Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex Part 4

*Thumbsucking.*--Thumbsucking, which manifests itself in the nursing baby and which may be continued till maturity or throughout life, consists in a rhythmic repet.i.tion of sucking contact with the mouth (the lips), wherein the purpose of taking nourishment is excluded. A part of the lip itself, the tongue, which is another preferable skin region within reach, and even the big toe--may be taken as objects for sucking.

Simultaneously, there is also a desire to grasp things, which manifests itself in a rhythmical pulling of the ear lobe and which may cause the child to grasp a part of another person (generally the ear) for the same purpose. The pleasure-sucking is connected with an entire exhaustion of attention and leads to sleep or even to a motor reaction in the form of an o.r.g.a.s.m.[10] Pleasure-sucking is often combined with a rubbing contact with certain sensitive parts of the body, such as the breast and external genitals. It is by this road that many children go from thumb-sucking to masturbation.

Lindner himself has recognized the s.e.xual nature of this action and openly emphasized it. In the nursery thumbsucking is often treated in the same way as any other s.e.xual "naughtiness" of the child. A very strong objection was raised against this view by many pediatrists and neurologists which in part is certainly due to the confusion of the terms "s.e.xual" and "genital." This contradiction raises the difficult question, which cannot be rejected, namely, in what general traits do we wish to recognize the s.e.xual manifestations of the child. I believe that the a.s.sociation of the manifestations into which we gained an insight through psychoa.n.a.lytic investigation justify us in claiming thumbsucking as a s.e.xual activity and in studying through it the essential features of the infantile s.e.xual activity.

*Autoerotism.*--It is our duty here to arrange this state of affairs differently. Let us insist that the most striking character of this s.e.xual activity is that the impulse is 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 finds the gratification in the simplest way. It is also easy to conjecture on what occasions the child first experienced this pleasure which it now strives to renew. The first and most important activity in the child's life, the sucking from the mother's breast (or its subst.i.tute), must have acquainted it with this pleasure. We would say that the child's lips behaved like an _erogenous zone_, and that the excitement through the warm stream of milk was really the cause of the pleasurable sensation. To be sure, the gratification of the erogenous zone was at first united with the gratification of taking nourishment. He who sees a satiated child sink back from the mother's breast, and fall asleep with reddened cheeks and blissful smile, will have to admit that this picture remains as typical of the expression of s.e.xual gratification in later life. But the desire for repet.i.tion of the s.e.xual gratification is separated from the desire for taking nourishment; a separation which becomes unavoidable with the appearance of the teeth when the nourishment is no longer sucked in but chewed. The child does not make use of a strange object for sucking but prefers its own skin because it is more convenient, because it thus makes itself independent of the outer world which it cannot yet control, and because in this way it creates for itself, as it were, a second, even if an inferior, erogenous zone. The inferiority of this second region urges it later to seek the same parts, the lips of another person. ("It is a pity that I cannot kiss myself," might be attributed to it.)

Not all children suck their thumbs. It may be a.s.sumed that it is found only in children in whom the erogenous significance of the lip-zone is const.i.tutionally reenforced. Children in whom this is retained are habitual kissers as adults and show a tendency to perverse kissing, or as men they have a marked desire for drinking and smoking. But if repression comes into play they experience disgust for eating and evince hysterical vomiting. By virtue of the community of the lip-zone the repression encroaches upon the impulse of nourishment. Many of my female patients showing disturbances in eating, such as hysterical globus, choking sensations, and vomiting, have been energetic thumbsuckers during infancy.

In the thumbsucking or pleasure-sucking we have already been able to observe the three essential characters of an infantile s.e.xual manifestation. The latter has its origin in conjunction with a bodily function which is very important for life, it does not yet know any s.e.xual object, it is _autoerotic_ and its s.e.xual aim is under the control of an _erogenous zone_. Let us a.s.sume for the present that these characters also hold true for most of the other activities of the infantile s.e.xual impulse.

