleasure and too little tension in any part of the preparatory
sexual process. The motive power for the further continuation of the
sexual process then escapes, the whole road becomes shortened, and the
preparatory action in question takes the place of the normal sexual aim.
Experience shows that such a hurtful condition is determined by the fact
that the erogenous zone concerned or the corresponding partial impulse
has already contributed an unusual amount of pleasure in infantile life.
If other factors favoring fixation are added a compulsion readily
results for the later life which prevents the fore-pleasure from
arranging itself into a new combination. Indeed, the mechanism of many
perversions is of such a nature; they merely represent a lingering at a
preparatory act of the sexual process.
The failure of the function of the sexual mechanism through the fault of
the fore-pleasure is generally avoided if the primacy of the genital
zones has also already been sketched out in infantile life. The
preparations of the second half of childhood (from the eighth year to
puberty) really seem to favor this. During these years the genital zones
behave almost as at the age of maturity; they are the seat of exciting
sensations and of preparatory changes if any kind of pleasure is
experienced through the gratification of other erogenous zones; although
this effect remains aimless, _i.e._, it contributes nothing towards the
continuation of the sexual process. Besides the pleasure of
gratification a certain amount of sexual tension appears even in
infancy, though it is less constant and less abundant. We can now
understand also why in the discussion of the sources of sexuality we had
a perfectly good reason for saying that the process in question acts as
sexual gratification as well as sexual excitement. We note that on our
way towards the truth we have at first enormously exaggerated the
distinctions between the infantile and the mature sexual life, and we
therefore supplement what has been said with a correction. The infantile
manifestations of sexuality determine not only the deviations from the
normal sexual life but also the normal formations of the same.
THE PROBLEM OF SEXUAL EXCITEMENT
It remains entirely unexplained whence the sexual tension comes which
originates simultaneously with the gratification of erogenous zones and
what is its nature. The obvious supposition that this tension originates
in some way from the pleasure itself is not only improbable in itself
but untenable, inasmuch as during the greatest pleasure which is
connected with the voiding of sexual substance there is no production of
tension but rather a removal of all tension. Hence, pleasure and sexual
tension can be only indirectly connected.
*The Rôle of the Sexual Substance.*--Aside from the fact that only the
discharge of the sexual substance can normally put an end to the sexual
excitement, there are other essential facts which bring the sexual
tension into relation with the sexual products. In a life of continence
the sexual activity is wont to discharge the sexual substance at night
during pleasurable dream hallucinations of a sexual act, this discharge
coming at changing but not at entirely capricious intervals; and the
following interpretation of this process--the nocturnal pollution--can
hardly be rejected, viz., that the sexual tension which brings about a
substitute for the sexual act by the short hallucinatory road is a
function of the accumulated semen in the reservoirs for the sexual
products. Experiences with the exhaustibility of the sexual mechanism
speak for the same thing. Where there is no stock of semen it is not
only impossible to accomplish the sexual act, but there is also a lack
of excitability in the erogenous zones, the suitable excitation of which
can evoke no pleasure. We thus discover incidentally that a certain
amount of sexual tension is itself necessary for the excitability of the
erogenous zones.
One would thus be forced to the assumption, which if I am not mistaken
is quite generally adopted, that the accumulation of sexual substance
produces and maintains the sexual tension. The pressure of these
products on the walls of their receptacles acts as an excitant on the
spinal center, the state of which is then perceived by the higher
centers which then produce in consciousness the familiar feeling of
tension. If the excitation of erogenous zones increases the sexual
tension, it can only be due to the fact that the erogenous zones are
connected with these centers by previously formed anatomical
connections. They increase there the tone of the excitation, and with
sufficient sexual tension they set in motion the sexual act, and with
insufficient tension they merely stimulate a production of the sexual
substance.
The weakness of the theory which one finds adopted, _e.g._, in v.
Krafft-Ebing's description of the sexual process, lies in the fact that
it has been formed for the sexual activity of the mature man and pays
too little heed to three kinds of relations which should also have been
elucidated. We refer to the relations as found in the child, in the
woman, and in the castrated male. In none of the three cases can we
speak of an accumulation of sexual products in the same sense as in the
man, which naturally renders difficult the general application of this
scheme; still it may be admitted without any further ado that ways can
be found to justify the subordination of even these cases. Nevertheless
one should be cautious about burdening the factor of accumulation of
sexual products with actions which it seems incapable of supporting.
*Overestimation of the Internal Genitals.*--That sexual excitement can
be independent to a considerable extent of the production of sexual
substance seems to be shown by observations on castrated males, in whom
the libido sometimes escapes the injury caused by the operation,
although the opposite behavior, which is really the motive for the
operation, is usually the rule. It is therefore not at all surprising,
as C. Rieger puts it, that the loss of the male germ glands in maturer
age should exert no new influence on the psychic life of the individual.
The germ glands are really not the sexuality, and the experience with
castrated males only verifies what we had long before learned from the
removal of the ovaries, namely that it is impossible to do away with the
sexual character by removing the germ glands. To be sure, castration
performed at a tender age, before puberty, comes nearer to this aim, but
it would seem in this case that besides the loss of the sexual glands we
must also consider the inhibition of development and other factors
which are connected with that loss.
*Chemical Theories.*--The truth remains, however, that we are unable to
give any information about the nature of the sexual excitement for the
reason that we do not know with what organ or organs sexuality is
connected, since we have seen that the sexual glands have been
overestimated in this significance. Since surprising discoveries have
taught us the important rôle of the thyroid gland in sexuality, we may
assume that the knowledge of the essential factors of sexuality are
still withheld from us. One who feels the need of filling up the large
gap in our knowledge with a preliminary assumption may formulate for
himself the following theory based on the active substances found in the
thyroid. Through the appropriate excitement of erogenous zones, as well
as through other conditions under which sexual excitement originates, a
material which is universally distributed in the organism becomes
disintegrated, the decomposing products of which supply a specific
stimulus to the organs of reproduction or to the spinal center connected
with them. Such a transformation of a toxic stimulus in a particular
organic stimulus we are already familiar with from other toxic products
introduced into the body from without. To treat, if only hypothetically,
the complexities of the pure toxic and the physiologic stimulations
which result in the sexual processes is not now our appropriate task. To
be sure, I attach no value to this special assumption and I shall be
quite ready to give it up in favor of another, provided its original
character, the emphasis on the sexual chemism, were preserved. For this
apparently arbitrary statement is supported by a fact which, though
little heeded, is most noteworthy. The neuroses which can be traced only
to disturbances of the sexual life show the greatest clinical
resemblance to the phenomena of intoxication and abstinence which result
from the habitual introduction of pleasure-producing poisonous
substances (alkaloids.)
THE THEORY OF THE LIBIDO
These assumptions concerning the chemical basis of the sexual excitement
are in full accord with the auxiliary conception which we formed for the
purpose of mastering the psychic manifestations of the sexual life. We
have determined the concept of _libido_ as that of a force of variable
quantity which has the capacity of measuring processes and
transformations in the spheres of sexual excitement. This libido we
distinguished from the energy which is to be generally adjudged to the
psychic processes with reference to its special origin and thus we
attribute to it also a qualitative character. In separating libidinous
from other psychic energy we give expression to the assumption that the
sexual processes of the organism are differentiated from the nutritional
processes through a special chemism. The analyses of perversions and
psychoneuroses have taught us that this sexual excitement is furnished
not only from the so-called sexual parts alone but from all organs of
the body. We thus formulate for ourselves the concept of a
libido-quantum whose psychic representative we designate as the
ego-libido; the production, increase, distribution and displacement of
this ego-libido will offer the possible explanation for the observed
psycho-sexual phenomena.
But this ego-libido becomes conveniently accessible to psychoanalytic
study only when the psychic energy is employed on sexual objects, that
is when it becomes object libido. Then we see it as it concentrates and
fixes itself on objects, or as it leaves those objects and passes over
to others from which positions it directs the individual's sexual
activity, that is, it leads to partial and temporary extinction of the
libido. Psychoanalysis of the so-called transference neuroses (hysteria
and compulsion neurosis) offers us here a reliable insight.
Concerning the fates of the object libido we also state that it is
withdrawn from the object, that it is preserved floating in special
states of tension and is finally taken back into the ego, so that it
again becomes ego-libido. In contradistinction to the object-libido we
also call the ego-libido narcissistic libido. From psychoanalysis we
look over the boundary which we are not permitted to pass into the
activity of the narcissistic libido and thus form an idea of the
relations between the two. The narcissistic or ego-libido appears to us
as the great reservoir from which the energy for the investment of the
object is sent out and into which it is drawn back again, while the
narcissistic libido investment of the ego appears to us as the realized
primitive state in the first childhood, which only becomes hidden by the
later emissions of the libido, and is retained at the bottom behind
them.
The task of a theory of libido of neurotic and psychotic disturbances
would have for its object to express in terms of the libido-economy all
observed phenomena and disclosed processes. It is easy to divine that
the greater significance would attach thereby to the destinies of the
ego-libido, especially where it would be the question of explaining the
deeper psychotic disturbances. The difficulty then lies in the fact that
the means of our investigation, psychoanalysis, at present gives us
definite information only concerning the transformation of the
object-libido, but cannot distinguish without further study the
ego-libido from the other effective energies in the ego.[3]
DIFFERENTIATION BETWEEN MAN AND WOMAN
It is known that the sharp differentiation of the male and female
character originates at puberty, and it is the resulting difference
which, more than any other factor, decisively influences the later
development of personality. To be sure, the male and female dispositions
are easily recognizable even in infantile life; thus the development of
sexual inhibitions (shame, loathing, sympathy, etc.) ensues earlier and
with less resistance in the little girl than in the little boy. The
tendency to sexual repression certainly seems much greater, and where
partial impulses of sexuality are noticed they show a preference for the
passive form. But, the autoerotic activity of the erogenous zones is the
same in both sexes, and it is this agreement that removes the
possibility of a sex differentiation in childhood as it appears after
puberty. In respect to the autoerotic and masturbatic sexual
manifestations, it may be asserted that the sexuality of the little girl
has entirely a male character. Indeed, if one could give a more definite
content to the terms "masculine and feminine," one might advance the
opinion that _the libido is regularly and lawfully of a masculine
nature, whether in the man or in the woman; and if we consider its
object, this may be either the man or the woman_.[4]
Since becoming acquainted with the aspect of bisexuality I hold this
factor as here decisive, and I believe that without taking into account
the factor of bisexuality it will hardly be possible to understand the
actually observed sexual manifestations in man and woman.
