relation between perversion and neurosis, but I believe that what I have
said is sufficient for our purposes. We must avoid the error of
overestimating the frequency and intensity of perverse inclinations in
the light of these interpretations of symptoms. You have heard that a
neurosis may develop from the denial of normal sexual satisfactions.
Through this actual denial the need is forced into the abnormal paths
of sex excitement. You will later obtain a better insight into the way
this happens. You certainly understand, that through such "_collateral_"
hindrance, the perverse tendencies must become more powerful than they
would have been if no actual obstacle had been put in the way of a
normal sexual satisfaction. As a matter of fact, a similar influence may
be recognized in manifest perversions. In many cases, they are provoked
or motivated by the fact that too great difficulties stand in the way of
normal sexual satisfactions, owing to temporary circumstances or to the
permanent institutions of society. In other cases, to be sure, the
perverse tendencies are entirely independent of such conditions; they
are, as it were, the normal kind of sexual life for the individual in
question.
Perhaps you are momentarily under the impression that we have confused
rather than clarified the relation between normal and perverse
sexuality. But keep in mind this consideration. If it is true that a
hindrance or withholding of normal sexual satisfaction will bring out
perverse tendencies in persons who have not previously shown them, we
must assume that these persons must have harbored tendencies akin to
perversities--or, if you will, perversities in latent form. This brings
us to the second experimental conclusion of which I spoke, namely, that
psychoanalytic investigation found it necessary to concern itself with
the sexual life of the child, since, in the analysis of symptoms,
reminiscences and ideas reverted to the early years of childhood.
Whatever we revealed in this manner was corroborated point by point
through the direct observation of children. The result was the
recognition that all inclinations to perversion have their origin in
childhood, that children have tendencies toward them all and practice
them in a measure corresponding to their immaturity. Perverse sexuality,
in brief, is nothing more than magnified infantile sexuality divided
into its separate tendencies.
Now you will certainly see these perversions in another light and no
longer ignore their relation to the sexual life of man, at the cost, I
do not doubt, of surprises and incongruities painful to your emotions.
At first you will undoubtedly be disposed to deny everything--the fact
that children have something which may be termed sexual life, the truth
of our observations and the justification of our claim to see in the
behavior of children any relation to what is condemned in later years
as perversity. Permit me first to explain to you the cause of your
reluctance and then to present to you the sum of our observations. It is
biologically improbable, even absurd, to assume that children have no
sexual life--sexual excitements, desires, and some sort of
satisfaction--but that they develop it suddenly between the ages of
twelve and fourteen. This would be just as improbable from the viewpoint
of biology as to say that they were not born with genitals but developed
them only in the period of puberty. The new factor which becomes active
in them at the time is the function of reproduction, which avails itself
for its own purposes of all the physical and psychic material already
present. You commit the error of confusing sexuality with reproduction
and thereby block the road to the understanding of sexuality, and of
perversions and neuroses as well. This error is a prejudice. Oddly
enough its source is the fact that you yourselves were children, and as
children succumbed to the influence of education. One of the most
important educational tasks which society must assume is the control,
the restriction of the sexual instinct when it breaks forth as an
impulse toward reproduction; it must be subdued to an individual will
that is identical with the mandates of society. In its own interests,
accordingly, society would postpone full development until the child has
reached a certain stage of intellectual maturity, for education
practically ceases with the complete emergence of the sexual impulse.
Otherwise the instinct would burst all bounds and the work of culture,
achieved with such difficulty, would be shattered. The task of
restraining this sexuality is never easy; it succeeds here too poorly
and there too well. The motivating force of human society is
fundamentally economic; since there is not sufficient nourishment to
support its members without work on their part, the number of these
members must be limited and their energies diverted from sexual activity
to labor. Here, again, we have the eternal struggle for life that has
persisted from prehistoric times to the present.
Experience must have shown educators that the task of guiding the sexual
will of the new generation can be solved only by influencing the early
sexual life of the child, the period preparatory to puberty, not by
awaiting the storm of puberty. With this intention almost all infantile
sex activities are forbidden to the child or made distasteful to him;
the ideal goal has been to render the life of the child asexual. In the
course of time it has really come to be considered asexual, and this
point of view has actually been proclaimed by science. In order not to
contradict our belief and intentions, we ignore the sexual activity of
the child--no slight thing, at that--or are content to interpret it
differently. The child is supposed to be pure and innocent, and whoever
says otherwise may be condemned as a shameless blasphemer of the tender
and sacred feelings of humanity.
