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Often appears with: justice as a virtue · the passions and the emotions · marriage and betrothal · crime and punishment · honor, shame, and reputation · education and the training of the young · custom and the manners of a people · religious persecution and toleration · fate, destiny, and necessity · language, naming, and meaning · medicine, disease, and healing · sin, guilt, and repentance
Usually: narrative (132) · temptation (111) · detachment (111) · argument (101) · indignation (81) · curiosity (54) · censure (50) · skepticism (46) · the test or trial (42) · lament (37)
“To the groves, ye sexless eunuchs, in assembly to Cybele, Lost sheep that err rebellious to the lady Dindymene;” Gaius Valerius Catullus (translated by Robinson Ellis), The Poems and Fragments of Catullus · observation
“Till Adam thus ’gan Eve to dalliance move. Eve, now I see thou art exact of taste, and elegant, of sapience no small part;” John Milton, Paradise Lost · vivid
“Till Adam, though not less than Eve abashed, At length gave utterance to these words constrained. O Eve, in evil hour thou didst give ear To that false worm, of whomsoever taught To counterfeit Man’s voice; true in our fall, False in our promised rising; since our eyes Opened we find indeed, and find we know Both good and evil; good lost, and evil got; Bad fruit of knowledge, if this be to know;” John Milton, Paradise Lost · insight
“Judge not what is best By pleasure, though to nature seeming meet; Created, as thou art, to nobler end Holy and pure, conformity divine.” John Milton, Paradise Lost · precept
“But just Heaven, that seldom fails to watch over and aid good intentions, so aided mine that with my slight strength and with little exertion I pushed him over a precipice, where I left him, whether dead or alive I know not;” Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote · insight
“Neither unripe nor ripened have remained / My members upon earth, but here are with me / With their own blood and their articulations.” Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Purgatory · observation
“I have collected so large a body of facts, showing... that a cross between different varieties... gives vigour and fertility to the offspring; and... close interbreeding diminishes vigour and fertility.” Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selecti · observation
“Not when the truth is filthy, but when it is shallow, doth the discerning one go unwillingly into its waters.” Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None · observation
“And thus they live unto their lives’ end In perfect joy; and Jesus Christ us send Husbandes meek and young, and fresh in bed,” Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, and Other Poems · observation
“But now can no man see none elves mo’, For now the great charity and prayeres Of limitours, and other holy freres” Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, and Other Poems · vivid
“Women desire to have the sovereignty As well over their husband as their love And for to be in mast’ry him above.” Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, and Other Poems · insight
“For where a lover thinketh him promote, Envy will grudge, repining at his weal; It swelleth sore about his hearte’s root, That in no wise he cannot live in heal; And if the faithful to his lady steal, Envy will noise and ring it round about, And say much worse than done is, out of doubt.” Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, and Other Poems · insight
He adds that sexual selection can explain differences in male and female traits, but not all male peculiarities must be useful or attractive, giving examples like turkey-cock tufts and tumbler-pigeon hatching.
produced being inherited at corresponding ages or seasons, either by the males alone, or by the males and females; but I have not space here to enter on this subject. Thus it is, as I believe, that when the males and females of any animal have the same general habits of life, but differ in structure, colour, or ornament, such differences have been mainly caused by sexual selection; that is, individual males have had…
Darwin digresses on hermaphrodites, arguing that even when sexes are combined, occasional cross-fertilisation with another individual is likely necessary, aided by breeder observations of vigour and fertility in outcrosses.
of the meaning of the law) that no organic being self-fertilises itself for an eternity of generations; but that a cross with another individual is occasionally—perhaps at very long intervals—indispensable. On the belief that this is a law of nature, we can, I think, understand several large classes of facts, such as the following, which on any other view are inexplicable. Every hybridizer knows how unfavourable exp…
Returning near Fisk University, Du Bois learns Josie is dead, Jim has stolen wheat and ended up in Lebanon jail, Josie toils in Nashville, and later Lizzie bears a child out of wedlock.
the carpenter, built a new house with six rooms; Josie toiled a year in Nashville, and brought back ninety dollars to furnish the house and change it to a home. When the spring came, and the birds twittered, and the stream ran proud and full, little sister Lizzie, bold and thoughtless, flushed with the passion of youth, bestowed herself on the tempter, and brought home a nameless child. Josie shivered and worked on,…
It gives guidance on marriage and abstinence, instructs believers not to separate except briefly for fasting and prayer, allows marriage for those who cannot abstain, and extends counsel on mixed marriages, servants, and virgins.