*The Leading Zones in Man and Woman.*--Further than this I can only add
the following. The chief erogenous zone in the female child is the
clitoris, which is homologous to the male penis. All I have been able to
discover concerning masturbation in little girls concerned the clitoris
and not those other external genitals which are so important for the
later sexual functions. With few exceptions I myself doubt whether the
female child can be seduced to anything but clitoris masturbation. The
frequent spontaneous discharges of sexual excitement in little girls
manifest themselves in a twitching of the clitoris, and its frequent
erections enable the girl to understand correctly even without any
instruction the sexual manifestations of the other sex; they simply
transfer to the boys the sensations of their own sexual processes.
If one wishes to understand how the little girl becomes a woman, he must
follow up the further destinies of this clitoris excitation. Puberty,
which brings to the boy a great advance of libido, distinguishes itself
in the girl by a new wave of repression which especially concerns the
clitoris sexuality. It is a part of the male sexual life that sinks into
repression. The reënforcement of the sexual inhibitions produced in the
woman by the repression of puberty causes a stimulus in the libido of
the man and forces it to increase its capacity; with the height of the
libido there is a rise in the overestimation of the sexual, which can be
present in its full force only when the woman refuses and denies her
sexuality. If the sexual act is finally submitted to and the clitoris
becomes excited its rôle is then to conduct the excitement to the
adjacent female parts, and in this it acts like a chip of pine wood
which is utilized to set fire to the harder wood. It often takes some
time for this transference to be accomplished; during which the young
wife remains anesthetic. This anesthesia may become permanent if the
clitoris zone refuses to give up its excitability; a condition brought
on by abundant activities in infantile life. It is known that anesthesia
in women is often only apparent and local. They are anesthetic at the
vaginal entrance but not at all unexcitable through the clitoris or even
through other zones. Besides these erogenous causes of anesthesia there
are also psychic causes likewise determined by the repression.
If the transference of the erogenous excitability from the clitoris to
the vagina has succeeded, the woman has thus changed her leading zone
for the future sexual activity; the man on the other hand retains his
from childhood. The main determinants for the woman's preference for the
neuroses, especially for hysteria, lie in this change of the leading
zone as well as in the repression of puberty. These determinants are
therefore most intimately connected with the nature of femininity.
THE OBJECT-FINDING
While the primacy of the genital zones is being established through the
processes of puberty, and the erected penis in the man imperiously
points towards the new sexual aim, _i.e._, towards the penetration of a
cavity which excites the genital zone, the object-finding, for which
also preparations have been made since early childhood, becomes
consummated on the psychic side. While the very incipient sexual
gratifications are still connected with the taking of nourishment, the
sexual impulse has a sexual object outside its own body in his mother's
breast. This object it loses later, perhaps at the very time when it
becomes possible for the child to form a general picture of the person
to whom the organ granting him the gratification belongs. The sexual
impulse later regularly becomes autoerotic, and only after overcoming
the latency period is there a resumption of the original relation. It is
not without good reason that the suckling of the child at its mother's
breast has become a model for every amour. The object-finding is really
a re-finding.[5]
*The Sexual Object of the Nursing Period.*--However, even after the
separation of the sexual activity from the taking of nourishment, there
still remains from this first and most important of all sexual relations
an important share, which prepares the object selection and assists in
reestablishing the lost happiness. Throughout the latency period the
child learns to love other persons who assist it in its helplessness and
gratify its wants; all this follows the model and is a continuation of
the child's infantile relations to his wet nurse. One may perhaps
hesitate to identify the tender feelings and esteem of the child for his
foster-parents with sexual love; I believe, however, that a more
thorough psychological investigation will establish this identity beyond
any doubt. The intercourse between the child and its foster-parents is
for the former an inexhaustible source of sexual excitation and
gratification of erogenous zones, especially since the parents--or as a
rule the mother--supplies the child with feelings which originate from
her own sexual life; she pats it, kisses it, and rocks it, plainly
taking it as a substitute for a full-valued sexual object.[6] The mother
would probably be terrified if it were explained to her that all her
tenderness awakens the sexual impulse of her child and prepares its
future intensity. She considers her actions as asexually "pure" love,
for she carefully avoids causing more irritation to the genitals of the
child than is indispensable in caring for the body. But as we know the
sexual impulse is not awakened by the excitation of genital zones alone.
What we call tenderness will some day surely manifest its influence on
the genital zones also. If the mother better understood the high
significance of the sexual impulse for the whole psychic life and for
all ethical and psychic activities, the enlightenment would spare her
all reproaches. By teaching the child to love she only fulfills her
function; for the child should become a fit man with energetic sexual
needs, and accomplish in life all that the impulse urges the man to do.
Of course, too much parental tenderness becomes harmful because it
accelerates the sexual maturity, and also because it "spoils" the child
and makes it unfit to temporarily renounce love or be satisfied with a
smaller amount of love in later life. One of the surest premonitions of
later nervousness is the fact that the child shows itself insatiable in
its demands for parental tenderness; on the other hand, neuropathic
parents, who usually display a boundless tenderness, often with their
caressing awaken in the child a disposition for neurotic diseases. This
example at least shows that neuropathic parents have nearer ways than
inheritance by which they can transfer their disturbances to their
children.
*Infantile Fear.*--The children themselves behave from their early
childhood as if their attachment to their foster-parents were of the
nature of sexual love. The fear of children is originally nothing but an
expression for the fact that they miss the beloved person. They
therefore meet every stranger with fear, they are afraid of the dark
because they cannot see the beloved person, and are calmed if they can
grasp that person's hand. The effect of childish fears and of the
terrifying stories told by nurses is overestimated if one blames the
latter for producing the fear in children. Children who are predisposed
to fear absorb these stories, which make no impression whatever upon
others; and only such children are predisposed to fear whose sexual
impulse is excessive or prematurely developed, or has become exigent
through pampering. The child behaves here like the adult, that is, it
changes its libido into fear when it cannot bring it to gratification,
and the grown-up who becomes neurotic on account of ungratified libido
behaves in his anxiety like a child; he fears when he is alone, _i.e._,
without a person of whose love he believes himself sure, and who can
calm his fears by means of the most childish measures.[7]
*Incest Barriers.*--If the tenderness of the parents for the child has
luckily failed to awaken the sexual impulse of the child prematurely,
_i.e._, before the physical determinations for puberty appear, and if
that awakening has not gone so far as to cause an unmistakable breaking
through of the psychic excitement into the genital system, it can then
fulfill its task and direct the child at the age of maturity in the
selection of the sexual object. It would, of course, be most natural for
the child to select as the sexual object that person whom it has loved
since childhood with, so to speak, a suppressed libido.[8] But owing to
the delay of sexual maturity time has been gained for the erection
beside the sexual inhibitions of the incest barrier, that moral
prescription which explicitly excludes from the object selection the
beloved person of infancy or blood relation. The observance of this
barrier is above all a demand of cultural society which must guard
against the absorption by the family of those interests which it needs
for the production of higher social units. Society, therefore, uses
every means to loosen those family ties in every individual, especially
in the boy, which are authoritative in childhood only.[9]
The object selection, however, is first accomplished in the imagination,
and the sexual life of the maturing youth has hardly any escape except
indulgence in phantasies or ideas which are not destined to be brought
to execution. In the phantasies of all persons the infantile
inclinations, now reënforced by somatic emphasis, reappear, and among
them one finds in regular frequency and in the first place the sexual
feeling of the child for the parents. This has usually already been
differentiated by the sexual attraction, the attraction of the son for
the mother and of the daughter for the father.[10] Simultaneously with
the overcoming and rejection of these distinctly incestuous phantasies
there occurs one of the most important as well as one of the most
painful psychic accomplishments of puberty; it is the breaking away from
the parental authority, through which alone is formed that opposition
between the new and old generations which is so important for cultural
progress. Many persons are detained at each of the stations in the
course of development through which the individual must pass; and
accordingly there are persons who never overcome the parental authority
and never, or very imperfectly, withdraw their affection from their
parents. They are mostly girls, who, to the delight of their parents,
retain their full infantile love far beyond puberty, and it is
instructive to find that in their married life these girls are incapable
of fulfilling their duties to their husbands. They make cold wives and
remain sexually anesthetic. This shows that the apparently non-sexual
love for the parents and the sexual love are nourished from the same
source, _i.e._, that the first merely corresponds to an infantile
fixation of the libido.
The nearer we come to the deeper disturbances of the psychosexual
development the more easily we can recognize the evident significance of
the incestuous object-selection. As a result of sexual rejection there
remains in the unconscious of the psychoneurotic a great part or the
whole of the psychosexual activity for object finding. Girls with an
excessive need for affection and an equal horror for the real demands of
the sexual life experience an uncontrollable temptation on the one hand
to realize in life the ideal of the asexual love and on the other hand
to conceal their libido under an affection which they may manifest
without self reproach; this they do by clinging for life to the
infantile attraction for their parents or brothers or sisters which has
been repressed in puberty. With the help of the symptoms and other
morbid manifestations, psychoanalysis can trace their unconscious
thoughts and translate them into the conscious, and thus easily show to
such persons that they are in love with their consanguinous relations in
the popular meaning of the term. Likewise when a once healthy person
falls sick after an unhappy love affair, the mechanism of the disease
can distinctly be explained as a return of his libido to the persons
preferred in his infancy.
