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.