it? Now ye are full: now ye are made rich: ye reign as kings without us: and I would to God ye did reign, that we might reign with you. Me thinketh that God hath shewed us which are apostles, for the hindmost of all, as it were men appointed to death. For we are a gazingstock unto the world, and to the angels, and to men, we are fools for Christe's sake, and ye are wise thorow Christ: we are weak, and ye are strong.…
Paul urges the Thessalonians to pray, grow in holiness and brotherly love, avoid sexual immorality and exploitative bargaining, and comfort the grieving with the hope of Christ’s return and the resurrection.
joy for your sakes before our God, while we night and day pray exceedingly, that we might see you presently, and might fulfil that which is lacking in your faith. God himself our father, and our lord Iesus Christ guide our journey unto you: and the lord increase you, and make you flow over in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you, to stablish your hearts that they might be without oug…
Douglass portrays Covey’s religious performance as deception, then recounts Covey’s purchase of Caroline to breed, hiring a man and repeatedly exploiting the resulting pregnancies.
he would get half way thither, he would turn short and crawl into a fence-corner, or behind some tree, and there watch us till the going down of the sun. Mr. Covey’s *forte* consisted in his power to deceive. His life was devoted to planning and perpetrating the grossest deceptions. Every thing he possessed in the shape of learning or religion, he made conform to his disposition to deceive. He seemed to think himsel…
Qur’anic legal and moral guidance in the sūrah of Light covers adultery and slander penalties, evidentiary rules (four witnesses), household visiting etiquette, modesty for men and women, marriage and manumission, and God’s guidance as light.
4 How they have discharged their prophetic functions. 5 Verses 9-33 have reference to the events of the year Hej. 5, towards the close. See next note. His. 688; Waq. 4 f. 6 In the engagement which took place under the walls of Medina, some of the enemy were posted on a height to the east of the city, others in a valley on the west. The besiegers were 12,000, the Muslims 3,000 strong, when a violent storm, which ups…
Further in Sūrat al-Nūr, the text teaches continence, regulates interactions with households and women’s adornment, commands marriage and charitable assistance, and condemns sexual coercion, then returns to themes of divine light, signs, and reward.
Their faith2 have they used as a cloak, and they turn aside others from the way of God! Evil are all their doings. This, for that they believed, then became unbelievers!Therefore hath a seal been set upon their hearts, and they understand not. When thou seest them, their persons make thee marvel; and if they speak, thou listenest with pleasure to their discourse. Like timbers are they leaning against a wall!3 They …
Equiano condemns sexual violence by clerks and mates against enslaved women and describes extreme punishments, then contrasts estate management by humane owners with brutal overseers, linking care to lower mortality.
and an Englishman might think my fare very indifferent; but he used to tell them he always would do it, because the slaves thereby looked better and did more work. While I was thus employed by my master I was often a witness to cruelties of every kind, which were exercised on my unhappy fellow slaves. I used frequently to have different cargoes of new negroes in my care for sale; and it was almost a constant practic…
Equiano describes how whites steal enslaved field laborers’ grass without paying, exploits and violence against enslaved women accompany the theft, and he cites a Barbadian-style biblical condemnation of oppression and divine judgment.
death, and refused to eat any victuals; this procured him a severe flogging: and he also, on the first occasion which offered, jumped overboard at Charles Town, but was saved. Nor is there any greater regard shewn to the little property than there is to the persons and lives of the negroes. I have already related an instance or two of particular oppression out of many which I have witnessed; but the following is fre…
Using runaway advertisements, church and political statements, and testimony, Du Bois describes slavery’s tearing-apart of Black families and argues the stereotype of Black women as inherently immoral is historically false.
"WILLIAM ROBERTS." "Fifty dollars reward--Ran away from the subscriber a Negro girl named Maria. She is of a copper color, between thirteen and fourteen years of age--bareheaded and barefooted. She is small for her age--very sprightly and very likely. She stated she was going to see her mother at Maysville. "SANFORD THOMSON." "Fifty dollars reward--Ran away from the subscriber his Negro man …
Douglass argues slavery turns sexual relationships between masters and slave women into profit and abuse, explains why mixed-race children may face worse treatment, and states his mother died when he was about eight or nine near Hillsborough.
friends, and gives to the pleasure of sin, the additional attraction of profit. A whole volume might be written on this single feature of slavery, as I have observed it. One might imagine, that the children of such connections, would fare better, in the hands of their masters, than other slaves. The rule is quite the other way; and a very little reflection will satisfy the reader that such is the case. A man who wil…
Douglass narrates how Capt. Anthony breaks up Esther’s relationship with Ned Roberts/Edward to control her, then describes a prolonged early-morning flogging that turns into sadistic sexual cruelty.
