Freud - Complete Works (270 page)
Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality
1523
It does not seem to me possible
at present to state these general conclusions with any greater
clarity or certainty. For this I think two factors are responsible:
first, the novelty of the whole method of approach to the subject,
and secondly, the fact that the whole nature of sexual excitation
is completely unknown to us. Nevertheless I am tempted to make two
observations which promise to open out wide future prospects:
VARIETIES OF
SEXUAL CONSTITUTION
(
a
)
Just as we saw previously that it was
possible to derive a multiplicity of innate sexual constitutions
from variety in the development of the erotogenic zones, so we can
now make a similar attempt by including the
indirect
sources
of sexual excitation. It may be assumed that, although
contributions are made from these sources in the case of everyone,
they are not in all cases of equal strength, and that further help
towards the differentiation of sexual constitutions may be found in
the varying development of the individual sources of sexual
excitation.¹
PATHWAYS OF
MUTUAL INFLUENCE
(
b
) If we now drop the figurative expression that we
have so long adopted in speaking of the ‘sources’ of
sexual excitation, we are led to the suspicion that all the
connecting pathways that lead from other functions to sexuality
must also be traversable in the reverse direction. If, for
instance, the common possession of the labial zone by the two
functions is the reason why sexual satisfaction arises during the
taking of nourishment, then the same factor also enables us to
understand why there should be disorders of nutrition if the
erotogenic functions of the common zone are disturbed. Or again, if
we know that concentration of attention may give rise to sexual
excitation, it seems plausible to assume that by making use of the
same path, but in a contrary direction, the condition of sexual
excitation may influence the possibility of directing the
attention. A good portion of the symptomatology of the neuroses,
which I have traced to disturbances of the sexual processes, is
expressed in disturbances of other, non-sexual, somatic functions;
and this circumstance, which has hitherto been unintelligible,
becomes less puzzling if it is only the counterpart of the
influences which bring about the production of sexual
excitation.
The same pathways, however, along
which sexual disturbances trench upon the other somatic functions
must also perform another important function in normal health. They
must serve as paths for the attraction of sexual instinctual forces
to aims that are other than sexual, that is to say, for the
sublimation of sexuality. But we must end with a confession that
very little is as yet known with certainty of these pathways,
though they certainly exist and can probably be traversed in both
directions.
¹
[
Footnote added
1920:] An inevitable
consequence of these considerations is that we must regard each
individual as possessing an oral erotism, an anal erotism, a
urethral erotism, etc., and that the existence of mental complexes
corresponding to these implies no judgement of abnormality or
neurosis. The differences separating the normal from the abnormal
can lie only in the relative strength of the individual components
of the sexual instinct and in the use to which they are put in the
course of development.
Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality
1524
III
THE
TRANSFORMATIONS OF PUBERTY
With the arrival of puberty, changes set in
which are destined to give infantile sexual life its final, normal
shape. The sexual instinct has hitherto been predominantly
auto-erotic; it now finds a sexual object. Its activity has
hitherto been derived from a number of separate instincts and
erotogenic zones, which, independently of one another, have pursued
a certain sort of pleasure as their sole sexual aim. Now, however,
a new sexual aim appears, and all the component instincts combine
to attain it, while the erotogenic zones become subordinated to the
primacy of the genital zone.¹ Since the new sexual aim assigns
very different functions to the two sexes, their sexual development
now diverges greatly. That of males is the more straightforward and
the more understandable, while that of females actually enters upon
a kind of involution. A normal sexual life is only assured by an
exact convergence of the two currents directed towards the sexual
object and sexual aim, the affectionate current and the sensual
one. (The former, the affectionate current, comprises what remains
over of the infantile efflorescence of sexuality.) It is like the
completion of a tunnel which has been driven through a hill from
both directions.
The new sexual aim in men
consists in the discharge of the sexual products. The earlier one,
the attainment of pleasure, is by no means alien to it; on the
contrary, the highest degree of pleasure is attached to this final
act of the sexual process. The sexual instinct is now subordinated
to the reproductive function; it becomes, so to say, altruistic. If
this transformation is to succeed, the original dispositions and
all the other characteristics of the instincts must be taken into
account in the process. Just as on any other occasion on which the
organism should by rights make new combinations and adjustments
leading to complicated mechanisms, here too there are possibilities
of pathological disorders if these new arrangements are not carried
out. Every pathological disorder of sexual life is rightly to be
regarded as an inhibition in development.