*The After Effects of the Infantile Object Selection.*--Even those who
have happily eluded the incestuous fixation of their libido have not
completely escaped its influence. It is a distinct echo of this phase of
development that the first serious love of the young man is often for a
mature woman and that of the girl for an older man equipped with
authority--_i.e._, for persons who can revive in them the picture of the
mother and father. Generally speaking object selection unquestionably
takes place by following more freely these prototypes. The man seeks
above all the memory picture of his mother as it has dominated him since
the beginning of childhood; this is quite consistent with the fact that
the mother, if still living, strives against this, her renewal, and
meets it with hostility. In view of this significance of the infantile
relation to the parents for the later selection of the sexual object, it
is easy to understand that every disturbance of this infantile relation
brings to a head the most serious results for the sexual life after
puberty. Jealousy of the lover, too, never lacks the infantile sources
or at least the infantile reinforcement. Quarrels between parents and
unhappy marital relations between the same determine the severest
predispositions for disturbed sexual development or neurotic diseases in
the children.
The infantile desire for the parents is, to be sure, the most important,
but not the only trace revived in puberty which points the way to the
object selection. Other dispositions of the same origin permit the man,
still supported by his infancy, to develop more than one single sexual
series and to form different determinations for the object
selection.[11]
*Prevention of Inversion.*--One of the tasks imposed in the object
selection consists in not missing the opposite sex. This, as we know, is
not solved without some difficulty. The first feelings after puberty
often enough go astray, though not with any permanent injury. Dessoir
has called attention to the normality of the enthusiastic friendships
formed by boys and girls with their own sex. The greatest force which
guards against a permanent inversion of the sexual object is surely the
attraction exerted by the opposite sex characters on each other. For
this we can give no explanation in connection with this discussion. This
factor, however, does not in itself suffice to exclude the inversion;
besides this there are surely many other supporting factors. Above all,
there is the authoritative inhibition of society; experience shows that
where the inversion is not considered a crime it fully corresponds to
the sexual inclinations of many persons. Moreover, it may be assumed
that in the man the infantile memories of the mother's tenderness, as
well as that of other females who cared for him as a child,
energetically assist in directing his selection to the woman, while the
early sexual intimidation experienced through the father and the
attitude of rivalry existing between them deflects the boy from the same
sex. Both factors also hold true in the case of the girl whose sexual
activity is under the special care of the mother. This results in a
hostile relation to the same sex which decisively influences the object
selection in the normal sense. The bringing up of boys by male persons
(slaves in the ancient times) seems to favor homosexuality; the
frequency of inversion in the present day nobility is probably explained
by their employment of male servants, and by the scant care that mothers
of that class give to their children. It happens in some hysterics that
one of the parents has disappeared (through death, divorce, or
estrangement), thus permitting the remaining parent to absorb all the
love of the child, and in this way establishing the determinations for
the sex of the person to be selected later as the sexual object; thus a
permanent inversion is made possible.
SUMMARY
It is now time to attempt a summing-up. We have started from the
aberrations of the sexual impulse in reference to its object and aim and
have encountered the question whether these originate from a congenital
predisposition, or whether they are acquired in consequence of
influences from life. The answer to this question was reached through an
examination of the relations of the sexual life of psychoneurotics, a
numerous group not very remote from the normal. This examination has
been made through psychoanalytic investigations. We have thus found that
a tendency to all perversions might be demonstrated in these persons in
the form of unconscious forces revealing themselves as symptom creators
and we could say that the neurosis is, as it were, the negative of the
perversion. In view of the now recognized great diffusion of tendencies
to perversion the idea forced itself upon us that the disposition to
perversions is the primitive and universal disposition of the human
sexual impulse, from which the normal sexual behavior develops in
consequence of organic changes and psychic inhibitions in the course of
maturity. We hoped to be able to demonstrate the original disposition in
the infantile life; among the forces restraining the direction of the
sexual impulse we have mentioned shame, loathing and sympathy, and the
social constructions of morality and authority. We have thus been forced
to perceive in every fixed aberration from the normal sexual life a
fragment of inhibited development and infantilism. The significance of
the variations of the original dispositions had to be put into the
foreground, but between them and the influences of life we had to assume
a relation of coöperation and not of opposition. On the other hand, as
the original disposition must have been a complex one, the sexual
impulse itself appeared to us as something composed of many factors,
which in the perversions becomes separated, as it were, into its
components. The perversions, thus prove themselves to be on the one hand
inhibitions, and on the other dissociations from the normal development.
Both conceptions became united in the assumption that the sexual impulse
of the adult due to the composition of the diverse feelings of the
infantile life became formed into one unit, one striving, with one
single aim.
We also added an explanation for the preponderance of perversive
tendencies in the psychoneurotics by recognizing in these tendencies
collateral fillings of side branches caused by the shifting of the main
river bed through repression, and we then turned our examination to the
sexual life of the infantile period.[12] We found it regrettable that
the existence of a sexual life in infancy has been disputed, and that
the sexual manifestations which have been often observed in children
have been described as abnormal occurrences. It rather seemed to us that
the child brings along into the world germs of sexual activity and that
even while taking nourishment it at the same time also enjoys a sexual
gratification which it then seeks again to procure for itself through
the familiar activity of "thumbsucking." The sexual activity of the
child, however, does not develop in the same measure as its other
functions, but merges first into the so-called latency period from the
age of three to the age of five years. The production of sexual
excitation by no means ceases at this period but continues and furnishes
a stock of energy, the greater part of which is utilized for aims other
than sexual; namely, on the one hand for the delivery of sexual
components for social feelings, and on the other hand (by means of
repression and reaction formation) for the erection of the future sexual
barriers. Accordingly, the forces which are destined to hold the sexual
impulse in certain tracks are built up in infancy at the expense of the
greater part of the perverse sexual feelings and with the assistance of
education. Another part of the infantile sexual manifestations escapes
this utilization and may manifest itself as sexual activity. It can then
be discovered that the sexual excitation of the child flows from diverse
sources. Above all gratifications originate through the adapted sensible
excitation of so-called erogenous zones. For these probably any skin
region or sensory organ may serve; but there are certain distinguished
erogenous zones the excitation of which by certain organic mechanisms is
assured from the beginning. Moreover, sexual excitation originates in
the organism, as it were, as a by-product in a great number of
processes, as soon as they attain a certain intensity; this especially
takes place in all strong emotional excitements even if they be of a
painful nature. The excitations from all these sources do not yet unite,
but they pursue their aim individually--this aim consisting merely in
the gaining of a certain pleasure. The sexual impulse of childhood is
therefore objectless or _autoerotic_.
Still during infancy the erogenous zone of the genitals begins to make
itself noticeable, either by the fact that like any other erogenous zone
it furnishes gratification through a suitable sensible stimulus, or
because in some incomprehensible way the gratification from other
sources causes at the same time the sexual excitement which has a
special connection with the genital zone. We found cause to regret that
a sufficient explanation of the relations between sexual gratification
and sexual excitement, as well as between the activity of the genital
zone and the remaining sources of sexuality, was not to be attained.
We were unable to state what amount of sexual activity in childhood
might be designated as normal to the extent of being incapable of
further development. The character of the sexual manifestation showed
itself to be preponderantly masturbatic. We, moreover, verified from
experience the belief that the external influences of seduction, might
produce premature breaches in the latency period leading as far as the
suppression of the same, and that the sexual impulse of the child really
shows itself to be polymorphous-perverse; furthermore, that every such
premature sexual activity impairs the educability of the child.
Despite the incompleteness of our examinations of the infantile sexual
life we were subsequently forced to attempt to study the serious changes
produced by the appearance of puberty. We selected two of the same as
criteria, namely, the subordination of all other sources of the sexual
feeling to the primacy of the genital zones, and the process of object
finding. Both of them are already developed in childhood. The first is
accomplished through the mechanism of utilizing the fore-pleasure,
whereby all other independent sexual acts which are connected with
pleasure and excitement become preparatory acts for the new sexual aim,
the voiding of the sexual products, the attainment of which under
enormous pleasure puts an end to the sexual feeling. At the same time we
had to consider the differentiation of the sexual nature of man and
woman, and we found that in order to become a woman a new repression is
required which abolishes a piece of infantile masculinity, and prepares
the woman for the change of the leading genital zones. Lastly, we found
the object selection, tracing it through infancy to its revival in
puberty; we also found indications of sexual inclinations on the part of
the child for the parents and foster-parents, which, however, were
turned away from these persons to others resembling them by the incest
barriers which had been erected in the meantime. Let us finally add that
during the transition period of puberty the somatic and psychic
processes of development proceed side by side, but separately, until
with the breaking through of an intense psychic love-stimulus for the
innervation of the genitals, the normally demanded unification of the
erotic function is established.
*The Factors Disturbing the Development.*--As we have already shown by
different examples, every step on this long road of development may
become a point of fixation and every joint in this complicated structure
may afford opportunity for a dissociation of the sexual impulse. It
still remains for us to review the various inner and outer factors which
disturb the development, and to mention the part of the mechanism
affected by the disturbance emanating from them. The factors which we
mention here in a series cannot, of course, all be in themselves of
equal validity and we must expect to meet with difficulties in the
assigning to the individual factors their due importance.
*Constitution and Heredity.*--In the first place, we must mention here
the congenital _variation of the sexual constitution_, upon which the
greatest weight probably falls, but the existence of which, as may be
easily understood, can be established only through its later
manifestations and even then not always with great certainty. We
understand by it a preponderance of one or another of the manifold
sources of the sexual excitement, and we believe that such a difference
of disposition must always come to expression in the final result, even
if it should remain within normal limits. Of course, we can also imagine
certain variations of the original disposition that even without further
aid must necessarily lead to the formation of an abnormal sexual life.
One can call these "degenerative" and consider them as an expression of
hereditary deterioration. In this connection I have to report a
remarkable fact. In more than half of the severe cases of hysteria,
compulsion neuroses, etc., which I have treated by psychotherapy, I have
succeeded in positively demonstrating that their fathers have gone
through an attack of syphilis before marriage; they have either suffered
from tabes or general paresis, or there was a definite history of lues.
