Freud - Complete Works (260 page)
It
would be unjustifiable to assert that these interesting experiments
put the theory of inversion on a new basis, and it would be hasty
to expect them to offer a universal means of ‘curing’
homosexuality. Fliess has rightly insisted that these experimental
findings do not invalidate the theory of the general bisexual
disposition of the higher animals. On the contrary, it seems to me
probable that further research of a similar kind will produce a
direct confirmation of this presumption of bisexuality.
Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality
1474
SEXUAL AIM OF INVERTS
The important fact to bear in mind is that no one single aim can
be
laid down as applying in cases of inversion. Among men, intercourse
per annum
by no means coincides with inversion; masturbation
is quite as frequently their exclusive aim, and it is even true
that restrictions of sexual aim - to the point of its being limited
to simple outpourings of emotion - are commoner among them than
among heterosexual lovers. Among women, too, the sexual aims of
inverts are various: there seems to be a special preference for
contact with the mucous membrane of the mouth.
CONCLUSION
It will be
seen that we are not in a position to base a satisfactory
explanation of
the origin of inversion upon the material at present before us.
Nevertheless our investigation has put us in possession of a piece
of knowledge which may turn out to be of greater importance to us
than the solution of that problem. It has been brought to our
notice that we have been in the habit of regarding the connection
between the sexual instinct and the sexual object as more intimate
than it in fact is. Experience of the cases that are considered
abnormal has shown us that in them the sexual instinct and the
sexual object are merely soldered together - a fact which we have
been in danger of overlooking in consequence of the uniformity of
the normal picture, where the object appears to form part and
parcel of the instinct. We are thus warned to loosen the bond that
exists in our thoughts between instinct and object. It seems
probable that the sexual instinct is in the first instance
independent of its object; nor is its origin likely to be due to
its object’s attractions.
Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality
1475
(B) SEXUALLY IMMATURE PERSONS AND
ANIMALS AS SEXUAL OBJECTS
People whose sexual objects
belong to the normally inappropriate sex - that is, inverts -
strike the observer as a collection of individuals who may be quite
sound in other respects. On the other hand, cases in which sexually
immature persons (children) are chosen as sexual objects are
instantly judged as sporadic aberrations. It is only exceptionally
that children are the exclusive sexual objects in such a case. They
usually come to play that part when someone who is cowardly or has
become impotent adopts them as a substitute, or when an urgent
instinct (one which will not allow of postponement) cannot at the
moment get possession of any more appropriate object. Nevertheless,
a light is thrown on the nature of the sexual instinct by the fact
that it permits of so much variation in its objects and such a
cheapening of them - which hunger, with its far more energetic
retention of its objects, would only permit in the most extreme
instances. A similar consideration applies to sexual intercourse
with animals, which is by no means rare, especially among country
people, and in which sexual attraction seems to override the
barriers of species.
One would be glad on aesthetic
grounds to be able to ascribe these and other severe aberrations of
the sexual instinct to insanity; but that cannot be done.
Experience shows that disturbances of the sexual instinct among the
insane do not differ from those that occur among the healthy and in
whole races or occupations. Thus the sexual abuse of children is
found with uncanny frequency among school teachers and child
attendants, simply because they have the best opportunity for it.
The insane merely exhibit any such aberration to an intensified
degree; or, what is particularly significant, it may become
exclusive and replace normal sexual satisfaction entirely.
The very remarkable relation
which thus holds between sexual variations and the descending scale
from health to insanity gives us plenty of material for thought. I
am inclined to believe that it may be explained by the fact that
the impulses of sexual life are among those which, even normally,
are the least controlled by the higher activities of the mind. In
my experience anyone who is in any way, whether socially or
ethically, abnormal mentally is invariably abnormal also in his
sexual life. But many people are abnormal in their sexual life who
in every other respect approximate to the average, and have, along
with the rest, passed through the process of human cultural
development, in which sexuality remains the weak spot.
The most general conclusion that
follows from all these discussions seems, however, to be this.
Under a great number of conditions and in surprisingly numerous
individuals, the nature and importance of the sexual object recedes
into the background. What is essential and constant in the sexual
instinct is something else.¹
¹
[
Footnote added
1910:] The most
striking distinction between the erotic life of antiquity and our
own no doubt lies in the fact that the ancients laid the stress
upon the instinct itself, whereas we emphasize its object. The
ancients glorified the instinct and were prepared on its account to
honour even an inferior object; while we despise the instinctual
activity in itself, and find excuses for it only in the merits of
the object.
Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality
1476
(2)
DEVIATIONS IN RESPECT OF THE SEXUAL AIM
The normal sexual aim is regarded
as being the union of the genitals in the act known as copulation,
which leads to a release of the sexual tension and a temporary
extinction of the sexual instinct - a satisfaction analogous to the
sating of hunger. But even in the most normal sexual process we may
detect rudiments which, if they had developed, would have led to
the deviations described as ‘perversions’. For there
are certain intermediate relations to the sexual object, such as
touching and looking at it, which lie on the road towards
copulation and are recognized as being preliminary sexual aims. On
the one hand these activities are themselves accompanied by
pleasure, and on the other hand they intensify the excitation,
which should persist until the final sexual aim is attained.