THE s.e.xUAL AIM OF THE INFANTILE s.e.xUALITY

*The Characters of the Erogenous Zones.*--From the example of thumbsucking we may gather a great many points useful for the distinguishing of an erogenous zone. It is a portion of skin or mucous membrane in which the stimuli produce a feeling of pleasure of definite quality. There is no doubt that the pleasure-producing stimuli are governed by special determinants which we do not know. The rhythmic characters must play some part in them and this strongly suggests an a.n.a.logy to tickling. It does not, however, appear so certain whether the character of the pleasurable feeling evoked by the stimulus can be designated as "peculiar," and in what part of this peculiarity the s.e.xual factor exists. Psychology is still groping in the dark when it concerns matters of pleasure and pain, and the most cautious a.s.sumption is therefore the most advisable. We may perhaps later come upon reasons which seem to support the peculiar quality of the sensation of pleasure.

The erogenous quality may adhere most notably to definite regions of the body. As is shown by the example of thumbsucking, there are predestined erogenous zones. But the same example also shows that any other region of skin or mucous membrane may a.s.sume the function of an erogenous zone; it must therefore carry along a certain adaptability. The production of the sensation of pleasure therefore depends more on the quality of the stimulus than on the nature of the bodily region. The thumbsucking child looks around on his body and selects any portion of it for pleasure-sucking, and becoming accustomed to it, he then prefers it. If he accidentally strikes upon a predestined region, such as breast, nipple or genitals, it naturally has the preference. A quite a.n.a.logous tendency to displacement is again found in the symptomatology of hysteria. In this neurosis the repression mostly concerns the genital zones proper; these in turn transmit their excitation to the other erogenous zones, usually dormant in mature life, which then behave exactly like genitals. But besides this, just as in thumbsucking, any other region of the body may become endowed with the excitation of the genitals and raised to an erogenous zone. Erogenous and hysterogenous zones show the same characters.[12]

*The Infantile s.e.xual Aim.*--The s.e.xual aim of the infantile impulse consists in the production of gratification through the proper excitation of this or that selected erogenous zone. In order to leave a desire for its repet.i.tion this gratification must have been previously experienced, and we may be sure that nature has devised definite means so as not to leave this occurrence to mere chance. The arrangement which has fulfilled this purpose for the lip-zone we have already discussed; it is the simultaneous connection of this part of the body with the taking of nourishment. We shall also meet other similar mechanisms as sources of s.e.xuality. The state of desire for repet.i.tion of gratification can be recognized through a peculiar feeling of tension which in itself is rather of a painful character, and through a centrally-determined feeling of itching or sensitiveness which is projected into the peripheral erogenous zone. The s.e.xual aim may therefore be formulated as follows: the chief object is to subst.i.tute for the projected feeling of sensitiveness in the erogenous zone that outer stimulus which removes the feeling of sensitiveness by evoking the feeling of gratification. This external stimulus consists usually in a manipulation which is a.n.a.logous to sucking.

It is in full accord with our physiological knowledge if the desire happens to be awakened also peripherally through an actual change in the erogenous zone. The action is puzzling only to some extent as one stimulus for its suppression seems to want another applied to the same place.

THE MASTURBATIC s.e.xUAL MANIFESTATIONS[13]

It is a matter of great satisfaction to know that there is nothing further of greater importance to learn about the s.e.xual activity of the child after the impulse of one erogenous zone has become comprehensible to us. The most p.r.o.nounced differences are found in the action necessary for the gratification, which consists in sucking for the lip zone and which must be replaced by other muscular actions according to the situation and nature of the other zones.

*The Activity of the a.n.a.l Zone.*--Like the lip zone the a.n.a.l zone is, through its position, adapted to conduct the s.e.xuality to the other functions of the body. It should be a.s.sumed that the erogenous significance of this region of the body was originally very large.