The children are the only ones who do not join in carrying out these
conventions, who assert their animal rights, who prove again and again
that the road to purity is still before them. It is strange that those
who deny the sexuality of children, do not therefore slacken in their
educational efforts but rather punish severely the manifestations of the
very thing they maintain does not exist, and call it "childish
naughtiness." Theoretically it is highly interesting to observe that the
period of life which offers most striking evidence against the biased
conception of asexual childhood, is the time up to five or six years of
age; after that everything is enveloped by a veil of amnesia, which is
rent apart only by thorough scientific investigation; it may previously
have given way partially in certain forms of dreams.
Now I shall present to you what is most easily recognizable in the
sexual life of the child. At first, for the sake of convenience let me
explain to you the conception of the libido. Libido, analogous to
hunger, is the force through which the instinct, here the sex instinct
(as in the case of hunger it is the instinct to eat) expresses itself.
Other conceptions, such as sexual excitement and satisfaction, require
no elucidation. You will easily see that interpretation plays the
greatest part in disclosing the sexuality of the suckling; in fact you
will probably cite this as an objection. These interpretations proceed
from a foundation of analytic investigation that trace backwards from a
given symptom. The suckling reveals the first sexual impulses in
connection with other functions necessary for life. His chief interest,
as you know, is directed toward the taking in of food; when it has
fallen asleep at its mother's breast, fully satisfied, it bears the
expression of blissful content that will come back again in later life
after the experience of the sexual orgasm. That of course would be too
slight evidence to form the basis of a conclusion. But we observe that
the suckling wishes to repeat the act of taking in food without actually
demanding more food; he is therefore no longer urged by hunger. We say
he is sucking, and the fact that after this he again falls asleep with a
blissful expression shows us that the act of sucking in itself has
yielded him satisfaction. As you know, he speedily arranges matters so
that he cannot fall asleep without sucking. Dr. Lindner, an old
pediatrist in Budapest, was the first one to ascertain the sexual nature
of this procedure. Persons attending to the child, who surely make no
pretensions to a theoretic attitude, seem to judge sucking in a similar
manner. They do not doubt that it serves a pleasurable satisfaction,
term it naughty, and force the child to relinquish it against his will,
and if he will not do so of his own accord, through painful measures.
And so we learn that the suckling performs actions that have no object
save the obtaining of a sensual gratification. We believe that this
gratification is first experienced during the taking in of food, but
that he speedily learns to separate it from this condition. The
gratification can only be attributed to the excitation of the mouth and
lips, hence we call these parts of the body _erogenous zones_ and the
pleasure derived from sucking, _sexual_. Probably we shall have to
discuss the justification of this name.
If the suckling could express himself, he would probably recognize the
act of sucking at his mother's breast as the most important thing in
life. He is not so far wrong, for in this one act he satisfies two great
needs of life. With no small degree of surprise we learn through
psychoanalysis how much of the physical significance of this act is
retained through life. The sucking at the mother's breast becomes the
term of departure for all of sexual life, the unattained ideal of later
sex gratification, to which the imagination often reverts in times of
need. The mother's breast is the first object for the sexual instinct; I
can scarcely bring home to you how significant this object is for
centering on the sexual object in later life, what profound influence it
exerts upon the most remote domains of psychic life through evolution
and substitution. The suckling, however, soon relinquishes it and fills
its place by a part of his own body. The child sucks his thumb or his
own tongue. Thereby he renders himself independent of the consent of the
outer world in obtaining his sensual satisfactions, and moreover
increases the excitement by including a second zone of his body. The
erogenous zones are not equally satisfactory; it is therefore an
important experience when, as Dr. Lindner puts it, the child while
touching his own body discovers the especially excitable genitals, and
so finds the way from sucking to onanism.
Through the evaluation of sucking we become acquainted with two decisive
characteristics of infantile sexuality. It arises in connection with the
satisfaction of great organic needs and behaves _auto-erotically_, that
is to say, it seeks and finds it objects on its own body. What is most
clearly discernible during the taking in of food is partially repeated
during excretion. We conclude that the nursling experiences pleasure
during the excretion of urine and the contents of the intestine and that
he soon strives to arrange these acts in a way to secure the greatest
possible amount of satisfaction by the corresponding excitement of the
erogenous membrane zones. Lou Andreas, with her delicate perceptions,
has shown how at this point the outer world first intervenes as a
hindrance, hostile to the child's desire for satisfaction--the first
vague suggestion of outer and inner conflicts. He may not let his
excretions pass from him at a moment agreeable to him, but only when
other persons set the time. To induce him to renounce these sources of
satisfaction, everything relating to these functions is declared
indecent and must be concealed. Here, for the first time, he is to
exchange pleasure for social dignity. His own relation to his excretions
is originally quite different. He experiences no disgust toward his
faeces, values them as a part of his body from which he does not part
lightly, for he uses them as the first "present" he can give to persons
he esteems particularly. Even after education has succeeded in
alienating him from these tendencies, he transfers the evaluation of the
faeces to the "present" and to "money." On the other hand, he appears to
regard his achievements in urination with especial pride.