¹
[
Footnote added
1915:] The schematic
picture which I have given in the text aims at emphasizing
differences. I have already shown on
p. 1517
the extent to which infantile
sexuality, owing to its choice of object [
added
1924:] and
to the development of the phallic phase, approximates to the final
sexual organization.
Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality
1525
THE
PRIMACY OF THE GENITAL ZONES AND FORE-PLEASURE
The starting-point and the final
aim of the process which I have described are clearly visible. The
intermediate steps are still in many ways obscure to us. We shall
have to leave more than one of them as an unsolved riddle.
The most striking of the processes at puberty
has been picked upon as constituting its essence: the manifest
growth of the external genitalia. (The latency period of childhood
is, on the other hand, characterized by a relative cessation of
their growth.) In the meantime the development of the internal
genitalia has advanced far enough for them to be able to discharge
the sexual products or, as the case may be, to bring about the
formation of a new living organism. Thus a highly complicated
apparatus has been made ready and awaits the moment of being put
into operation.
This apparatus is to be set in
motion by stimuli, and observation shows us that stimuli can
impinge on it from three directions: from the external world by
means of the excitation of the erotogenic zones with which we are
already familiar, from the organic interior by ways which we have
still to explore, and from mental life, which is itself a
storehouse for external impressions and a receiving-post for
internal excitations. All three kinds of stimuli produce the same
effect, namely a condition described as ‘sexual
excitement’, which shows itself by two sorts of indication,
mental and somatic. The mental indications consist in a peculiar
feeling of tension of an extremely compelling character; and among
the numerous somatic ones are first and foremost a number of
changes in the genitals, which have the obvious sense of being
preparations for the sexual act - the erection of the male organ
and the lubrication of the vagina.
Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality
1526
SEXUAL
TENSION
The fact that sexual excitement
possesses the character of tension raises a
problem the solution of which is no less difficult than it would be
important in helping us to understand the sexual processes. In
spite of all the differences of opinion that reign on the subject
among psychologists, I must insist that a feeling of tension
necessarily involve unpleasure. What seems to me decisive is the
fact that a feeling of this kind is accompanied by an impulsion to
make a change in the psychological situation, that it operates in
an urgent way which is wholly alien to the nature of the feeling of
pleasure. If, however, the tension of sexual excitement is counted
as an unpleasurable feeling, we are at once brought up against the
fact that it is also undoubtedly felt as pleasurable. In every case
in which tension is produced by sexual processes it is accompanied
by pleasure; even in the preparatory changes in the genitals a
feeling of satisfaction of some kind is plainly to be observed.
How, then, are this unpleasurable tension and this feeling of
pleasure to be reconciled?
Everything relating to the
problem of pleasure and unpleasure touches upon one of the sorest
spots of present-day psychology. It will be my aim to learn as much
as possible from the circumstances of the instance with which we
are at present dealing, but I shall avoid any approach to the
problem as a whole.¹
Let us begin by casting a glance
at the way in which the erotogenic zones fit themselves into the
new arrangement. They have to play an important part in introducing
sexual excitation. The eye is perhaps the zone most remote from the
sexual object, but it is the one which, in the situation of wooing
an object, is liable to be the most frequently stimulated by the
particular quality of excitation whose cause, when it occurs in a
sexual object, we describe as beauty. (For the same reason the
merits of a sexual object are described as
‘attractions’.) This stimulation is on the one hand
already accompanied by pleasure, while on the other hand it leads
to an increase of sexual excitement or produces it if it is not yet
present. If the excitation now spreads to another erotogenic zone -
to the hand, for instance, through tactile sensations - the effect
is the same: a feeling of pleasure on the one side, which is
quickly intensified by pleasure arising from the preparatory
changes, and on the other side an increase of sexual tension, which
soon passes over into the most obvious unpleasure if it cannot be
met by a further accession of pleasure. Another instance will
perhaps make this even clearer. If an erotogenic zone in a person
who is not sexually excited (e.g. the skin of a woman’s
breast) is stimulated by touch, the contact produces a pleasurable
feeling; but it is at the same time better calculated than anything
to arouse a sexual excitation that demands an increase of pleasure.
The problem is how it can come about that an experience of pleasure
can give rise to a need for greater pleasure.
¹
[
Footnote added
1924:] I have made
an attempt at solving this problem in the first part of my paper on
‘The Economic Problem of Masochism’
(1924
c
).
Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality
1527
THE MECHANISM OF
FORE-PLEASURE
The part played in this by the
erotogenic zones,
however,
is clear. What is true of one of them is true of all. They are all
used to provide a certain amount of pleasure by being stimulated in
the way appropriate to them. This pleasure then leads to an
increase in tension which in its turn is responsible for producing
the necessary motor energy for the conclusion of the sexual act.