I expressly add that the children who were later neurotic showed
absolutely no signs of hereditary lues, so that the abnormal sexual
constitution was to be considered as the last off-shoot of the luetic
heredity. As far as it is now from my thoughts to put down a descent
from syphilitic parents as a regular and indispensable etiological
determination of the neuropathic constitution, I nevertheless maintain
that the coincidence observed by me is not accidental and not without
significance.
The hereditary relations of the positive perverts are not so well known
because they know how to avoid inquiry. Still there is reason to believe
that the same holds true in the perversions as in the neuroses. We often
find perversions and psychoneuroses in the different sexes of the same
family, so distributed that the male members, or one of them, is a
positive pervert, while the females, following the repressive tendencies
of their sex, are negative perverts or hysterics. This is a good example
of the substantial relations between the two disturbances which I have
discovered.
*Further Elaboration.*--It cannot, however, be maintained that the
structure of the sexual life is rendered finally complete by the
addition of the diverse components of the sexual constitution. On the
contrary, qualifications continue to appear and new possibilities
result, depending upon the fate experienced by the sexual streams
originating from the individual sources. This _further elaboration_ is
evidently the final and decisive one while the constitution described as
uniform may lead to three final issues. If all the dispositions assumed
to be abnormal retain their relative proportion, and are strengthened
with maturity, the ultimate result can only be a perverse sexual life.
The analysis of such abnormally constituted dispositions has not yet
been thoroughly undertaken, but we already know cases that can be
readily explained in the light of these theories. Authors believe, for
example, that a whole series of fixation perversions must necessarily
have had as their basis a congenital weakness of the sexual impulse. The
statement seems to me untenable in this form, but it becomes ingenious
if it refers to a constitutional weakness of one factor in the sexual
impulse, namely, the genital zone, which later in the interests of
propagation accepts as a function the sum of the individual sexual
activities. In this case the summation which is demanded in puberty must
fail and the strongest of the other sexual components continues its
activity as a perversion.[13]
*Repression.*--Another issue results if in the course of development
certain powerful components experience a _repression_--which we must
carefully note is not a suspension. The excitations in question are
produced as usual but are prevented from attaining their aim by psychic
hindrances, and are driven off into many other paths until they express
themselves in a symptom. The result can be an almost normal sexual
life--usually a limited one--but supplemented by psychoneurotic disease.
It is these cases that become so familiar to us through the
psychoanalytic investigation of neurotics. The sexual life of such
persons begins like that of perverts, a considerable part of their
childhood is filled up with perverse sexual activity which occasionally
extends far beyond the period of maturity, but owing to inner reasons a
repressive change then results--usually before puberty, but now and then
even much later--and from this point on without any extinction of the
old feelings there appears a neurosis instead of a perversion. One may
recall here the saying, "Junge Hure, alte Betschwester,"--only here
youth has turned out to be much too short. The relieving of the
perversion by the neurosis in the life of the same person, as well as
the above mentioned distribution of perversion and hysteria in different
persons of the same family, must be placed side by side with the fact
that the neurosis is the negative of the perversion.
*Sublimation.*--The third issue in abnormal constitutional dispositions
is made possible by the process of "sublimation," through which the
powerful excitations from individual sources of sexuality are discharged
and utilized in other spheres, so that a considerable increase of
psychic capacity results from an, in itself dangerous, predisposition.
This forms one the sources of artistic activity, and, according as such
sublimation is complete or incomplete, the analysis of the character of
highly gifted, especially of artistically disposed persons, will show
any proportionate, blending between productive ability, perversion, and
neurosis. A sub-species of sublimation is the suppression through
_reaction-formation_, which, as we have found, begins even in the
latency period of infancy, only to continue throughout life in
favorable cases. What we call the _character_ of a person is built up to
a great extent from the material of sexual excitations; it is composed
of impulses fixed since infancy and won through sublimation, and of such
constructions as are destined to suppress effectually those perverse
feelings which are recognized as useless. The general perverse sexual
disposition of childhood can therefore be esteemed as a source of a
number of our virtues, insofar as it incites their creation through the
formation of reactions.[14]
*Accidental Experiences.*--All other influences lose in significance
when compared with the sexual discharges, shifts of repressions, and
sublimations; the inner determinations for the last two processes are
totally unknown to us. He who includes repressions and sublimations
among constitutional predispositions, and considers them as the living
manifestations of the same, has surely the right to maintain that the
final structure of the sexual life is above all the result of the
congenital constitution. No intelligent person, however, will dispute
that in such a coöperation of factors there is also room for the
modifying influences of occasional factors derived from experience in
childhood and later on.
It is not easy to estimate the effectiveness of the constitutional and
of the occasional factors in their relation to each other. Theory is
always inclined to overestimate the first while therapeutic practice
renders prominent the significance of the latter. By no means should it
be forgotten that between the two there exists a relation of coöperation
and not of exclusion. The constitutional factor must wait for
experiences which bring it to the surface, while the occasional needs
the support of the constitutional factor in order to become effective.
For the majority of cases one can imagine a so-called "etiological
group" in which the declining intensities of one factor become balanced
by the rise in the others, but there is no reason to deny the existence
of extremes at the ends of the group.
It would be still more in harmony with psychoanalytic investigation if
the experiences of early childhood would get a place of preference among
the occasional factors. The one etiological group then becomes split up
into two which may be designated as the dispositional and the definitive
groups. Constitution and occasional infantile experiences are just as
coöperative in the first as disposition and later traumatic experiences
in the second group. All the factors which injure the sexual development
show their effect in that they produce a _regression_, or a return to a
former phase of development.
We may now continue with our task of enumerating the factors which have
become known to us as influential for the sexual development, whether
they be active forces or merely manifestations of the same.
*Prematurity.*--Such a factor is the spontaneous sexual _prematurity_
which can be definitely demonstrated at least in the etiology of the
neuroses, though in itself it is as little adequate for causation as the
other factors. It manifests itself in a breaking through, shortening, or
suspending of the infantile latency period and becomes a cause of
disturbances inasmuch as it provokes sexual manifestations which, either
on account of the unready state of the sexual inhibitions or because of
the undeveloped state of the genital system, can only carry along the
character of perversions. These tendencies to perversion may either
remain as such, or after the repression sets in they may become motive
powers for neurotic symptoms; at all events, the sexual prematurity
renders difficult the desirable later control of the sexual impulse by
the higher psychic influences, and enhances the compulsive-like
character which even without this prematurity would be claimed by the
psychic representatives of the impulse. Sexual prematurity often runs
parallel with premature intellectual development; it is found as such in
the infantile history of the most distinguished and most productive
individuals, and in such connection it does not seem to act as
pathogenically as when appearing isolated.
*Temporal Factors.*--Just like prematurity, other factors, which under
the designation of _temporal_ can be added to prematurity, also demand
consideration. It seems to be phylogenetically established in what
sequence the individual impulsive feelings become active, and how long
they can manifest themselves before they succumb to the influence of a
newly appearing active impulse or to a typical repression. But both in
this temporal succession as well as in the duration of the same,
variations seem to occur, which must exercise a definite influence on
the experience. It cannot be a matter of indifference whether a certain
stream appears earlier or later than its counterstream, for the effect
of a repression cannot be made retrogressive; a temporal deviation in
the composition of the components regularly produces a change in the
result. On the other hand impulsive feelings which appear with special
intensity often come to a surprisingly rapid end, as in the case of the
heterosexual attachment of the later manifest homosexuals. The strivings
of childhood which manifest themselves most impetuously do not justify
the fear that they will lastingly dominate the character of the
grown-up; one has as much right to expect that they will disappear in
order to make room for their counterparts. (Harsh masters do not rule
long.) To what one may attribute such temporal confusions of the
processes of development we are hardly able to suggest. A view is opened
here to a deeper phalanx of biological, and perhaps also historical
problems, which we have not yet approached within fighting distance.
*Adhesion.*--The significance of all premature sexual manifestations is
enhanced by a psychic factor of unknown origin which at present can be
put down only as a psychological preliminary. I believe that it is the
_heightened adhesion_ or _fixedness_ of these impressions of the sexual
life which in later neurotics, as well as in perverts, must be added for
the completion of the other facts; for the same premature sexual
manifestations in other persons cannot impress themselves deeply enough
to repeat themselves compulsively and to succeed in prescribing the way
for the sexual impulse throughout later life. Perhaps a part of the
explanation for this adhesion lies in another psychic factor which we
cannot miss in the causation of the neuroses, namely, in the
preponderance which in the psychic life falls to the share of memory
traces as compared with recent impressions. This factor is apparently
dependent on the intellectual development and grows with the growth of
personal culture. In contrast to this the savage has been characterized
as "the unfortunate child of the moment."[15] Owing to the oppositional
relation existing between culture and the free development of sexuality,
the results of which may be traced far into the formation of our life,
the problem how the sexual life of the child evolves is of very little
importance for the later life in the lower stages of culture and
civilization, and of very great importance in the higher.
*Fixation.*--The influence of the psychic factors just mentioned favored
the development of the accidentally experienced impulses of the
infantile sexuality. The latter (especially in the form of seductions
through other children or through adults) produce the material which,
with the help of the former, may become fixed as a permanent
disturbance. A considerable number of the deviations from the normal
sexual life observed later have been thus established in neurotics and
perverts from the beginning through the impressions received during the
alleged sexually free period of childhood. The causation is produced by
the responsiveness of the constitution, the prematurity, the quality of
heightened adhesion, and the accidental excitement of the sexual impulse
through outside influence.
The unsatisfactory conclusions which have resulted from this
investigation of the disturbances of the sexual life is due to the fact
that we as yet know too little concerning the biological processes in
which the nature of sexuality consists to form from our isolated
examinations a satisfactory theory for the explanation of either the
normal or the pathological.
[1] The differences will be emphasized in the schematic representation
given in the text. To what extent the infantile sexuality approaches the
definitive sexual organization through its object selection has been
discussed before (p. 60).
[2] See my work, Wit and its Relation to the Unconscious, translated by
A.A. Brill, Moffat Yard Pub. Co., New York: "The fore-pleasure gained by
the technique of wit is utilized for the purpose of setting free a
greater pleasure by the removal of inner inhibitions."