but are common in every slaveholding community in which I have lived. They are incidental to the relation of master and slave, and exist in all sections of slave-holding countries. The reader will have noticed that, in enumerating the names of the slaves who lived with my old master, *Esther* is mentioned. This was a young woman who possessed that which is ever a curse to the slave-girl; namely—personal beauty. She …
Continuing in Jucatan, Las Casas tells stories of Spaniards using dogs against Indians, mutilating an Indian youth for refusing to follow them, and boasting of impregnating Indian women for profit.
her) to her foot; and no sooner had she done, yet the Dogs were at her, tearing the Child, but a Priest coming that way Baptiz'd it before quite dead. When the *Spaniards* left this Kingdom, one of them invited the Son of some *Indian* Governour of a City or Province, to go along with him, who told him he would not leave or desert his Native Countrey, whereupon he threatned to cut off his ears, if he refus'd to foll…
Lycurgus regulates Spartan marriages and women’s training: maidens wrestle and dance in public processions while bachelors are punished, and marriages begin with bride abduction and reserve between spouses.
for taking such pains to make the Thebans good soldiers, whether they would or no. These laws were called the Rhetras, to intimate that they were divine sanctions and revelations. In order to the good education of their youth (which, as I said before, he thought the most important and noblest work of a lawgiver), he went so far back as to take into consideration their very conception and birth, by regulating their m…
In Pharnabazus’ region, Agesilaus forges alliances, marries off his benefactor’s daughter to Cotys, and plunders; after a change of sides involving Herippidas and Spithridates, Agesilaus is vexed and struggles with private passion for Megabates.
at hand both older and more experienced; in this not so much consulting the public good, as the gratification of his kindred, and especially his wife, whose brother Pisander was. Having removed his camp into Pharnabazus's province, he not only met with great plenty of provisions, but also raised great sums of money, and marching on to the bounds of Paphlagonia, he soon drew Cotys, the king of it, into a league, to w…
Demetrius’s controversial Parthenon lodging and payment demands lead to comic condemnation, including money allegedly given to Lamia to buy soap; later the narrative shifts to his courtly passions for Lamia and related anecdotes and judgments.
And on the vote that Demetrius should lodge in the Parthenon, Who turns the temple to a common inn, And makes the Virgin's house a house of sin. Of all the disreputable and flagitious acts of which he was guilty in this visit, one that particularly hurt the feelings of the Athenians was that, having given comment that they should forthwith raise for his service two hundred and fifty talents, and they to comply with…
Dorothea hears a public crier for her capture with a reward, flees into the mountains, and her servant turns violent; Dorothea pushes him off a precipice, later hides as a herdsman’s servant.
human objects. All this passed through my mind, and I strove to comfort myself without comfort, indulging in faint and distant hopes of cherishing that life that I now abhor. “But while I was in the city, uncertain what to do, as I could not find Don Fernando, I heard notice given by the public crier offering a great reward to anyone who should find me, and giving the particulars of my age and of the very dress I wo…
A woman accuses a cattle dealer of sexual assault and theft of money she claims to have kept for 23 years; Sancho tests the man’s payment claim by having him retrieve the purse by force.
oak, and keeping myself as pure as a salamander in the fire, or wool among the brambles, for this good fellow to come now with clean hands to handle me!” “It remains to be proved whether this gallant has clean hands or not,” said Sancho; and turning to the man he asked him what he had to say in answer to the woman’s charge. He all in confusion made answer, “Sirs, I am a poor pig dealer, and this morning I left the …
She argues that a fallen woman can’t easily recover respect, so prostitution becomes her refuge, blaming women’s idleness and dependence taught by education, and critiques virtue based only on worldly utility.
by their education for infamy, they become infamous. Asylums and Magdalens are not the proper remedies for these abuses. It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world! A woman who has lost her honour, imagines that she cannot fall lower, and as for recovering her former station, it is impossible; no exertion can wash this stain away. Losing thus every spur, and having no other means of support, prostitut…
She quotes Rousseau’s advice on coquetry and “empire” in marriage, then argues this training for chaste wives is really sexual artifice that undermines rational virtue and lasting sympathy.