The penultimate stage of that act is once again the appropriate
stimulation of an erotogenic zone ( the genital zone itself, in the
glans penis) by the appropriate object (the mucous membrane of the
vagina); and from the pleasure yielded by this excitation the motor
energy is obtained, this time by a reflex path, which brings about
the discharge of the sexual substances. This last pleasure is the
highest in intensity, and its mechanism differs from that of the
earlier pleasure. It is brought about entirely by discharge: it is
wholly a pleasure of satisfaction and with it the tension of the
libido is for the time being extinguished.
This distinction between the one
kind of pleasure due to the excitation of erotogenic zones and the
other kind due to the discharge of the sexual substances deserves,
I think, to be made more concrete by a difference in nomenclature.
The former may be suitably described as ‘fore-pleasure’
in contrast to the ‘end-pleasure’ or pleasure of
satisfaction derived from the sexual act. Fore-pleasure is thus the
same pleasure that has already been produced, although on a smaller
scale, by the infantile sexual instinct; end-pleasure is something
new and is thus probably conditioned by circumstances that do not
arise till puberty. The formula for the new function of the
erotogenic zones runs therefore: they are used to make possible,
through the medium of the fore-pleasure which can be derived from
them (as it was during infantile life), the production of the
greater pleasure of satisfaction.
I was able recently to throw
light upon another instance, in a quite different department of
mental life, of a slight feeling of pleasure similarly making
possible the attainment of a greater resultant pleasure, and thus
operating as an ‘incentive bonus’. In the same
connection I was also able to go more deeply into the nature of
pleasure.¹
¹
See my volume on
Jokes and their
Relation to the Unconscious
which appeared in 1905. The
‘fore-pleasure’ attained by the technique of joking is
used in order to liberate a greater pleasure derived from the
removal of internal inhibitions.
Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality
1528
DANGERS OF
FORE-PLEASURE
The connection between
fore-pleasure and infantile sexual life
is, however, made clearer by the pathogenic part which it can come
to play. The attainment of the normal sexual aim can clearly be
endangered by the mechanism in which fore-pleasure is involved.
This danger arises if at any point in the preparatory sexual
processes the fore-pleasure turns out to be too great and the
element of tension too small. The motive for proceeding further
with the sexual process then disappears, the whole path is cut
short, and the preparatory act in question takes the place of the
normal sexual aim. Experience has shown that the precondition for
this damaging event is that the erotogenic zone concerned or the
corresponding component instinct shall already during childhood
have contributed an unusual amount of pleasure. If further factors
then come into play, tending to bring about a fixation, a
compulsion may easily arise in later life which resists the
incorporation of this particular fore-pleasure into a new context.
Such is in fact the mechanism of many perversions, which consist in
a lingering over the preparatory acts of the sexual process.
This failure of the function of
the sexual mechanism owing to fore-pleasure is best avoided if the
primacy of the genitals too is adumbrated in childhood; and indeed
things seem actually arranged to bring this about in the second
half of childhood (from the age of eight to puberty). During these
years the genital zones already behave in much the same way as in
maturity; they become the seat of sensations of excitation and of
preparatory changes whenever any pleasure is felt from the
satisfaction of other erotogenic zones, though this result is still
without a purpose - that is to say, contributes nothing to a
continuation of the sexual process. Already in childhood,
therefore, alongside of the pleasure of satisfaction there is a
certain amount of sexual tension, although it is less constant and
less in quantity. We can now understand why, in discussing the
sources of sexuality, we were equally justified in saying of a
given process that it was sexually satisfying or sexually exciting.
It will be noticed that in the course of our enquiry we began by
exaggerating the distinction between infantile and mature sexual
life, and that we are now setting this right. Not only the
deviations from normal sexual life but its normal form as well are
determined by the infantile manifestations of sexuality.
Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality
1529
THE
PROBLEM OF SEXUAL EXCITATION
We remain in complete ignorance
both of the origin and of the nature of the sexual tension which
arises simultaneously with the pleasure when erotogenic zones are
satisfied.¹ The most obvious explanation, that this tension
arises in some way out of the pleasure itself, is not only
extremely improbable in itself but becomes untenable when we
consider that in connection with the greatest pleasure of all, that
which accompanies the discharge of the sexual products, no tension
is produced, but on the contrary all tension is removed. Thus
pleasure and sexual tension can only be connected in an indirect
manner.