Through psychoa.n.a.lysis one finds, not without surprise, the many transformations that are normally undertaken with the usual excitations emanating from here, and that this zone often retains for life a considerable fragment of genital irritability.[14] The intestinal catarrhs so frequent during infancy produce intensive irritations in this zone, and we often hear it said that intestinal catarrh at this delicate age causes "nervousness." In later neurotic diseases they exert a definite influence on the symptomatic expression of the neurosis, placing at its disposal the whole sum of intestinal disturbances.

Considering the erogenous significance of the a.n.a.l zone which has been retained at least in transformation, one should not laugh at the hemorrhoidal influences to which the old medical literature attached so much weight in the explanation of neurotic states.

Children utilizing the erogenous sensitiveness of the a.n.a.l zone can be recognized by their holding back of fecal ma.s.ses until through acc.u.mulation there result violent muscular contractions; the pa.s.sage of these ma.s.ses through the a.n.u.s is apt to produce a marked irritation of the mucus membrane. Besides the pain this must produce also a sensation of pleasure. One of the surest premonitions of later eccentricity or nervousness is when an infant obstinately refuses to empty his bowel when placed on the chamber by the nurse and reserves this function at its own pleasure. It does not concern him that he will soil his bed; all he cares for is not to lose the subsidiary pleasure while defecating.

The educators have again the right inkling when they designate children who withhold these functions as bad. The content of the bowel which is an exciting object to the s.e.xually sensitive surface of mucous membrane behaves like the precursor of another organ which does not become active until after the phase of childhood. In addition it has other important meanings to the nursling. It is evidently treated as an additional part of the body, it represents the first "donation," the disposal of which expresses the pliability while the retention of it can express the spite of the little being towards its environment. From the idea of "donation" he later gains the meaning of the "babe" which according to one of the infantile s.e.xual theories is acquired through eating and is born through the bowel.

The retention of fecal ma.s.ses, which is at first intentional in order to utilize them, as it were, for masturbatic excitation of the a.n.a.l zone, is at least one of the roots of constipation so frequent in neuropaths.

The whole significance of the a.n.a.l zone is mirrored in the fact that there are but few neurotics who have not their special scatologic customs, ceremonies, etc., which they retain with cautious secrecy.

Real masturbatic irritation of the a.n.a.l 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 s.e.xual feeling--which, however, is destined for great things in later life. In both male and female it is connected with the voiding of urine (p.e.n.i.s, c.l.i.toris), and in the former it is enclosed in a sack of mucous membrane, probably in order not to miss the irritations caused by the secretions which may arouse the s.e.xual excitement at an early age. The s.e.xual activities of this erogenous zone, which belongs to the real genitals, are the beginning of the later normal s.e.xual life.

Owing to the anatomical position, the overflowing of secretions, the washing and rubbing of the body, and to certain accidental excitements (the wandering of intestinal worms in the girl), it happens that the pleasurable feeling which these parts of the body are capable of producing makes itself noticeable to the child even during the sucking age, and thus awakens desire for its repet.i.tion. When we review all the actual arrangements, and bear in mind that the measures for cleanliness have the same effect as the uncleanliness itself, we can then scarcely mistake nature's intention, which is to establish the future primacy of these erogenous zones for the s.e.xual activity through the infantile onanism from which hardly an individual escapes. The action of removing the stimulus and setting free the gratification consists in a rubbing contiguity with the hand or in a certain previously-formed pressure reflex effected by the closure of the thighs. The latter procedure seems to be the more primitive and is by far the more common in girls. The preference for the hand in boys already indicates what an important part of the male s.e.xual activity will be accomplished in the future by the impulse to mastery (Bemachtigungstrieb).[15] It can only help towards clearness if I state that the infantile masturbation should be divided into three phases. The first phase belongs to the nursing period, the second to the short flourishing period of s.e.xual activity at about the fourth year, only the third corresponds to the one which is often considered exclusively as onanism of p.u.b.erty.

