Freud - Complete Works (269 page)

   The assumption of the existence
of pregenital organizations of sexual life is based on the analysis
of the neuroses, and without a knowledge of them can scarcely be
appreciated. Further analytic investigation may be expected to
provide us with far more information on the structure and
development of the normal sexual function.

   In order to complete our picture
of infantile sexual life, we must also suppose that the choice of
an object, such as we have shown to be characteristic of the
pubertal phase of development, has already frequently or habitually
been effected during the years of childhood: that is to say, the
whole of the sexual currents have become directed towards a single
person in relation to whom they seek to achieve their aims. This
then is the closest approximation possible in childhood to the
final form taken by sexual life after puberty. The only difference
lies in the fact that in childhood the combination of the component
instincts and their subordination under the primacy of the genitals
have been effected only very incompletely or not at all. Thus the
establishment of that primacy in the service of reproduction is the
last phase through which the organization of sexuality
passes.¹

  
¹
[
Footnote added
1924:] At a later
date (1923), I myself modified this account by inserting a third
phase in the development of childhood, subsequent to the two
pregenital organizations. This phase, which already deserves to be
described as genital, presents a sexual object and some degree of
convergence of the sexual impulses upon that object; but it is
differentiated from the final organization of sexual maturity in
one essential respect. For it knows only one kind of genital: the
male one. For that reason I have named it the ‘phallic’
stage of organization. (Freud, 1923
e
.) According to Abraham,
it has a biological prototype in the embryo’s
undifferentiated genital disposition, which is the same for both
sexes.

Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality

1518

DIPHASIC CHOICE OF
OBJECT
   It may be regarded as typical of the
choice of an object that the

                             
                    process
is diphasic, that is, that it occurs in two waves. The first of
these begins between the ages of two and five, and is brought to a
halt or to a retreat by the latency period; it is characterized by
the infantile nature of the sexual aims. The second wave sets in
with puberty and determines the final outcome of sexual life.

   Although the diphasic nature of
object-choice comes down in essentials to no more than the
operation of the latency period, it is of the highest importance in
regard to disturbances of that final outcome. The resultants of
infantile object-choice are carried over into the later period.
They either persist as such or are revived at the actual time of
puberty. But as a consequence of the repression which has developed
between the two phases they prove unutilizable. Their sexual aims
have become mitigated and they now represent what may be described
as the ‘affectionate current’ of sexual life. Only
psycho-analytic investigation can show that behind this affection,
admiration and respect there lie concealed the old sexual longings
of the infantile component instincts which have now become
unserviceable. The object-choice of the pubertal period is obliged
to dispense with the objects of childhood and to start afresh as a
‘sensual current’. Should these two currents fail to
converge, the result is often that one of the ideals of sexual
life, the focusing of all desires upon a single object, will be
unattainable.

Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality

1519

THE
SOURCES OF INFANTILE SEXUALITY

   Our efforts to trace the origins
of the sexual instinct have shown us so far that sexual excitation
arises (
a
) as a reproduction of a satisfaction experienced
in connection with other organic processes, (
b
) 
through appropriate peripheral stimulation of erotogenic zones and
(
c
) as an expression of certain ‘instincts’
(such as the scopophilic instinct and the instinct of cruelty) of
which the origin is not yet completely intelligible.
Psycho-analytic investigation, reaching back into childhood from a
later time, and contemporary observation of children combine to
indicate to us still other regularly active sources of sexual
excitation. The direct observation of children has the disadvantage
of working upon data which are easily misunderstandable;
psycho-analysis is made difficult by the fact that it can only
reach its data, as well as its conclusions, after long detours. But
by co-operation the two methods can attain a satisfactory degree of
certainty in their findings.

   We have already discovered in
examining the erotogenic zones that these regions of the skin
merely show a special intensification of a kind of susceptibility
to stimulus which is possessed in a certain degree by the whole
cutaneous surface. We shall therefore not be surprised to find that
very definite erotogenic effects are to be ascribed to certain
kinds of general stimulation of the skin. Among these we may
especially mention thermal stimuli, whose importance may help us to
understand the therapeutic effects of warm baths.

Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality

1520

MECHANICAL
EXCITATIONS
   At this point we must also mention
the production of sexual

                                             
excitation by rhythmic mechanical agitation of the body. Stimuli of
this kind operate in three different ways: on the sensory apparatus
of the vestibular nerves, on the skin, and on the deeper parts
(e.g. the muscles and articular structures). The existence of these
pleasurable sensations - and it is worth emphasizing the fact that
in this connection the concepts of ‘sexual excitation’
and ‘satisfaction’ can to a great extent be used
without distinction, a circumstance which we must later endeavour
to explain - the existence, then, of these pleasurable sensations,
caused by forms of mechanical agitation of the body, is confirmed
by the fact that children are so fond of games of passive movement,
such as swinging and being thrown up into the air, and insist on
such games being incessantly repeated.¹ It is well known that
rocking is habitually used to induce sleep in restless children.
The shaking produced by driving in carriages and later by
railway-travel exercises such a fascinating effect upon older
children that every boy, at any rate, has at one time or other in
his life wanted to be an engine driver or a coachman. It is a
puzzling fact that boys take such an extraordinarily intense
interest in things connected with railways, and, at the age at
which the production of phantasies is most active (shortly before
puberty), use those things as the nucleus of a symbolism that is
peculiarly sexual. A compulsive link of this kind between
railway-travel and sexuality is clearly derived from the
pleasurable character of the sensations of movement. In the event
of repression, which turns so many childish preferences into their
opposite, these same individuals, when they are adolescents or
adults, will react to rocking or swinging with a feeling of nausea,
will be terribly exhausted by a railway journey, or will be subject
to attacks of anxiety on the journey and will protect themselves
against a repetition of the painful experience by a dread of
railway-travel.

