Freud - Complete Works (261 page)
SIGNIFICANCE OF
OTHER REGIONS OF THE BODY
The extension of
sexual interest to other
regions of the body, with all its variations, offers us nothing
that is new in principle; it adds nothing to our knowledge of the
sexual instinct, which merely proclaims its intention in this way
of getting possession of the sexual object in every possible
direction. But these anatomical extensions inform us that, besides
sexual overvaluation, there is a second factor at work which is
strange to popular knowledge. Certain regions of the body, such as
the mucous membrane of the mouth and anus, which are constantly
appearing in these practices, seem, as it were, to be claiming that
they should themselves be regarded and treated as genitals. We
shall learn later that this claim is justified by the history of
the development of the sexual instinct and that it is fulfilled in
the symptomatology of certain pathological states.
Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality
1480
UNSUITABLE
SUBSTITUTES FOR THE SEXUAL OBJECT - FETISHISM
There are some cases
which are quite specially remarkable - those in which the normal
sexual object is replaced by another which bears some relation to
it, but is entirely unsuited to serve the normal sexual aim. From
the point of view of classification, we should no doubt have done
better to have mentioned this highly interesting group of
aberrations of the sexual instinct among the deviations in respect
of the sexual
object
. But we have postponed their mention
till we could become acquainted with the factor of sexual
overvaluation, on which these phenomena, being connected with an
abandonment of the sexual aim, are dependent.
What is substituted for the
sexual object is some part of the body (such as the foot or hair)
which is in general very inappropriate for sexual purposes, or some
inanimate object which bears an assignable relation to the person
whom it replaces and preferably to that person’s sexuality
(e.g. a piece of clothing or underlinen ). Such substitutes are
with some justice likened to the fetishes in which savages believe
that their gods are embodied.
A transition to those cases of
fetishism in which the sexual aim, whether normal or perverse, is
entirely abandoned is afforded by other cases in which the sexual
object is required to fulfil a fetishistic condition - such as the
possession of some particular hair-colouring or clothing, or even
some bodily defect if the sexual aim is to be attained. No other
variation of the sexual instinct that borders on the pathological
can lay so much claim to our interest as this one, such is the
peculiarity of the phenomena to which it gives rise. Some degree of
diminution in the urge towards the normal sexual aim (an executive
weakness of the sexual apparatus) seems to be a necessary
precondition in every case.¹ The point of contact with the
normal is provided by the psychologically essential overvaluation
of the sexual object, which inevitably extends to everything that
is associated with it. A certain degree of fetishism is thus
habitually present in normal love, especially in those stages of it
in which the normal sexual aim seems unattainable or its fulfilment
prevented:
Schaff’ mir ein Halstuch von ihrer Brust,
Ein Strumpfband meiner Liebeslust!
²
¹
[
Footnote added
1915:] This weakness
would represent the
constitutional
precondition.
Psycho-analysis has found that the phenomenon can also be
accidentally
determined, by the occurrence of an early
deterrence from sexual activity owing to fear, which may divert the
subject from the normal sexual aim and encourage him to seek a
substitute for it.
²
[ Get me a kerchief from her
breast,
A
garter that her knee has pressed.]
Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality
1481
The situation only becomes
pathological when the longing for the fetish passes beyond the
point of being merely a necessary condition attached to the sexual
object and actually
takes the place
of the normal aim, and,
further, when the fetish becomes detached from a particular
individual and becomes the
sole
sexual object. These are,
indeed, the general conditions under which mere variations of the
sexual instinct pass over into pathological aberrations.
Binet (1888) was the first to
maintain (what has since been confirmed by a quantity of evidence)
that the choice of a fetish is an after-effect of some sexual
impression received as a rule in early childhood. (This may be
brought into line with the proverbial durability of first loves:
on revient toujours à ses premiers amours
.) This
derivation is particularly obvious in cases where there is merely a
fetishistic condition attached to the sexual object. We shall come
across the importance of early sexual impressions again in another
connection.¹
¹
[
Footnote added
1920:] Deeper-going
psycho-analytic research has raised a just criticism of
Binet’s assertion. All the observations dealing with this
point have recorded a first meeting with the fetish at which it
already aroused sexual interest without there being anything in the
accompanying circumstances to explain the fact. Moreover, all of
these ‘early’ sexual impressions relate to a time after
the age of five or six, whereas psycho-analysis makes it doubtful
whether fresh pathological fixations can occur so late as this. The
true explanation is that behind the first recollection of the
fetish’s appearance there lies a submerged and forgotten
phase of sexual development. The fetish, like a ‘screen
memory’, represents this phase and is thus a remnant and
precipitate of it. The fact that this early infantile phase turns
in the direction of fetishism, as well as the choice of the fetish
itself, are constitutionally determined.
Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality
1482
In other cases the replacement of
the object by a fetish is determined by a symbolic connection of
thought, of which the person concerned is usually not conscious. It
is not always possible to trace the course of these connections
with certainty (The foot, for instance, is an age-old sexual symbol
which occurs even in mythology;¹ no doubt the part played by
fur as a fetish owes its origin to an association with the hair of
the
mons Veneris
.) None the less even symbolism such as this
is not always unrelated to sexual experiences in
childhood.²
¹
[
Footnote added
1910:] The shoe or
slipper is a corresponding symbol of the
female
genitals.
