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.