[3] Cf. Zur Einführung des Narzismus, Jahrbuch der Psychoanalyse, VI,
1913.
[4] It is necessary to make clear that the conceptions "masculine" and
"feminine," whose content seems so unequivocal to the ordinary meaning,
belong to the most confused terms in science and can be cut up into at
least three paths. One uses masculine and feminine at times in the sense
of activity and passivity, again, in the biological sense, and then also
in the sociological sense. The first of these three meanings is the
essential one and the only one utilizable in psychoanalysis. It agrees
with the masculine designation of the libido in the text above, for the
libido is always active even when it is directed to a passive aim. The
second, the biological significance of masculine and feminine, is the
one which permits the clearest determination. Masculine and feminine are
here characterized by the presence of semen or ovum and through the
functions emanating from them. The activity and its secondary
manifestations, like stronger developed muscles, aggression, a greater
intensity of libido, are as a rule soldered to the biological
masculinity but not necessarily connected with it, for there are species
of animals in whom these qualities are attributed to the female. The
third, the sociological meaning, receives its content through the
observation of the actual existing male and female individuals. The
result of this in man is that there is no pure masculinity or feminity
either in the biological or psychological sense. On the contrary every
individual person shows a mixture of his own biological sex
characteristics with the biological traits of the other sex and a union
of activity and passivity; this is the case whether these psychological
characteristic features depend on the biological or whether they are
independent of it.
[5] Psychoanalysis teaches that there are two paths of object-finding;
the first is the one discussed in the text which is guided by the early
infantile prototypes. The second is the narcissistic which seeks its own
ego and finds it in the other. The latter is of particularly great
significance for the pathological outcomes, but does not fit into the
connection treated here.
[6] Those to whom this conception appears "wicked" may read Havelock
Ellis's treatise on the relations between mother and child which
expresses almost the same ideas (The Sexual Impulse, p. 16).
[7] For the explanation of the origin of the infantile fear I am
indebted to a three-year-old boy whom I once heard calling from a dark
room: "Aunt, talk to me, I am afraid because it is dark." "How will that
help you," answered the aunt; "you cannot see anyhow." "That's nothing,"
answered the child; "if some one talks then it becomes light."--He was,
as we see, not afraid of the darkness but he was afraid because he
missed the person he loved, and he could promise to calm down as soon as
he was assured of her presence.
[8] Cf. here what was said on page 83 concerning the object selection of
the child; the "tender stream."
[9] The incest barrier probably belongs to the historical acquisitions
of humanity and like other moral taboos it must be fixed in many
individuals through organic heredity. (Cf. my work, Totem and Taboo,
1913.) Psychoanalytic studies show, however, how intensively the
individual struggles with the incest temptations during his development
and how frequently he puts them into phantasies and even into reality.
[10] Compare the description concerning the inevitable relation in the
Oedipus legend (The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 222, translated by A.A.
Brill, The Macmillan Co., New York, and Allen & Unwin, London).
[11] Innumerable peculiarities of the human love-life as well as the
compulsiveness of being in love itself can surely only be understood
through a reference to childhood or as an effective remnant of the same.
[12] This was true not only of the "negative" tendencies to perversion
appearing in the neurosis, but also of the so-called positive
perversions. The latter are not only to be attributed to the fixation of
the infantile tendencies, but also to regression to these tendencies
owing to the misplacement of other paths of the sexual stream. Hence the
positive perversions are also accessible to psychoanalytic therapy. (Cf.
the works of Sadger, Ferenczi, and Brill.)
[13] Here one often sees that at first a normal sexual stream begins at
the age of puberty, but owing to its inner weakness it breaks down at
the first outer hindrance and then changes from regression, to perverse
fixation.
[14] That keen observer of human nature, E. Zola, describes a girl in
his book, La Joie de vivre, who in cheerful self renunciation offers all
she has in possession or expectation, her fortune and her life's hopes
to those she loves without thought of return. The childhood of this girl
was dominated by an insatiable desire for love which whenever she was
depreciated caused her to merge into a fit of cruelty.
[15] It is possible that the heightened adhesion is only the result of a
special intensive somatic sexual manifestation of former years.
INDEX
Aberrations (see Perversions)
a fragment of inhibited development, 89
Sexual, 1, 13, 14
shown by the psychoneurotic, 29
with animals, 13
Absolute Inversion (sexual object of the same sex), 2
Activity and Passivity in sexual aim in exhibitionism, 21
of Sadism and Masochism, 23
precursors and masculine and feminine, 59
Activity, Muscular, 63
Adhesion, heightened, or fixedness of impressions of sexual life, 99
may be only result of a special intensive somatic sexual manifestation of former years, 99
Affective Processes, 64
pathogenic action of, 64
value of unconscious thought formation, 27
Aggression, Sadism and Masochism not attributable to mixture of, 24
taint of, shown by sexuality of most men, 22
Agoraphobia and neurotic disturbances of walking, 64, note 22
Aims of impulses distinguish them from one another, 31
Algolagnia, 22
Alkaloids, introduction of, analogous in neuroses and phenomena of intoxication and abstinence, 76
Ambivalence, 59
Amnesia, Infantile, 37
connected with infantile sexual activity, 51
and hysterical compared, 39
Amphigenous inversion, 2
Anal Erotic, 10, note 11
Zone, activity of, 47
erogenous significance of, 48
masturbatic irritation of, 49
Androgyny, 8
Anesthesia, causes of, are partly psychic, 81
continuance of, caused by retention of clitoris excitability, 81
of newly married women, 80
of wives due to parent complex, 85
of women often only apparent and local, 81
of women only at vaginal entrance, 81
Animals as sexual objects, 13
Anus (see also Anal)
as aim of inverts, 12; 17
especially frequent example of transgression, 29
part played by erogenous zone in, 32
Anxiety on railroads, 63
Archaic constitution, 10, note 11
Arduin, Dr., 9, note 11
Attractions connected with pleasure, 70
Autoerotism, the gratification of sexual impulse on own body, 43
separation of, from object love, not temporal, 55, note 19
essential, of infantile sexuality, 58
of erogenous zones, same in boy and girl, 79
regular, of sexual impulse, 81
Baths, warm, therapeutic effects of, 62
Bayer, 40, note 6
Beautiful, concept of, 21
a quality of excitation, 70
Bell, S., 37,
note 2; 55,
note 19
Binet; 19; 34
Birth theories, 57
Bisexuality, Relation of, 7
as explanation of inversion, 9, note 11
Sadism and Masochism, 24
necessary to understanding of sexual in man and woman, 80
Bladder, disturbances of childhood sexual in nature, 51
Bleuler, 37, note 2; 60
Bloch, I., 1, note 1; 5; 16
Breast, rubbing of, 43
woman's, as erogenous zone, 71
Cadavers, 25
Cannibalistic pregenital phase, 59
Castration complex, 22; 56
of males does not always injure sexual libido, 75
Catarrh, intestinal, produces irritations in anal zone, 48
Cathartic treatment, 26
Character built up from the material of sexual excitations, 96
composed of impulses fixed since infancy and won through sublimation, 96
of individual determined by infantile sexual activity, 50
Chemical theories of sexual excitement, 76
Chevalier, 7; 9, note 11
Childish, see Infantile
Children and neurotics compared, 38
as sexual objects, 13
cruelty especially characteristic of, 30
educability of, impaired by premature sexual activity, 91
impressionability of, 38
in school, behavior of and germinating sexuality, 64
sexual life of, 40
Clitoris, chief erogenous zone in female child, 80
erection of, in little girls, 80
excitability retained causes continuance of anesthesia, 81
excitation, destinies of, 80
conducts excitement to adjacent female parts, 80
transfer of, to other parts, takes time, 80
sexuality is a part of male sexual life, 80
sexuality repressed in girl at puberty, 80
Coitus, 36
Colin, 23
Complex, castration, 22; 56
Oedipus, 85
parent, 15, note 14
strongest in girls, 85
Compulsion emanating from unconscious psychic material, 51
inversion is perceived as a morbid, 3
neurosis, 32
psychoanalysis enlightens ego libido, 77
from fixation on erogenous zones in infancy, 77
Congeniality in inversions, 4
of perversions in all persons, 34
Conscience, 22
Constitutional factor, relation of, to occasional 96
Contrary Sexuals, 2
Conversion, 27
Coprophilic smell desire, 20, note 19
Copulation, 14
Courting, 22
Craving, best English word for libido, 1, note 2
Cruelty and sexual impulse most intimately connected, 23
as component of infantile sexual life regarding others as sexual objects, 53
especially near the childish character, 54
partial desires as carriers of impulses of, 30
Culture and sex, 41
Dangers of fore-pleasure, 72
Degeneration, nervous, 4
high ethical culture in, 5
Dementia præcox, 26
Desire, coprophilic smell, 20, note 19
for knowledge, 55
immense sexual, in hysteria, 28
partial, 29
Dessoir, 87
Donation, idea of, 48; 49
Drinking, desire for, in former thumbsuckers, 44
Ear lobe pulling, 42
Eating, sexuality of, 66
Ego-Libido (see Libido)
Ellis, H., 1, note 1; 6; 8; 23; 43; 52, note 18
End Pleasure (see Gratification, Orgasm, Pleasure)
new to age after puberty, 72
Enuresis nocturna corresponds to a pollution, 51
Erection of clitoris in little girls, 80
of penis, a somatic sign of sexual excitation, 69
Erogenous action of pain, 65
functions, disturbance of, in lip zone, 66
significance of anal zone, 48
zones, partial impulses and, 31
significance of in psychoneuroses, 32
preponderance of special, in psychoneuroses, 34