²
Psycho-analysis has cleared up one
of the remaining gaps in our understanding of fetishism. It has
shown the importance, as regards the choice of a fetish, of a
coprophilic pleasure in smelling which has disappeared owing to
repression. Both the feet and the hair are objects with a strong
smell which have been exalted into fetishes after the olfactory
sensation has become unpleasurable and been abandoned. Accordingly,
in the perversion that corresponds to foot fetishism, it is only
dirty and evil-smelling feet that become sexual objects. Another
factor that helps towards explaining the fetishistic preference for
the foot is to be found among the sexual theories of children (see
below
p. 1514
): the foot represents a
woman’s penis, the absence of which is deeply felt.
[
Added
1915:] In a number of cases of foot-fetishism it has
been possible to show that the scopophilic instinct, seeking to
reach its object (originally the genitals) from underneath, was
brought to a halt in its pathway by prohibition and repression. For
that reason it became attached to a fetish in the form of a foot or
shoe, the female genitals (in accordance with the expectations of
childhood/children) being imagined as male ones.
Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality
1483
(B) FIXATIONS OF PRELIMINARY SEXUAL
AIMS
APPEARANCE OF
NEW AIMS
Every external or internal factor that
hinders or postpones the
attainment of the normal sexual aim (such as impotence, the high
price of the sexual object or the danger of the sexual act) will
evidently lend support to the tendency to linger over the
preparatory activities and to turn them into new sexual aims that
can take the place of the normal one. Attentive examination always
shows that even what seem to be the strangest of these new aims are
already hinted at in the normal sexual process.
TOUCHING AND
LOOKING
A certain amount of touching is
indispensable (at all events among
human
beings) before the normal sexual aim can be attained. And everyone
knows what a source of pleasure on the one hand and what an influx
of fresh excitation on the other is afforded by tactile sensations
of the skin of the sexual object. So that lingering over the stage
of touching can scarcely be counted a perversion, provided that in
the long run the sexual act is carried further.
The same holds true of seeing -
an activity that is ultimately derived from touching. Visual
impressions remain the most frequent pathway along which libidinal
excitation is aroused; indeed, natural selection counts upon the
accessibility of this pathway - if such a teleological form of
statement is permissible - when it encourages the development of
beauty in the sexual object. The progressive concealment of the
body which goes along with civilization keeps sexual curiosity
awake. This curiosity seeks to complete the sexual object by
revealing its hidden parts. It can, however, be diverted
(‘sublimated’) in the direction of art, if its interest
can be shifted away from the genitals on to the shape of the body
as a whole.¹ It is usual for most normal people to linger to
some extent over the intermediate sexual aim of a looking that has
a sexual tinge to it; indeed, this offers them a possibility of
directing some proportion of their libido on to higher artistic
aims. On the other hand, this pleasure in looking becomes a
perversion (
a
) if it is restricted exclusively to the
genitals, or (
b
) if it is connected with the overriding of
disgust (as in the case of
voyeurs
or people who look on at
excretory functions), or (
c
) if, instead of being
preparatory
to the normal sexual aim, it supplants it. This
last is markedly true of exhibitionists, who, if I may trust the
findings of several analyses, exhibit their own genitals in order
to obtain a reciprocal view of the genitals of the other
person.²
In the perversions which are directed
towards looking and being looked at, we come across a very
remarkable characteristic with which we shall be still more
intensely concerned in the aberration that we shall consider next:
in these perversions the sexual aim occurs in two forms, an
active
and a
passive
one.
The force which opposes
scopophilia, but which may be overridden by it (in a manner
parallel to what we have previously seen in the case of disgust),
is
shame
.
¹
[
Footnote added
1915:] There is to
my mind no doubt that the concept of ‘beautiful’ has
its roots in sexual excitation and that its original meaning was
‘sexually stimulating’. This is related to the fact
that we never regard the genitals themselves, which produce the
strongest sexual excitation, as really
‘beautiful’.
²
[
Footnote added
1920:] Under
analysis, these perversions - and indeed most others - reveal a
surprising variety of motives and determinants. The compulsion to
exhibit, for instance, is also closely dependent on the castration
complex: it is a means of constantly insisting upon the integrity
of the subject’s own (male) genitals and it reiterates his
infantile satisfaction at the absence of a penis in those of
women.
Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality
1484
SADISM AND
MASOCHISM
The most common and the most
significant of all the perversions -
the desire to inflict pain upon the sexual object, and its reverse
- received from Krafft-Ebing the names of ‘sadism’ and
‘masochism’ for its active and passive forms
respectively. Other writers have preferred the narrower term
‘algolagnia’. This emphasizes the pleasure in
pain
, the cruelty; whereas the names chosen by Krafft-Ebing
bring into prominence the pleasure in any form of humiliation or
subjection.
As regards active algolagnia,
sadism, the roots are easy to detect in the normal. The sexuality
of most male human beings contains an element of
aggressiveness
- a desire to subjugate; the biological
significance of it seems to lie in the need for overcoming the
resistance of the sexual object by means other than the process of
wooing. Thus sadism would correspond to an aggressive component of
the sexual instinct which has become independent and exaggerated
and, by displacement, has usurped the leading position.