The infantile onanism seems to disappear after a brief time, but it may continue uninterruptedly till p.u.b.erty and thus represent the first marked deviation from the development desirable for civilized man. At some time during childhood after the nursing period, the s.e.xual impulse of the genitals reawakens and continues active for some time until it is again suppressed, or it may continue without interruption. The possible relations are very diverse and can only be elucidated through a more precise a.n.a.lysis of individual cases. The details, however, of this _second_ infantile s.e.xual activity leave behind the profoundest (unconscious) impressions in the persons's memory; if the individual remains healthy they determine his character and if he becomes sick after p.u.b.erty they determine the symptomatology of his neurosis.[16] In the latter case it is found that this s.e.xual period is forgotten and the conscious reminiscences pointing to them are displaced; I have already mentioned that I would like to connect the normal infantile amnesia with this infantile s.e.xual activity. By psychoa.n.a.lytic 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 s.e.xual excitation of the nursing period returns during the designated years of childhood as a centrally determined tickling sensation demanding onanistic gratification, or as a pollution-like process which, a.n.a.logous to the pollution of maturity, may attain gratification without the aid of any action. The latter case is more frequent in girls and in the second half of childhood; its determinants are not well understood, but it often, though not regularly, seems to have as a basis a period of early active onanism. The symptomatology of this s.e.xual manifestation is poor; the genital apparatus is still undeveloped and all signs are therefore displayed by the urinary apparatus which is, so to say, the guardian of the genital apparatus. Most of the so-called bladder disturbances of this period are of a s.e.xual nature; whenever the enuresis nocturna does not represent an epileptic attack it corresponds to a pollution.

The return of the s.e.xual activity is determined by inner and outer causes which can be conjectured from the formation of the symptoms of neurotic diseases and definitely revealed by psychoa.n.a.lytic investigations. The internal causes will be discussed later, the accidental outer causes attain at this time a great and permanent significance. As the first outer cause we have the influence of seduction which prematurely treats the child as a s.e.xual object; under conditions favoring impressions this teaches the child the gratification of the genital zones, and thus usually forces it to repeat this gratification in onanism. Such influences can come from adults or other children. I cannot admit that I overestimated its frequency or its significance in my contributions to the etiology of hysteria,[17] though I did not know then that normal individuals may have the same experiences in their childhood, and hence placed a higher value on seductions than on the factors found in the s.e.xual const.i.tution and development.[18] It is quite obvious that no seduction is necessary to awaken the s.e.xual life of the child, that such an awakening may come on spontaneously from inner sources.

*Polymorphous-perverse Disposition.*--It is instructive to know that under the influence of seduction the child may become polymorphous-perverse and may be misled into all sorts of transgressions. This goes to show that it carries along the adaptation for them in its disposition. The formation of such perversions meets but slight resistance because the psychic dams against s.e.xual transgressions, such as shame, loathing and morality--which depend on the age of the child--are not yet erected or are only in the process of formation. In this respect the child perhaps does not behave differently from the average uncultured woman in whom the same polymorphous-perverse disposition exists. Such a woman may remain s.e.xually normal under usual conditions, but under the guidance of a clever seducer she will find pleasure in every perversion and will retain the same as her s.e.xual activity. The same polymorphous or infantile disposition fits the prost.i.tute for her professional activity, and in the enormous number of prost.i.tutes and of women to whom we must attribute an adaptation for prost.i.tution, 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 s.e.xual impulse, but rather confuses our understanding of the same, inasmuch as it prematurely supplies the child with the s.e.xual object at a time when the infantile s.e.xual impulse does not yet evince any desire for it. We must admit, however, that the infantile s.e.xual life, though mainly under the control of erogenous zones, also shows components in which from the very beginning other persons are regarded as s.e.xual objects. Among these we have the impulses for looking and showing off, and for cruelty, which manifest themselves somewhat independently of the erogenous zones and which only later enter into intimate relationship with the s.e.xual life; but along with the erogenous s.e.xual activity they are noticeable even in the infantile years as separate and independent strivings. The little child is above all shameless, and during its early years it evinces definite pleasure in displaying its body and especially its s.e.xual organs. A counterpart to this desire which is to be considered as perverse, the curiosity to see other persons' genitals, probably appears first in the later years of childhood when the hindrance of the feeling of shame has already reached a certain development. Under the influence of seduction the looking perversion may attain great importance for the s.e.xual life of the child. Still, from my investigations of the childhood years of normal and neurotic patients, I must conclude that the impulse for looking can appear in the child as a spontaneous s.e.xual manifestation. Small children, whose attention has once been directed to their own genitals--usually by masturbation--are wont to progress in this direction without outside interference, and to develop a vivid interest in the genitals of their playmates. As the occasion for the gratification of such curiosity is generally afforded during the gratification of both excrement.i.tious needs, such children become _voyeurs_ and are zealous spectators at the voiding of urine and feces of others, After this tendency has been repressed, the curiosity to see the genitals of others (one's own or those of the other s.e.x) remains as a tormenting desire which in some neurotic cases furnishes the strongest motive power for the formation of symptoms.