source of sexual feelings of infantile years, 41
lips as, 44
characters of, 45
predestined, 46
show same characters as hysterogenous, 46
any part of body may become, 46, note 12
significance of anal zone, 48
premature activity in, indicated by cruelty, 54
parts of skin called, 65
one of three ways of stimulation of sexual apparatus, 69
their manner of adjustment to new order, 70
rôle of, in preparing sexual excitation, 70
increase tension, 71
make possible the gratification pleasure, 72
contribute unusual pleasure in infantile life, 72
connected anatomically with centers producing tension, 74
autoerotism of, same in boy and girl, 79
chief, in female child is the clitoris, 80
changed from clitoris to vagina, mark of womanhood, 81
change of leading, determines woman's preference for neuroses, 81
gratified by intercourse between child and foster parents, 82
Etiological group, 97
composed of dispositional and definitive groups, 97
Eulenberg, 1, note 1
Excitement enhanced by preliminary activities, 14
hunger, 16
influences, three kinds of, 62
sexual, nature of, entirely unfamiliar, 66
prepared by erogenous zones, 70
result of any of three kinds of stimuli, 69
Exhibitionism (see Looking, Peeping, Voyeur)
as a perversion, 21
partial desires as carriers of, 30
the eye as erogenous zone in, 32
as component of infantile sexual life, 53
Eye as erogenous zone, 32; 70
Faith, 15
Father, sexual intimidation experienced through, averts inversion, 88
Fear, infantile, 83
only expresses child's missing beloved person, 83
influence of, sexually exciting, 64
of being alone alike in child and neurotic, 84
of dark, infantile, 83
of grown up neurotic like that of children, 84
only children with excessive sexual impulse disposed to, 83
sought as sexual excitement, 64
Feces, licking of, 25
retention of, a source of pleasure, 48
a cause of constipation, 49
Feelings, perverted, 34
Female (see Masculine and Feminine)
Female child, entirely made character of in autoerotism and masturbation, 79
Féré, 23
Ferenczi, 15, note 14
Fetichism, 18
Binet's findings in, 34
nothing in unconscious streams of thought inclining to, 30
of foot, 20, note 19
Fixation, 99
of impulses accidentally experienced, 99
Fliess, W., 10, note 11; 29, note 26; 41, note 7
Foot, as unfit substitute for sexual object, 18
fetichism of, 20, note 19
Fore-Pleasure, connection of, with infantile life strengthened by pathogenic rôle, 72
dangers of, 72
is that of excitation of erogenous zones, 72
mechanism contains danger to attainment of normal sexual aim, 72
primacy of genital zones and the, 69
same as that furnished by infantile sexual impulse, 72
too much endangers attainment of normal sexual aim, 72
Fur, 19
Fusions, 26
activity of, 49
Genital zone, primacy of, 69
external, in woman, so important for later sexual functions, 80
overestimation of internal, 75
gratification of, 52
Genitals, erogenous zones behave like real, in hysteria, 32
looking only at, becomes a perversion, 21
male, in all persons, the infantile sexual theory, 56
mouth and anus playing rôle of, 29
opening of female, unknown to children, 58
primacy of, intended by nature, 50
rubbed by children while pleasure sucking, 43
sexual impulse of reawakens, 50
touching of, caused by strong excitements in children, 64
Gley, E., 9, note 11
Globus, hysterical, in former thumbsuckers, 45
Gratification pleasure of orgasm, 71
sexual, 3; 14
picture of, in suckling, 44
relation of, to sexual excitement not explained, 91
the best hypnotic, 43
Groos, K., 37, note 2
Hair, 18
Halban, 8
Hall, G.S., 37, note 2
Hemorrhoids and neurotic states, 48
Heredity, 36
Herman, G., 10, note 11
Hermaphrodites, psychosexual, 2; 7
anatomical, 7
Hetero-sexual feelings, 3, note 5; 29, note 26
intercourse, dangers of, fix inversions, 6
Hirschfeld, M., 1, note 1; 9, note 11
Hoche, 16
Homosexual, 2
among Greeks, 11
favored by bringing up of boys by men, 88
inclination resulting in inversion, 6
in men, 11
in women, 12
object selection accomplished by all men in the unconscious, 10, note 11
Hug-Hellmuth, Mrs. Dr. H., 37, note 2
Hunger and sex compared, 1
excitement, 16
Hypnosis (suggestion), 3, note 4
obedience in, shows nature of, to be fixation on hypnotizer, 15, note 14
removes inversion, 6
Hysteria, immense sexual desire in, 28
male, explained by propensity to inversion, 29
many cases of have syphilitic fathers, 93
preference for, in women determined by change of leading erogenous zone, 81
determined by repression of puberty, 81
psychoanalysis in, 26
of, enlightens the ego-libido, 77
removes symptoms of, 27
seduction as frequent cause of, 52
some cases of, conditioned by disappearance of one parent, 88
symptomatology of, tendency to displacement in, 46
Hysterical globus, 45
vomiting, 44; 45
Hysterogenous zones show same characteristics as erogenous, 46
Ideal of sexual life, the union of all desires in one object, 61
Identification as development out of oral pregenital sexual organization, 59
Immature as sexual objects, 13
Impotence, 20
Impulse development, 9
partial, 31
independent of each other, strive for pleasure, 58
sexual, 1
acquired, 5
to mastery, foreshadowed in boys' masturbation, 50
Incest barriers, 84
object selection significant in psychosexual disturbances, 86
phantasies rejected, 85
temptations, struggle of the individual with, 85, note 9
Infantile amnesia, 37
and infantile sexual activity, 51
attraction for parents, etc., repressed in puberty, 86
desire for parents, 87
factor for sexuality, 39
fear, 83; 84, note 7
fixation of libido, 86
in sexuality, 34
conserved by neurotics, 35
masturbation, 51
neglect of the, 36
object selection, after effects of, 86
onanism almost universal, 50
relations to parents, produces serious results to sexual life, 87
cause of jealousy of lover, 87
wet nurse, 82
reminiscences in neurotics, 40
sexual activity, 50
aim, 45; 46
excitement generously provided for, 65
impulse same as adult fore-pleasure, 72
investigation, failure of, 57
sexuality, 36
manifestations of, 42
determines normal, 73
source of, 61
sexual life, 53
Influences, opposite, paths of, 66
Inhibitions (see Shame, Loathing, Sympathy) 26, note 23
sexual, 40
develop earlier in girl, 78
study of, 58
Innateness, 5
Inner organic world, one of three stimulants of sexual apparatus, 69
Inquisitiveness, 55
of children attracted to sexual problems, 56
Intentions, Appearance of New, 20
Intellectual work, 65
Intensity of stimulus, a factor in sexual excitement, 65
Intestinal catarrh in neurosis, 48
Inversion, amphigenous, 2
influence of climate and race on, 5
conception of, 4
congeniality of, 4
corresponds to sexual inclinations of many persons, 88
effect of father on, 11, note 11
explanation of, 6; 10, note 11
extreme cases of, 3
feelings of, in all neurotics, 29
frequent in ancient times, 5
permanent, made possible by a disappearance of one parent, 88
prevention of, 87
time of, 3
Inverts, behavior of, 2; 3
psychic manliness in, 8
sexual object of, 10
aim of, 12
Investigation, infantile sexual, 55
conducted alone, 58
is first step at independent orientation, 58
causes estrangement from persons, 58
Itching, feeling of, projected into peripheral erogenous zone, 47
Kiernan, 7
Kinderfehler, Die (periodical), 37, note 2
Kissing (see Mouth, Oral)
as perversion, 15
habitual, in former thumbsuckers, 44
in female inverts, 12
Knowledge, desire for, coöperates with energy of desire for looking, 56
not wholly sexual, 55
relations to sexual life of particular importance to, 56
Krafft-Ebing, 1, note 1; 9, and note 11; 22; 23
weakness of his description of sexual process, 75
Latency Period, Sexual in Childhood, 39; 40
interruptions of, 41
Leading Zone in man and woman, 80
in female child is the clitoris, 80
Libido as term for sexual feeling corresponding to hunger, 1
of inverts, 3
direction of, determined by experience in early childhood, 6
attachment of, to persons of same sex, 10, note 11
fixation of, on hypnotizer, 15, note 14
amount of directed to artistic aim, 21
aggressive factor of, in sadism, 23
strivings of, transformed into symptoms, 28
fixation of, on persons of same sex, 29
union of cruelty with, in neurotics and paranoiacs, 30
of psychoneurotics unable to obtain normal sexual gratification, 33
of children in corporal punishment, 55
tension of, dies away at orgasm, 71
sometimes escapes injury in castration, 75
Theory of, 77
a force of variable quantity capable of measuring sexual processes, 77
a concept auxiliary to chemical theory, 77
energy has a qualitative character, 77
has special chemism different from nutritional processes, 77
quantum psychically represented by ego-libido, 77
production, increase, distribution and displacement of the Ego-, explains psychosexual phenomena, 77
accessibility of the Ego- to psychoanalysis, 77
the Ego- becomes Object-Libido, 77
fate of the Object- is to be withdrawn from the object, 77
is to be preserved floating in special states of tension, 77
is to be finally taken back into the Ego, 77
The Ego- is called the narcissistic Libido, 78
greater significance of, in psychotic disturbances, 78
is regularly of a masculine character in man and woman, 79
the object of may be either man or woman, 79
of child, when ungratified is changed into fear, 84
suppressed, of love of child to parents, 84
infantile fixation of, causes sexual love for parents, 86
girls conceal, under affection for family, 86
return of, to persons preferred in infancy, 86
incestuous fixation of, not completely escaped, 86
Lindner, 42; 43
Lingering at intermediary relations, 15; 20
at preparatory act of sexual process is mechanism of many perversions, 73
Lip as erogenous zone, 44
sexual utilization of mucous membrane of, 16
sucking of, 42
zone is responsible for sexual gratification during eating, 66
Loathing, feeling of, protects individual from improper sexual aims, 16; 17
overcoming of, at sight of excretion, produces voyeurs, 21
and Shame in Masochism, 23
in Inversions, 25
as psychic force inhibiting sexual life, 40
Looking (see Peeping, Voyeurs)
as addition to normal sexual process, 14
Lingering at Touching and, 20
as a perversion, 21
and exhibition mania, the eye an erogenous zone in, 32
as component of infantile sexual life with others as object, 53
Love, omnipotence of, 25
and hate, 30
temporary renouncement of, in child, 83
smaller amount of, than mother love to satisfy individual in later life, 83