I know that you have been wanting to interrupt me for a long time and to
cry: "Enough of these monstrosities! Excretion a source of sexual
gratification that even the suckling exploits! Faeces a valuable
substance! The anus a sort of genital! We do not believe it, but we
understand why children's physicians and pedagogues have decidedly
rejected psychoanalysis and its results." No, you have merely forgotten
that it was my intention to present to you infantile sexuality in
connection with the facts of sexual perversion. Why should you not know
that in the case of many grown-ups, homosexuals as well as
heterosexuals, the locus of intercourse is transferred from the normal
to a more remote portion of the body. And that there are many
individuals who confess to a pleasurable sensation of no slight degree
in the emptying of the bowels during their entire lives! Children
themselves will confirm their interest in the act of defecation and the
pleasure in watching the defecation of another, when they are a few
years older and capable of giving expression to their feelings. Of
course, if these children have previously been systematically
intimidated, they will understand all too well the wisdom of preserving
silence on the subject. As for the other things that you do not wish to
believe, let me refer you to the results of analysis and the direct
observation of children, and you will realize that it is difficult not
to see these things or to see them in a different light. I do not even
object to making the relation between child-sexuality and sexual
perversion quite obvious to you. It is really only natural; if the child
has sexual life at all, it must necessarily be perverse, because aside
from a few hazy illusions, the child does not know how sexuality gives
rise to reproduction. The common characteristic of all perversions, on
the other hand, is that they have abandoned reproduction as their aim.
We term sexual activity perverse when it has renounced the aim of
reproduction and follows the pursuit of pleasure as an independent goal.
And so you realize that the turning point in the development of sexual
life lies in its subjugation to the purpose of reproduction. Everything
this side of the turning point, everything that has given up this
purpose and serves the pursuit of pleasure alone, must carry the term
"perverse" and as such be regarded with contempt.
Permit me, therefore, to continue with my brief presentation of
infantile sexuality. What I have told you about two organic systems I
could supplement by a discussion of all the others. The sexual life of
the child exhausts itself in the exercise of a series of partial
instincts which seek, independently of one another, to gain satisfaction
from his own body or from an external object. Among these organs the
genitals speedily predominate. There are persons who continue the
pursuit of satisfaction by means of their own genitals, without the aid
of another genital or object, uninterruptedly from the onanism of the
suckling to the onanism of necessity which arises in puberty, and even
indefinitely beyond that. The theme of onanism alone would occupy us for
a long period of time; it offers material for diverse observations.
In spite of my inclination to shorten the theme, I must tell you
something about the sexual curiosity of children. It is most
characteristic for child sexuality and significant for the study of
neurotic symptoms. The sexual curiosity of children begins very early,
sometimes before the third year. It is not connected with the
differences of sexes, which means nothing to the child, since the boy,
at any rate, ascribes the same male genital to both sexes. When the boy
first discovers the primary sexual structure of the female, he tries at
first to deny the evidence of his senses, for he cannot conceive a human
being who lacks the part of his body that is of such importance to him.
Later he is terrified at the possibility revealed to him and he feels
the influence of all the former threats, occasioned by his intensive
preoccupation with his little organ. He becomes subject to the
domination of the castration complex, the formation of which plays an
important part in the development of his character, provided he remains
healthy; of his neurosis, if he becomes diseased; of his resistance, if
he is treated analytically. We know that the little girl feels injured
on account of her lack of a large, visible penis, envies the boy his
possession, and primarily from this motive desires to be a man. This
wish manifests itself subsequently in neurosis, arising from some
failure in her role as a woman. During childhood, the clitoris of the
girl is the equivalent of the penis; it is especially excitable, the
zone where auto-erotic satisfaction is achieved. In the transition to
womanhood it is most important that the sensations of the clitoris are
completely transferred at the right time to the entrance of the vagina.
In cases of so-called sexual anesthesia of women the clitoris has
obstinately retained its excitability.