of maintaining your empire over him, if you can preserve it over yourself; what I have already observed, also shows me, that this difficult attempt does not surpass your courage. "Would you have your husband constantly at your feet? keep him at some distance from your person. You will long maintain the authority of love, if you know but how to render your favours rare and valuable. It is thus you may employ even t…
Turning to education, she says girls are harmed in nurseries and especially boarding schools by mixed rooms, false delicacy, and early sexual lessons, and she recommends privacy, cleanliness, and “decency” over prudishness.
the body arrived at some degree of maturity; then the passions naturally begin to take place of the senses, as instruments to unfold the understanding, and form the moral character. In nurseries, and boarding schools, I fear, girls are first spoiled; particularly in the latter. A number of girls sleep in the same room, and wash together. And, though I should be sorry to contaminate an innocent creature's mind by i…
She criticizes the idea that women of “honour” may commit only one fault with impunity and argues that women are not easily corrupted; instead, she says extremes of concern for chastity harm morality, then attacks male appetites, luxury, and sexual exploitation.
called, is safe, she may neglect every social duty; nay, ruin her family by gaming and extravagance; yet still present a shameless front --for truly she is an honourable woman! Mrs. Macaulay has justly observed, that "there is but one fault which a woman of honour may not commit with impunity." She then justly and humanely adds--This has given rise to the trite and foolish observation, that the first fault against …
Wollstonecraft claims that male intemperance drives female weakness by cultivating a vicious sexual appetite, leading to women made “systematically voluptuous,” harms chastity and motherhood, and links promiscuity and seduction to social and population decline.
contentedly be the slaves of casual appetite, which is now the situation of a very considerable number who are, literally speaking, standing dishes to which every glutton may have access. I may be told, that great as this enormity is, it only affects a devoted part of the sex--devoted for the salvation of the rest. But, false as every assertion might easily be proved, that recommends the sanctioning a small evil to …
Wollstonecraft argues that women are made “foolish or vicious” by ignorance and that a revolution in female manners could improve morality, since corrupt “intercourse” between the sexes undermines love, esteem, justice, friendship, and proper child education.
in order to give loose to all their appetites without a check--some sensual wight of taste would scale the heavens to invite thee back, to give a zest to pleasure! That women at present are by ignorance rendered foolish or vicious, is, I think, not to be disputed; and, that the most salutary effects tending to improve mankind, might be expected from a REVOLUTION in female manners, appears at least, with a face of pr…
Freud argues against popular ideas that sexual impulse appears at puberty and aims only at heterosexual union, proposing instead that the sexual impulse (libido) varies in object and aim and must be studied scientifically.
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. Bu…
Freud introduces inversion (same-sex attraction) and distinguishes absolute, amphigenous, and occasional inversions, then argues inversion is not simply congenital or degenerative and can show varied timing across life.
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 im…
He critiques degeneration and innateness explanations, then reviews arguments for acquired inversion (seduction, mutual masturbation, war, prison, celibacy, hypnosis) and concludes the congenital/acquired binary does not fully account for observed cases.
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 ne…
Freud discusses theories linking inversion to bisexuality and hermaphroditism, but argues psychic and somatic hermaphroditism do not closely track inversion and that the sexual object varies in mixed ways.
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 s…
He holds that inversion lacks a single uniform sexual aim and provides examples like anal intercourse or masturbation, then concludes that sexual impulse is likely independent of its sexual 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 sex…
Freud argues that the normal sexual aim is genital union, but shows how preliminary actions like touching and kissing can become “perversions” when overestimation of the sexual object extends beyond the genitals.
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 describe…
He distinguishes perversions involving the mouth and anus from normal kissing and treats loathing as a psychological resistance, adding that inverts may prefer anal-mimicking acts like mutual masturbation.
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 tou…
Freud explains fetichism as substituting an unfit object for the sexual aim due to overestimation, often rooted in early childhood impressions or unconscious symbolic associations, and discusses how exhibitions and voyeurism become perverse when they disrupt the normal aim.
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, an…
Freud argues that lingering on touching and looking can start from normal erotic processes, but becomes perverse when it fixes on genitals, overcomes loathing, or replaces the normal aim, linking shame to suppression of voyeurism.
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 teleo…
He defines sadism and masochism as two forms of cruelty where pleasure centers on dominating or suffering, suggests sadism can transform into masochism, and notes the common pairing of active and passive forms in the same person.
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 se…
Freud claims perversions vary from normal and do not automatically indicate disease, but become morbid through exclusiveness and fixation; he adds that psychic resistances like shame and loathing shape them, and that neurosis is the “negative” of perversion.
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 …
He links neurosis to perverse tendencies in the unconscious, claiming inversion tendencies, anatomical transgressions, and contrasting perversions like peeping/exhibitionism and cruelty appear as symptom-creators, while fetichism shows special diagnostic absence.