The cruelty component of the s.e.xual impulse develops in the child with still greater independence of those s.e.xual activities which are connected with erogenous zones. Cruelty is especially near the childish character, since the inhibition which restrains the impulse to mastery before it causes pain to others--that is, the capacity for sympathy--develops comparatively late. As we know, a thorough psychological a.n.a.lysis of this impulse has not as yet been successfully accomplished; we may a.s.sume that the cruel feelings emanate from the impulse to mastery and appear at a period in the s.e.xual life before the genitals have taken on their later role. It then dominates a phase of the s.e.xual life, which we shall later describe as the pregenital organization. Children who are distinguished for evincing especial cruelty to animals and playmates may be justly suspected of intensive and premature s.e.xual activity in the erogenous zones; and in a simultaneous prematurity of all s.e.xual impulses, the erogenous s.e.xual activity surely seems to be primary. The absence of the barrier of sympathy carries with it the danger that the connections between cruelty and the erogenous impulses formed in childhood cannot be broken in later life.

An erogenous source of the pa.s.sive impulse for cruelty (masochism) is found in the painful irritation of the gluteal region which is familiar to all educators since the confessions of J.J. Rousseau. This has justly caused them to demand that physical punishment, which usually concerns this part of the body, should be withheld from all children in whom the libido might be forced into collateral roads by the later demands of cultural education.[19]

THE INFANTILE s.e.xUAL INVESTIGATION

*Inquisitiveness.*--At the same time when the s.e.xual 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 under s.e.xuality. Its activity corresponds on the one hand to a sublimating mode of acquisition and on the other hand it labors with the energy of the desire for looking. Its relations to the s.e.xual life, however, are of particular importance, for we have learned from psychoa.n.a.lysis that the inquisitiveness of children is attracted to the s.e.xual problems unusually early and in an unexpectedly intensive manner, indeed it perhaps may first be awakened by the s.e.xual problems.

*The Riddle of the Sphinx.*--It is not theoretical but practical interests which start the work of the investigation activity in the child. The threat to the conditions of his existence through the actual or expected arrival of a new child, the fear of the loss in care and love which is connected with this event, cause the child to become thoughtful and sagacious. Corresponding with the history of this awakening, the first problem with which it occupies itself is not the question as to the difference between the s.e.xes, but the riddle: from where do children come? In a distorted form, which can easily be unraveled, this is the same riddle which was given by the Theban Sphinx.

The fact of the two s.e.xes is usually first accepted by the child without struggle and hesitation. It is quite natural for the male child to presuppose in all persons it knows a genital like his own, and to find it impossible to harmonize the lack of it with his conception of others.