   Here again we must mention the
fact, which is not yet understood, that the combination of fright
and mechanical agitation produces the severe, hysteriform,
traumatic neurosis. It may at least be assumed that these
influences, which, when they are of small intensity, become sources
of sexual excitation, lead to a profound disorder in the sexual
mechanism or chemistry if they operate with exaggerated force.

  
¹
Some people can remember that in swinging
they felt the impact of moving air upon their genitals as an
immediate sexual pleasure.

Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality

1521

MUSCULAR
ACTIVITY
   We are all familiar with the fact that
children feel a need for a large

                                    
amount of active muscular exercise and derive extraordinary
pleasure from satisfying it. Whether this pleasure has any
connection with sexuality, whether it itself comprises sexual
satisfaction or whether it can become the occasion of sexual
excitation - all of this is open to critical questioning, which may
indeed also be directed against the view maintained in the previous
paragraphs that the pleasure derived from sensations of
passive
movement is of a sexual nature or may produce sexual
excitation. It is, however, a fact that a number of people report
that they experienced the first signs of excitement in their
genitals while they were romping or wrestling with playmates - a
situation in which, apart from general muscular exertion, there is
a large amount of contact with the skin of the opponent. An
inclination to physical struggles with some one particular person,
just as in later years an inclination to
verbal
disputes,¹ is a convincing sign that object-choice has fallen
on him. One of the roots of the sadistic instinct would seem to lie
in the encouragement of sexual excitation by muscular activity. In
many people the infantile connection between romping and sexual
excitation is among the determinants of the direction subsequently
taken by their sexual instinct.²

AFFECTIVE
PROCESSES
   The further sources of sexual
excitation in children are open to less

                                        
doubt. It is easy to establish, whether by contemporary observation
or by subsequent research, that all comparatively intense affective
processes, including even terrifying ones, trench upon sexuality -
a fact which may incidentally help to explain the pathogenic effect
of emotions of that kind. In schoolchildren dread of going in for
an examination or tension over a difficult piece of work can be
important not only in affecting the child’s relations at
school but also in bringing about an irruption of sexual
manifestations. For quite often in such circumstances a stimulus
may be felt which urges the child to touch his genitals, or
something may take place akin to a nocturnal emission with all its
bewildering consequences. The behaviour of children at school,
which confronts a teacher with plenty of puzzles, deserves in
general to be brought into relation with their budding sexuality.
The sexually exciting effect of many emotions which are in
themselves unpleasurable, such as feelings of apprehension, fright
or horror, persists in a great number of people throughout their
adult life. There is no doubt that this is the explanation of why
so many people seek opportunities for sensations of this kind,
subject to the proviso that the seriousness of the unpleasurable
feeling is damped down by certain qualifying facts, such as its
occurring in an imaginary world, in a book or in a play.

   If we assume that a similar
erotogenic effect attaches even to intensely painful feelings,
especially when the pain is toned down or kept at a distance by
some accompanying condition, we should here have one of the main
roots of the masochistic-sadistic instinct, into whose numerous
complexities we are very gradually gaining some insight.³

INTELLECTUAL
WORK
   Finally, it is an unmistakable fact that
concentration of the attention upon

                                     
an intellectual task and intellectual strain in general produce a
concomitant sexual excitation in many young people as well as
adults. This is no doubt the only justifiable basis for what is in
other respects the questionable practice of ascribing nervous
disorders to intellectual ‘overwork’.

  
¹
‘Was sich liebt, das neckt
sich.’ [Lovers’ quarrels are proverbial.]

  
²
[
Footnote added
1910:] The analysis
of cases of neurotic abasia and agoraphobia removes all doubt as to
the sexual nature of pleasure in movement. Modern education, as we
know, makes great use of games in order to divert young people from
sexual activity. It would be more correct to say that in these
young people it replaces sexual enjoyment by pleasure in movement -
and forces sexual activity back to one of its auto-erotic
components.

  
³
[
Footnote added
1924:] I am here
referring to what is known as ‘erotogenic’
masochism.

Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality

1522

   If we now cast our eyes over the
tentative suggestions which I have made as to the sources of
infantile sexual excitation, though I have not described them
completely nor enumerated them fully, the following conclusions
emerge with more or less certainty. It seems that the fullest
provisions are made for setting in motion the process of sexual
excitation - a process the nature of which has, it must be
confessed, become highly obscure to us. The setting in motion of
this process is first and foremost provided for in a more or less
direct fashion by the excitations of the sensory surfaces - the
skin and the sense organs - and, most directly of all, by the
operation of stimuli on certain areas known as erotogenic zones.
The decisive element in these sources of sexual excitation is no
doubt the
quality
of the stimuli, though the factor of
intensity, in the case of pain, is not a matter of complete
indifference. But apart from these sources there are present in the
organism contrivances which bring it about that in the case of a
great number of internal processes sexual excitation arises as a
concomitant effect, as soon as the intensity of those processes
passes beyond certain quantitative limits. What we have called the
component instincts of sexuality are either derived directly from
these internal sources or are composed of elements both from those
sources and from the erotogenic zones. It may well be that nothing
of considerable importance can occur in the organism without
contributing some component to the excitation of the sexual
instinct.