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 …
Freud proposes that “partial impulses” arise from erogenous zones and combine many motives, and he offers a framework for why psychoneuroses show apparent excess sexual perversions, shaped by puberty, repression, and restricted gratification.
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 …
He explains how oral and anal uses treat mouth and anus as genitals-like erogenous zones in hysteria, while other neuroses can shift sexual aim-making to more distant psychic apparatus regions like the eye in exhibitionism.
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 …
Freud argues that there is a congenital basis for perversions in every person, where infantile sexual impulses may develop into perverts, be repressed into neuroses, or be restricted into normal sexual life.
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 exam…
Freud reviews historical proposals that bisexuality explains inversion, then argues psychoanalysis opposes treating homosexuals as a special group while explaining object-choice as emerging from early archaic and constitutional mechanisms plus later experiences.
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 re…
Freud states that later inverts pass through childhood fixation on the mother (usually), then identify with her and choose male lovers resembling themselves, repeating a mechanism driven by flight from women.
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…
Freud argues that children’s sexual activity can shift between erogenous zones—especially from lip to anal—so constipation, withholding feces, and later “scatologic” habits reflect transformed genital irritability.
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 …
He describes genital-zone excitation as tied to urination and cleanliness during early life, outlines three phases of infantile masturbation, and claims later memories and neurosis can be rooted in a forgotten second childhood period.
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 role, and which cannot be the carrier of earliest sexual feeling--which, however, is destined for great thing…
Freud explains how infantile masturbation “returns” in mid-childhood via tickling or pollution-like processes, links bladder disturbances to sexual causes, and argues seduction can reawaken sexuality and enable perverse outcomes.
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 onanisti…
He argues seduction can make children polymorphously perverse by overwhelming early shame and morality, then discusses “partial impulses” like looking and cruelty developing alongside genital activity.
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 sup…
Freud describes how children aged three to five investigate sexual “riddles,” including where babies come from, and argues boys form a castration complex while girls shift to envy and the wish to be a boy.
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 unde…
He says children’s birth theories come through eating and bowel passage, that witnessing adult sex prompts sadistic interpretations, and that infantile sexual investigation fails over unknown semen and female genital opening.
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 understa…
Freud outlines developmental phases of infantile sexuality as autoerotic and partially separate, then describes pregenital organizations—oral (cannibalistic/identification) and sadistic-anal (active/passive).
have not yet assumed the dominating role 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. …
He explains object selection happening first around ages three to five and then again at puberty, mediated by latency, and argues that unresolved infantile object aims produce later tenderness masking old sexual strivings.
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 lat…
Freud lists sources of infantile sexual excitement—including temperature sensitivity, mechanical rocking, muscular fighting, fear and horror, and intellectual work—and concludes that sexual excitement follows both sensory stimulation and internal processes.
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 …
He claims fear and painful affects can trigger genital touching or pollution-like events in schoolchildren, notes how people seek safe access to horror, and proposes links to masochistic-sadistic impulses and nervous disorders.
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 inten…
Freud argues that people differ in congenital sexual constitution depending on how strongly different sources of sexual excitement develop, and that sexual excitation can both disrupt other functions and enable sublimation through reversible pathways.
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 …
Freud defends the claim that understanding heredity requires understanding infantile sexuality, reviews how little science studied prepubertal sex, then notes later works that begin to address it.
[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 physi…
Freud argues that later neurotics’ childhood years need not differ from those of later normal people, except in the intensity and distinctness of sexual manifestations.
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 …
Freud states that he borrowed the term “sexual latency period” from Wilhelm Fliess.
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 alluri…
Freud argues that male–female differentiation is shaped at puberty: libido is fundamentally masculine in both sexes, while the girl’s clitoris leading zone becomes repressed and later transfers to the vagina through puberty changes and repression-driven sexual anesthesia.
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…
Freud claims that sexual object-finding originates in early nursing and the loss of the breastfeeding object, then returns after latency; tender child–nurse relations are treated as preparing future sexual love, which parents may unintentionally stimulate.
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 chi…
Freud explains childhood fears as fear of separation from beloved foster-parents and argues that fear resembles adult anxiety when libido is ungratified; he then introduces the incest barrier as a cultural and moral constraint redirecting object choice.
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 prep…
Freud describes how sexual object selection occurs first in imagination during puberty, especially with incestuous parental fantasies that must be rejected; failure to break parental authority allegedly leaves women sexually anesthetic and unable to fulfill marital duties.
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 …