non-sexual and sexual, for parents, nourished from same source, 86
sexual, corresponds to an infantile fixation of the Libido, 86
-life, peculiarities of, understood only through childhood, 87, note 11
Löwenfeld, 1, note 1
Lydston, F., 7
Magnan's classification, 4
Man (see Bisexuality, Masculine and Feminine)
sexual development of, more consistent and easier to understand, 68
differentiation between, and woman, 78
Masculine and feminine, 79
as activity and passivity, 79, note 4
biological significance of, permits clearest determination, 79 note 4
in sociological sense, 79, note 4
no pure, in either biological or sociological sense, 79, note 4
Masochism, in relation between hypnotized and hypnotist, 15, note 14
and Sadism, 21
originates through transformation from Sadism, 22
and Sadism occupy special place among perversions, 23
reinforced by Sadism in exhibitionism, 30
source of, in painful irritation of gluteal region, 55
-Sadism impulse rooted in erogenous action of pain, 65
Mastery, impulse to, foreshadowed in boys' masturbation, 50
source of cruelty in children, 54
supplies activity, 59
Masturbatic sexual manifestations, 47
excitation of anal zone, 49
irritation of anal zone, 49
sexual manifestations have same male character in boy and girl, 79
Masturbation frequently the exclusive aim in inversion, 12
in small children, 36
thumb-sucking and, 43
infantile, has three phases, 50
return of, 51
in little girls concerns clitoris only, 80
Mechanical excitation, 62
Memory traces preponderate over recent impressions in causation of neuroses, 99
Moebius, 1, note 1; 4, note 6; 34
Moll, 1, note 1; 32; 37, note 1
Morality as a psychic dam, 41
Mother, fixation on, in inverts, 11, note 12
image helps males avert inversions, 88
image helps females avert inversions, 88
Motion, pleasure of, sexual in nature, 64, note 22
Mouth (see Lip, Oral)
Sexual Utilization of Mucous Membrane of Lips and, 16
as a frequent example of transgression, 29
as an erogenous zone, 31
Muscular activity, pleasure from, 63
Narcissism in object selection, 10, note 11
as identification with mother, 12, note 12
Narcissistic Libido a name for Ego-Libido, 78
a reservoir of energy for investment of object, 78
investment of ego a realized primitive state, 78
Nausea on railroads, 63
Neurosis and perversion, 28
the negative of a perversion, 29; 89
intestinal catarrh in, 48
symptomatology of, traced to disturbance of sexual processes, 67
a factor in the causation of, is preponderance of memory traces, 99
Neurotics and children compared, 38
infantile reminiscences in, 40
scatologic customs of, 49
diseases, disposition for, awakened by over tender parents, 83
have nearer ways than tenderness to transfer their disturbances to their children, 38
fixedness of impressions of sexual life in, 99
Nursing Period, Sexual Object of, 82
Object finding, 81
is consummated on psychic side at anatomical puberty, 81
is really a re-finding (of the mother), 82
two paths of, shown by psychoanalysis, 82, note 5
selection must avoid beloved person of infancy, 84
first accomplished in imagination, 85
incestuous, significant in psychosexual disturbances, 86
after effects of infantile, 86
follows prototypes of parents, 86
Obsessions explained only through psychoanalysis, 26
Occasional inversion, 2
Oedipus Complex, 85
Onanism (see Masturbation)
mutual, not producing inversion, 6
infantile, almost universal, 50
unusual techniques in, show prohibition overcome, 50, note 15
infantile, disappears soon, 50
connected by conscience-stricken neurotics with their neurosis, 51, note 16
gratification in infantile masturbation, 51
early active, as determinant of pollution-like process, 51
Opposite Influences, Paths of, 66
Oral (see Lip, Mouth)
pregenital sexual organization, 59
Organizations, Pregenital, 54; 58
Orgasm, thumb-sucking leading to, 43
Overestimation of the Sexual Object, 15
Overwork, nervous disturbances of mental, caused by simultaneous sexual excitement, 65
Pain ranks with loathing and shame, 23
Pain sought by many persons, 64
toned down has erogenous action, 65
a factor in sexual excitement, 65
Paranoia, knowledge of sexual impulse in, gained only through psychoanalysis, 26
delusional fears in, based on perversions, 29, note 25
union of cruelty with libido in, 30
significance of erogenous zones in, 32
Parent complex, 15, note 14
strongest in girls, 85
result of boundless tenderness of parents, 83
Partial desires, 29
impulses and erogenous zones, 31; 34; 53; 59
show passive form in girls, 79
Passivity (see Activity)
sexual aim present in exhibitionism in active and passive form, 21
active and passive forms of Sadism-Masochism, 23
Pedicatio, 17
Peeping (see Exhibitionism, Looking, Voyeurs)
as perversion, 21
force opposed to, is shame, 21
mania, partial desires as carriers of, 30
as strongest motive power for formation of neurotic symptoms, 54
Penis, envy of in girls, 37
erection of, the somatic sign of sexual excitation, 69
Pérez, 37, note 2
Perversions, as additions to normal sexual processes, 14
brought into relation with normal sexual life, 15
mouth as sexual organ in, 16
Sadism-Masochism the most significant of, 22
general statements applicable to, 24
exclusiveness and fixation of, 25
psychic participation in, 25
and neurosis, 28; 29
fetichisms as, 30
positive, 31
preponderance of sexual, in psychoneuroses, 32
sexual impulse of psychoneurotics possesses unusual tendency to, 33
relation of predisposition to, and morbid picture, 34
formation of, 52
of prostitutes, 53
part played in, by castration complex, 22
mechanism of many, represents a lingering at a preparatory act, 73
the neuroses the negative of the, 89
disposition to, universal, 89
as inhibitions and dissociations from normal development, 89
negative appearing in neurosis, 89, note 12
positive and negative in the same family, 94
resulting from the strongest of other sexual components, 94
of childhood as source of some virtues, 96
Phantasies the only escape of the maturing youth, 85
of the individual in struggle with incest temptation, 85, note 9
of all persons contain infantile inclinations, 85
distinctly incestuous, rejected, 85
Pleasure sucking, 42; 43
relation of feeling of, to unpleasant tension, 70
relations of, the weakest spot in present day psychology, 70
the last, of sexual acts differs earlier pleasures, 71
produced through discharge, 71
is altogether gratification pleasure, 71
nature of, more deeply entered into in the study of wit, 72
Pollution, process similar to, in infancy, 51
caused by strong excitements in children, 64
nocturnal, due to accumulation of semen, 74
Polymorphous-perverse disposition, 52
Precursory Sexual Aims, 20
Predisposition, bisexual, 9
Pregenital organization as phase of sexual life, 54; 58
phase of organization of sexual life, 59
sadistic-anal, 59
organizations, assumption of, based on analysis of neuroses, 60
Prematurity, spontaneous sexual, a factor influential for sexual development, 97
shown in breaking through, shortening or suspending of infantile latency period, 97
becomes cause of disturbances in provoking sexual manifestations having character of perversions, 97
sexual, runs parallel with intellectual prematurity, 98
Prevention of inversion, 87
Primacy of the Genitals, 50; 69
attained at puberty, 68
already sketched out in infantile life, 73
for propagation, the last phase of sexual organization, 60
Primitive Psychic Mechanisms, 10, note 11
Prostitute fitted for her activity by polymorphous-perverse disposition, 53
Psychic participation in perversions, 25
life one of three stimuli of sexual apparatus, 69
sign of sexual excitation a feeling of tension, 69
accomplishment of puberty is breaking away from parental authority, 85
Psychoanalysis, cures by, 3
of homosexuals, 10, note 11
reveals psychic mechanism of genesis of inversion, 11, note 12
Psychoanalysis, 26
shows early intimidation from normal sexual aims, 18, note 17
explains fetichism, 20, note 19
reduces bisexuality to activity and passivity, 24
reduces symptoms of hysteria, 27
unconscious phantasies revealed by, 29, note 25
of thumb-sucking, 43
of anal zone, 47
brings forgotten material to consciousness, 51
of infantile sexuality, 55, note 19
and inquisitiveness of children, 56
and pregenital organizations, 58
and tenderness of sexual life, 61
novelty of, 66
of transference psychoses, 77
gives at present definite information only about transformations of object-libido, 78
cannot distinguish ego-libido from other effective energies, 78
shows two paths of object finding, 82, note 5
shows individual struggle with incest temptations, 85, note 9
positive perversions accessible to therapy of, 90, note 12
Psychoneuroses based on sexual motive powers, 26
associated with manifest inversions, 29, note 26
traces of all perversions in, 30
significance of erogenous zones in, 32
preponderance of special erogenous zones in, 34
Psychoneurotics, sexual life of, explained only through psychoanalysis, 26
Sexual Activities of, 27
disease of, appears after puberty, 33
constitution of, tendency to inversions in, 34
sexuality of preserves infantile character, 39
Psychosexual hermaphrodites show indifference to which sex their object belongs, 2
not paralleled by other psychic qualities, 8
phenomena explained by nature of ego-libido, 77
development, disturbances of, show incestuous object selection, 86
Puberty not the time of the beginning of the sexual impulse, 1; 36
relation of, to inversion, 3
definite sexual behavior not determined till after, 10, note 11
Transformations of, 68
most striking process of, the growth of the genitals, 69
Railroad activities, sexual element in, 62
Reaction formation, 40
and sublimation two diverse processes, 41
feelings of, 41
formation begins in latency period, 95
Reading as source of sexual excitement through fear, 64
Regression appears in sex development of woman, 68
produced by factors injuring sexual development, 97
Repression of certain powerful components, 94
not a suspension, 95
result of, an almost normal sexual life, 95
Repression, inner determinations of, unknown, 96
effect of, cannot be made retrogressive, 98
a special process cutting off conscious discharge of wishes, 27
Repression of heterosexual feeling in psychoneurosis, 29, note 26
Sadism resulting from shows masochistic tendencies, 30
immense amount, in inverts, 33
congenital roots of sexual impulse undergo insufficient, 35
of impressions of childhood, 38
