Talk:Sexuality

Freudian Dictionary

Among the causes of and occasions for neurotic complaints sexual factors play an important, an overweening--even perhaps a specific-role.

Sexual life does not begin only at puberty, but starts with clear manifestations soon after birth.

It is necessary to distinguish sharply between the concepts of "sexual" and "genitaL" The former is the wider concept and includes many activities that have nothing to do with the genitals.

Sexual life comprises the function of obtaining pleasure from zones of the body-a function which is subsequently brought into the service of that of reproduction. The two functions often fail to coincide completely.

There can be no doubt that the bisexual disposition which we maintain to be characteristic of human beings manifests itself much more plainly in the female than in the male. The latter has only one principal sexual zone -only one sexual organ-whereas the former has two: the vagina, the true female organ, and the clitoris, which is analogous to the male organ. We believe that we may justly assume that for many years the vagina is virtually non-existent and possibly remains without sensation until puberty.

Sexuality in Childhood

The sexual instinctual impulses accompany life from birth, and it is just these instincts against which the infantile Ego undertakes defense by repressions.

The child brings along into the world germs of sexual activity and 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 his 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 to furnish a stock of energy, the greater part of which is utilized for aims other than sexual. On the one hand, it is used 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 sex barriers. Accordingly, the forces which are destined to hold the sexual instinct in certain tracks are built up in fancy with the help of education at the expense of the greater part of the perverse sexual feelings. 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 greater 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 instinct of childhood is therefore objectless or autoerotic.</ref>

A child's sexual life is naturally different from that of an adult. The sexual function undergoes a complicated development between its beginnings and the final form which we recognize as familiar. It grows together out of a number of component instincts with special aims, and passes through several phases of organization, until finally it is brought into the service of reproduction. The individual component-instincts are not all equally useful for the final purpose, and they must be diverted, remodelled, and in part suppressed. Such a farreaching development is not always faultlessly carried out, and there may be inhibitions of development and partial fixations at early stages; where, later, the exercise of the sexual function is met by hindrances, the sexual striving-the libido, as we say-reverts to such earlier points of fixation. The study of childhood sexuality, and its changes on the way to maturity, has also given us the key to the understanding of the so-called sexual perversions.

The most remarkable feature-as it seems to me-in children's sexual life is that it runs its whole far-reaching course in the first five years of life. From then on, until puberty, it goes through the so-called latency period, in which, normally, sexuality makes no progress; on the contrary, the sexual strivings diminish in strength, and much that the child practiced or knew before is given up and forgotten. In this period, after the early blooming of sexual life has withered, are built up such attitudes of the Ego as shame, disgust, and morality, destined to stand against the later storms of puberty and to direct the paths of the freshly-awakened sexual desires. This so-called double onset of sexual lite has much to do with the rise of neurotic ailments.

A further characteristic of the sexuality of early childhood is that the female organ as yet plays no part in it-the child has not yet discovered it. All the accent falls on the male organ, and all interest is concentrated on whether it is present or not.

A child's sexual impulses find their main outlet in gratific~tion on its own body, by stimulation of its own genitalS-ill actual fact, the male component of the genitals.

..... psychoanalytic investigation ... teaches us that many, perhaps most, children, at least the most gifted ones, go through a period beginning with the third year, which may be designated as the period of 'infantile sexual investigation. As far as we know, this curiosity is not awakened spontaneously in children of this age. It is aroused through the impression of an important experience, through the birth of a little brother or sister, or through fear of the same engendered by some outward experience, wherein the child sees a danger to his egotistic interests. The investigation directs itself to the question whence children come, as if the child were looking for means to guard against such an undesired event. ... If the period of infantile sexual investigation comes to an end through an impetus of energetic sexual repression, the early association with sexual interest may result in three different possibilities for the future fate of the investigation impulse. The investigation either shares the fate of the sexuality; the curiosity henceforth remains inhibited and the free activity of intelligence may become narrowed for life. This is especially favored shortly thereafter by education and powerful religious inhibitions. This is the type of neurotic inhibition .... In a second type the intellectual development is sufficiently strong to withstand the sexual repression pulling at it. Sometimes, after the disappearance of the infantile sexual investigation, it offers its support to the old association in order to elude sexual repression, and the suppressed sexual investigation comes back from the unconscious as compulsive reasoning. It is naturally distorted and not free, but forceful enough to sexualize even thought itself and to accentuate the intellectual operations with the pleasure and anxiety of the actual sexual processes. Here the investigation be~omes sexual activity and often exclusively so; the feeling of settling the problem and of eXplaining things in the mind is put in place of sexual gratification. But the indeterminate character of the infantile investigation repeats itself also in the fact that this reasoning never ends, and that the desired intellectual feeling of the solution constantly recedes into the distance.
By virtue of a special disposition the third, which is the most rare and most perfect type, escapes the inhibition of thought and the compulsive reasoning. Also here sexual repression takes place, but it does not succeed in evincing a partial impulse of the sexual pleasure in the unconscious; instead the libido withdraws from the fate of the repression by being sublimated from the outset into curiosity, and by reinforcing the powerful investigation impulse.

What attitude ought we to take towards the sexual indulgence of early childhood? We have become aware of the responsibility we incur by suppressing it, and yet we cannot assume that it is right to allow it unchecked. It appears that among races of low culture, and in the lower strata of civilized peoples, children's sexuality is allowed free play. That probably constitutes a strong protection against later lapses into individual neurosis, but is there not at the same time great detriment to the aptitude for cultural achievement? There is a good deal which goes to suggest that in this respect we are between a new Scylla and Charybdis.

Second Phase of Childhood Masturbation. Infantile masturbation seems to disappear after a brief time, but it may continue uninterruptedly till puberty and thus represent the first marked deviation from that development which is desirable for civilized man. At some time during childhood after the nursing period, the sexual instinct of the genitals reawakens and continues active for some time until it is again suppressed, or it may continue without interruption.

Sexuality in Puberty

With the beginning of puberty, changes set in, which transform the infantile sexual life into its definite normal form. Hitherto, the sexual instinct 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 cooperate, while the erogenous zones subordinate themselves to the primacy of the genital zone. As the new sexual aim assigns very different functions to the two sexes, their sexual developments now part company. The male sexual development is more consistent and easier to understand, while in the woman a sort of regression seems to appear. 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 discharge of the sexual products. This is not contradictory to the former sexual aim, which is that of obtaining pleasure; on the contrary, the height of all pleasure is connected with this final act in the sexual process. The sexual instinct 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.

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.

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