Moreover, the kiss, one particular contact of this kind, between
the mucous membrane of the lips of the two people concerned, is
held in high sexual esteem among many nations (including the most
highly civilized ones), in spite of the fact that the parts of the
body involved do not form part of the sexual apparatus but
constitute the entrance to the digestive tract. Here, then, are
factors which provide a point of contact between the perversions
and normal sexual life and which can also serve as a basis for
their classification. Perversions are sexual activities which
either (
a
) extend, in an anatomical sense, beyond the
regions of the body that are designed for sexual union, or
(
b
) linger over the intermediate relations to the sexual
object which should normally be traversed rapidly on the path
towards the final sexual aim.
Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality
1477
(A) ANATOMICAL EXTENSIONS
OVERVALUATION OF
THE SEXUAL OBJECT
It is only in the rarest
instances that the psychical
valuation that is set on the sexual object, as being the goal of
the sexual instinct, stops short at its genitals. The appreciation
extends to the whole body of the sexual object and tends to involve
every sensation derived from it. The same overvaluation spreads
over into the psychological sphere: the subject becomes, as it
were, intellectually infatuated (that is, his powers of judgement
are weakened) by the mental achievements and perfections of the
sexual object and he submits to the latter’s judgements with
credulity. Thus the credulity of love becomes in important, if not
the most fundamental, source of
authority
.¹
This sexual overvaluation is
something that cannot be easily reconciled with a restriction of
the sexual aim to union of the actual genitals and it helps to turn
activities connected with other parts of the body into sexual
aims.²
The significance of the factor of
sexual overvaluation can be best studied in men, for their erotic
life alone has become accessible to research. That of women -
partly owing to the stunting effect of civilized conditions and
partly owing to their conventional secretiveness and insincerity -
is still veiled in an impenetrable obscurity.³
¹
In this connection I cannot help recalling
the credulous submissive less shown by a hypnotized subject towards
his hypnotist. This leads one to suspect that the essence of
hypnosis lies in an unconscious fixation of the subject’s
libido to the figure of the hypnotist, through the medium of the
masochistic components of the sexual instinct. [
Added
1910:]
Ferenczi (1909) has brought this characteristic of suggestibility
into relation with the ‘parental complex’.
²
It must be pointed out, however, that
sexual overvaluation is not developed in the case of
every
mechanism of object-choice. We shall become acquainted later on
with another and more direct explanation of the sexual role assumed
by the other parts of the body. The factor of ‘craving for
stimulation’ has been put forward by Noche and Bloch as an
explanation of the extension of sexual interest to parts of the
body other than the genitals; but it does not seem to me to deserve
such an important place. The various channels along which the
libido passes are related to each other from the very first like
inter-communicating pipes, and we must take the phenomenon of
collateral flow into account.
³
[
Footnote added
1920:] In typical
cases women fail to exhibit any sexual overvaluation towards men;
but they scarcely ever fail to do so towards their own
children.
Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality
1478
SEXUAL USE OF
THE MUCOUS MEMBRANE OF THE LIPS AND MOUTH
The
use of the mouth as a
sexual
organ is regarded as a perversion if the lips (or tongue) of one
person are brought into contact with the genitals of another, but
not if the mucous membranes of the lips of both of them come
together. This exception is the point of contact with what is
normal. Those who condemn the other practices (which have no doubt
been common among mankind from primaeval times) as being
perversions, are giving way to an unmistakable feeling of
disgust
, which protects them from accepting sexual aims of
the kind. The limits of such disgust are, however, often purely
conventional: a man who will kiss a pretty girl’s lips
passionately, may perhaps be disgusted at the idea of using her
tooth-brush, though there are no grounds for supposing that his own
oral cavity, for which he feels no disgust, is any cleaner than the
girl’s. Here, then, our attention is drawn to the factor of
disgust, which interferes with the libidinal overvaluation of the
sexual object but can in turn be overridden by libido. Disgust
seems to be one of the forces which have led to a restriction of
the sexual aim. These forces do not as a rule extend to the
genitals themselves. But there is no doubt that the genitals of the
opposite sex can in themselves be an object of disgust and that
such an attitude is one of the characteristics of all hysterics,
and especially of hysterical women. The sexual instinct in its
strength enjoys overriding this disgust. (See below.)
Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality
1479
SEXUAL USE OF
THE ANAL ORIFICE
Where the anus is concerned it
becomes still clearer that it
is disgust which stamps that sexual aim as a perversion. I hope,
however, I shall not be accused of partisanship when I assert that
people who try to account for this disgust by saying that the organ
in question serves the function of excretion and comes in contact
with excrement - a thing which is disgusting in itself - are not
much more to the point than hysterical girls who account for their
disgust at the male genital by saying that it serves to void
urine.
The playing of a sexual part by
the mucous membrane of the anus is by no means limited to
intercourse between men: preference for it is in no way
characteristic of inverted feeling. On the contrary, it seems that
paedecatio
with a male owes its origin to an analogy with a
similar act performed with a woman; while mutual masturbation is
the sexual aim most often found in intercourse between inverts.