The sexual interest of children generally turns first to the mystery of
birth--the same problem that is the basis of the questions asked by the
sphinx of Thebes. This curiosity is for the most part aroused by the
selfish fear of the arrival of a new child. The answer which the
nursery has ready for the child, that the stork brings children, is
doubted far more frequently than we imagine, even by very young
children. The feeling that he has been cheated out of the truth by
grown-ups, contributes greatly to the child's sense of solitude and to
his independent development. But the child is not capable of solving
this problem unaided. His undeveloped sexual constitution restricts his
ability to understand. At first he assumes that children are produced by
a special substance in one's food and does not know that only women can
bear children. Later he learns of this limitation and relinquishes the
derivation of children from food--a supposition retained in the
fairy-tale. The growing child soon notices that the father plays some
part in reproduction, but what it is he cannot guess. If, by chance, he
is witness of a sexual act, he sees in it an attempt to subjugate, a
scuffle, the sadistic miscomprehension of coitus; he does not however
relate this act immediately to the evolution of the child. When he
discovers traces of blood on the bedsheets or on the clothing of his
mother, he considers them the proof of an injury inflicted by the
father. During the latter part of childhood, he imagines that the sexual
organ of the man plays an important part in the evolution of children,
but can ascribe only the function of urination to that part of his body.
From the very outset children unite in believing that the birth of the
child takes place through the anus; that the child therefore appears as
a ball of faeces. After anal interests have been proven valueless, he
abandons this theory and assumes that the navel opens or that the region
between the two breasts is the birthplace of the child. In this way the
curious child approaches the knowledge of sexual facts, which, clouded
by his ignorance, he often fails to see. In the years prior to puberty
he generally receives an incomplete, disparaging explanation which often
causes traumatic consequences.
You have probably heard that the conception "sexual" is unduly expanded
by psychoanalysis in order that it may maintain the hypothesis that all
neuroses are due to sexual causes and that the meaning of the symptoms
is sexual. You are now in a position to judge whether or not this
expansion is unjustifiable. We have expanded the conception sexual only
to include the sexual life of children and of perverse persons. That is
to say, we have reestablished its proper boundaries. Outside of
psychoanalysis sexuality means only a very limited thing: normal sexual
life in the service of reproduction.
TWENTY-FIRST LECTURE
GENERAL THEORY OF THE NEUROSES
_Development of the Libido and Sexual Organizations_
I am under the impression that I did not succeed in convincing you of
the significance of perversions for our conception of sexuality. I
should therefore like to clarify and add as much as I can.
It was not only perversions that necessitated an alteration of our
conception of sexuality, which aroused such vehement contradiction. The
study of infantile sexuality did a great deal more along that line, and
its close correspondence to the perversions became decisive for us. But
the origin of the expressions of infantile sexuality, unmistakable as
they are in later years of childhood, seem to be lost in obscurity.
Those who disregard the history of evolution and analytic coherence,
will dispute the potency of the sexual factor and will infer the agency
of generalized forces. Do not forget that as yet we have no generally
acknowledged criterion for identifying the sexual nature of an
occurrence, unless we assume that we can find it in a relation to the
functions of reproduction, and this we must reject as too narrow. The
biological criteria, such as the periodicities of twenty-three and
twenty-eight days, suggested by W. Fliess, are by no means established;
the specific chemical nature which we can possibly assume for sexual
occurrences is still to be discovered. The sexual perversions of adults,
on the other hand, are tangible and unambiguous. As their generally
accepted nomenclature shows, they are undoubtedly sexual in character;
whether we designate them as signs of degeneration, or otherwise, no one
has yet had the courage to place them outside the phenomena of sex. They
alone justify the assertion that sexuality and reproduction are not
coincident, for it is clear that all of them disavow the goal of
reproduction.
This brings me to an interesting parallel. While "conscious" and
"psychic" were generally considered to be identical, we had to make an
essay to widen our conception of the "psychic" to recognize as psychic
something that was not conscious. Analogously, when "sexual" and
"related to reproduction" (or, in shorter form, "genital") has been
generally considered identical, psychoanalysis must admit as "sexual"
such things as are not "genital," things which have nothing to do with
reproduction. It is only a formal analogy, but it does not lack a deeper
basis.
But if the existence of sexual perversions is such a compelling
argument, why has it not long ago had its effect, and settled the
question? I really am unable to say. It appears to be because the sexual
perversions are subject to a peculiar ban that extends even into theory,
and stands in the way of their scientific appreciation. It seems as if
no one could forget that they are not only revolting, but even
unnatural, dangerous; as if they had a seductive influence and that at
bottom one had to stifle a secret envy of those who enjoyed them. As the
count who passes judgment in the famous Tannhauser parody admits:
"And in the mount of Venus, his honor slipped his mind,
It's odd that never happens to people of our kind."
Truthfully speaking, the perverts are rather poor devils who atone most
bitterly for the satisfaction they attain with such difficulty.
What makes the perverse activity unmistakably sexual, despite all the
strangeness of its object, is that the act in perverse satisfaction most
frequently is accompanied by a complete orgasm, and by an ejaculation of
the genital product. Of course, this is only true in the case of adults;
with children orgasms and genital excretions are hardly possible; they
are replaced by rudiments which, again, are not recognized as truly
sexual.