sexual, greater in girl, 79
new wave of, distinguishes puberty of girl, 80
determines psychic causes of anesthesia, 81
of puberty determines woman's preference for neuroses, 81
a new, required, abolishing a piece of infantile masculinity, 92
Resistances, shame, loathing, fear and pain as, 25
Rhythm in sucking analogous to tickling, 45
of mechanical shaking of the body produces sexual excitation, 62
Riddle of the Sphinx, 56
Rieger, C., 75
Rohleder, 47, note 13
Rousseau, J.J., 55
Sadger, J., 1
Sadism (see Masochism)
and Masochism, 21
occupy special place among perversions, 23
conception of, fluctuates, 22
attributable to bisexuality, 24
resulting from repression paralleled by Masochism, 30
attributed by children to sexual act, 57
prevalence of, 60
-Masochism impulse, rooted in erogenous action of pain, 65
Sadistic-anal pregenital sexual organization, 59
Sadistic impulse from muscular activity, 64
Scatologic customs of neurotics, 49
Schrenk-Notzing, 1, note 1
Scott, 23
Secondary sex characteristics, 8
Seduction does not necessarily produce inverts, 6
treating child as a sexual object, 51
as outer cause of return of sexual activity in childhood, 51
not necessary to awaken sexual life of child, 52
does not explain original relations of sexual impulse, 53
Semen, rôle of, unknown to children, 58
Sex characteristics, Secondary and Tertiary, 8
culture and, 41
Sexual Aberrations, 1
a transition of variations of sexual impulse to the pathological, 19
act, theories of children as to, 57
activities, of psychoneurotics, 27
premature, of children, impair educability, 91
activities, infantile leave profoundest impressions, 50
aim abandoned in childhood, 40
at puberty different in the two sexes, 68
Deviation in Reference to, 14
distinction between, and sexual object, 1
Fixation of Precursory, 20
in man the discharge of the sexual products, 68
of infantile impulse, 46
of infantile sexuality, 45
of Inverts, 12
perversion may be substituted for, by normal person, 24
should be restricted to union of genitals, 16
apparatus, weakness of, 18
constitutions, diverse, 66
variation of, 93
contrary, 2
development of man easier to understand, than woman's, 68
disturbances, paths of, a means of sublimation, 67
serviceable in health, 67
excitation of nursing period, 51
is one result of three ways of stimulation of the sexual apparatus, 69
excitement originates
(_a_) as imitation of a previous gratification, 61
(_b_) as a stimulation of erogenous zones, 61
(_c_) as the expression of some impulse, 61
sources of, tested by quality of stimulus, 65
inner sources of, 65
nature of, unfamiliar to us, 66
indirect source of, not equally strong in all persons, 66
influences availability of voluntary attention, 67
problem of, 73
normally ended only by discharge of semen, 74
independent of an accumulation of sexual substance, 75
furnished not only from so-called sexual parts, 77
intercourse between parents and child an inexhaustible source of, 82
gratification found by inverts in object of same sex, 3
impression, 5
Impulse, 1
acquired, 5
too close connection of, with object assumed, 12
entirely independent of its object, 13
most poorly controlled of all by higher psychic activities, 14
alone was extolled by the ancients, 14, note 13
Masochism in, causes unconscious fixation of libido on the hypnotist, 15, note 14
closely connected with cruelty, 23
the source of symptoms of neuroses, 27
perverse, converted expression of, 29
in psychoneuroses, 33
ignorance of essential features of, 36
becomes altruistic, 68
regularly becomes autoerotic, 81
not awakened, 82
of genitals reawakens, 50
primitive formation of, 42
inhibition, 40
inversion, 2
presupposes that sexual object is reverse of normal, 10
inverts, 1, note 1
investigation, infantile, 55
latency period, in childhood, 39
life of children, 40
shows components regarding others as sexual objects, 53
tender streams of, 61
normality of guaranteed by concurrence of two streams, 68
all disturbances of, as inhibitions of development, 69
development of, of children unimportant in lower stages of culture and important in higher, 99
love shown by children towards parents at an early date, 83
manifestations in childhood, exceptional, 39
the masturbatic, 47
object is the person from whom the sexual attraction emanates, 1
Deviation in Reference to the, 2
inaccessibility of, leads to occasional inversion, 3
of inverts, 10
male inverts look for real feminine psychic features in, 11
female active inverts look for femininity in, 12
the sexually immature and animals as, 13
emphasis placed by moderns on the, 14, note 13
lingering at intermediary relations to, one of the perversions, 15
object, overestimation of the, 15
unfit substitutes for, 18
selection in very young children, 55, note 19
found at puberty, 68
and aim concurrent in normal sexual life, 68
in mother's breast, 81
lost when infant forms general picture of person, 81
of nursing period, 82
organization, pregenital oral, 59
overestimation of, rises only when woman refuses, 80
process, motive power for, escapes in fore-pleasure, 72
rejection leaves in unconscious of neurotic the psychosexual activity for object finding, 86
satisfaction from muscular activity, 63
substance, rôle of, 74
symbolism of forms of motion, 63
tension loosened by copulation, 14
implies feeling of displeasure, 70
carries impulse to alter psychic situation, 70
appears even in infancy, 73
does not originate in pleasure, 74
and pleasure only indirectly connected, 74
a certain amount of, necessary for the excitability of the erogenous zones, 74
theories, infantile, are reproductions of child's sexual constitution, 57
Sexuality as the weak point of the otherwise normal, 14
infantilism of, 34
infantile factor in, 39
infantile, manifestations of, 42
sexual aim of infantile, 45
germinating, affecting children's behavior in school, 64
encroached upon by all intensive affective processes, 64
partial impulses of, 65
of eating, 66
ways between, and other functions traversible in both directions, 66
does not consist entirely in male germ glands, 75
of clitoris repressed in girl at puberty, 80
Sexuals, Contrary, 2
Shame is a force opposed to the peeping mania, 21
as a resistance opposed to the libido, 23, 25
as force acting as an inhibition on sexual life, 40
Shoe as a symbol of female genital, 19, note 18
Skin as erogenous zone, 32
as factor of sexual excitement, 65
Sleep caused by pleasure-sucking, 43
Smell desire, coprophilic, 20, note 19
Smoking, desire for in former thumb-suckers, 44
Sphinx, Riddle of, 56
Sports turn youth away from sexual activity, 64
Stimulus produced by isolated excitements coming from without, 31
outer, removing sensitiveness with gratification, 47
quality of, as criterion of sources of sexual excitement, 65
can set in motion complicated sexual apparatus, 69
affects the sexual apparatus in three ways, 69
Sublimation, artistic, 21
Reaction Formation and, 40
a deviation of sexual motive powers from sexual aims, 41
and reaction formation two diverse processes, 41, note 8
desire for knowledge corresponds to, 55
effected on paths by which sexual disturbances encroach upon other functions of the body, 67
makes possible a third issue in abnormal constitutional dispositions, 95
inner processes of, totally unknown, 96
Sucking, see Thumb-sucking,--
Symbolism of fetichism, 19, 20
sexual, of early childhood, 55, note 19
Symptomatology of neurotic determined by infantile sexual activity, 50
of pollution-like process, 51
of neuroses traced to disturbance of the sexual processes, 67
manifested in disturbances of other non-sexual bodily functions, 67
Symptoms, creators of, are unconscious forces, 89
of psychoneuroses are the sexual activities of the patient, 27
Syphilis in fathers of more than half the cases of hysteria, compulsion-neurosis, etc., treated by Freud, 93
Temperature sensitiveness, as result of distinct erogenous action, 62
Temporal Factors, 98
Tension, sexual, loosened by copulation, 14, 70
feeling of, 46
the psychic sign of sexual excitation, 69
unpleasant, relation of, to feeling of pleasure, 70
increase in changing to displeasure, 71
increased by functions of erogenous zones, 71
of libido dies away at orgasm, 71
too little, endangers attainment of sexual aim, 72
Tertiary sex characteristics, 8
Theatre as source of sexual excitement through fear, 64
Thumb-sucking as model of infantile sexual manifestations, 42
a sexual activity, 43
as remnant of oral phase of pregenital sexual organization, 59
Thyroid gland, rôle of, in sexuality, 76
Tickling analogous to rhythmic sucking, 45
demanding onanistic gratification, 51
Toe, sucking of, 42
Tongue, sucking of, 42
Touching as preliminary to sexual aim, 14
and looking, 20
hand as addition to attraction of sexual object, 70
Transference neuroses, 77
of erogenous excitability from clitoris to vagina, 81
Transformation of puberty, 68
success of, dependent on adjustment to dispositions and impulses, 68
Transgressions, anatomical, 15
especially frequent, are those to mouth and anus, 29
Ulrich, 9
Unconscious, all neurotics have feelings of inversion in, 29
nothing in, corresponds to fetichism, 30
psychic material is the source of compulsions, 51
forces revealing themselves as symptom creators, 89
Uranism, 5, note 7
Urinary apparatus, the guardian of the genital, 51
Vagina, glandular activity of, the somatic sign of sexual excitation, 69
Vomiting, hysterical, evinced after repression of thumb-sucking, 44
Voyeurs (see Looking, Peeping, Exhibitionism)
as examples of overcoming of loathing, 21
exhibitionists are at the same time, 30
children become, 54
Wishes, symptoms of hysteria are substitutes for, 27
Wit as source of greater knowledge of pleasure, 72
Woman (see Masculine and feminine)
regression in sex development of, 68
differentiation between man and, 78
Work, intellectual, as sexual excitement, 65
Zola, 96
Zone, chief erogenous, in female child is the clitoris, 80
Zones, erogenous, 31
characters of, 45
predestined, 46
lips as erogenous, 44
all parts of body may become erogenous, 46
genital, gratification of, taught by seduction, 52
erogenous, premature activity of, indicated by cruelty, 54
parts of skin called, 65
lip, responsible for sexual gratification during eating, 66
primacy of genital, 69
erogenous, prepare sexual excitement, 70
leading, in man and woman, 80
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