*The Castration Complex.*--This conviction is energetically adhered to by the boy and tenaciously defended against the contradictions which soon result, and are only given up after severe internal struggles (castration complex). The subst.i.tutive formations of this lost p.e.n.i.s of the woman play a great part in the formation of many perversions.

The a.s.sumption of the same (male) genital in all persons is the first of the remarkable and consequential infantile s.e.xual theories. It is of little help to the child when biological science agrees with his preconceptions and recognizes the feminine c.l.i.toris as the real subst.i.tute for the p.e.n.i.s. The little girl does not react with similar refusals when she sees the differently formed genital of the boy. She is immediately prepared to recognize it, and soon becomes envious of the p.e.n.i.s; this envy reaches its highest point in the consequentially important wish that she also should be a boy.

*Birth Theories.*--Many people can remember distinctly how intensely they interested themselves, in the prep.u.b.escent period, in the question where children came from. The anatomical solutions at that time read very differently; the children come out of the breast or are cut out of the body, or the navel opens itself to let them out. Outside of a.n.a.lysis one only seldom remembers the investigation corresponding to the early childhood years; it had long merged into repression but its results were thoroughly uniform. One gets children by eating something special (as in the fairy tale) and they are born through the bowel like a pa.s.sage.

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.

*s.a.d.i.s.tic Conception of the s.e.xual Act.*--If children of so delicate an age become spectators of the s.e.xual act between grown-ups, for which an occasion is furnished by the conviction of the grown-ups that little children cannot understand anything s.e.xual, they cannot help conceiving the s.e.xual act as a kind of maltreating or overpowering, that is, it impresses them in a s.a.d.i.s.tic sense. Psychoa.n.a.lysis also teaches us that such an early childhood impression contributes much to the disposition for a later s.a.d.i.s.tic displacement of the s.e.xual aim. Besides this children also occupy themselves with the problem of what the s.e.xual act consists in or, as they grasp it, of what marriage consists, and seek the solution of the mystery mostly in an a.s.sociation to which the functions of urination and defecation give occasion.

*The Typical Failure of the Infantile s.e.xual Investigation.*--It can be stated in general about the infantile s.e.xual theories that they are reproductions of the child's own s.e.xual const.i.tution, and that despite their grotesque mistakes they evince more understanding of the s.e.xual processes than is credited to their creators. Children also perceive the pregnancy of the mother and know how to interpret it correctly; the stork fable is very often related before auditors who confront it with a deep, but mostly mute suspicion. But as two elements remain unknown to the infantile s.e.xual investigation, namely, the role of the propagating s.e.m.e.n and the female genital opening--precisely the same points in which the infantile organization is still backward--the effort of the infantile investigator regularly remains fruitless, and ends in a renunciation which not infrequently leaves a lasting injury to the desire for knowledge. The s.e.xual investigation of these early childhood years is always conducted alone, it signifies the first step towards independent orientation in the world, and causes a marked estrangement between the child and the persons of his environment who formerly enjoyed its full confidence.

*The Phases of Development of the s.e.xual Organization.*--As characteristics of the infantile s.e.xuality we have hitherto emphasized the fact that it is essentially autoerotic (it finds its object in its own body), and that its individual partial impulses, which on the whole are unconnected and independent of one another, are striving for the acquisition of pleasure. The end of this development forms the so-called normal s.e.xual life of the adult in which the acquisition of pleasure has been put into the service of the function of propagation, and the partial impulses, under the primacy of one single erogenous zone, have formed a firm organization for the attainment of the s.e.xual aim in a strange s.e.xual object.

*Pregenital Organizations.*--The study, with the help of psychoa.n.a.lysis, of the inhibitions and disturbances in this course of development now permits us to recognize additions and primary stages of such organization of the partial impulses which likewise furnish a sort of s.e.xual regime. These phases of the s.e.xual organization normally will pa.s.s over smoothly and will only be recognizable by slight indications.

Only in pathological cases do they become active and discernible to coa.r.s.e observation.

Organizations of the s.e.xual life in which the genital zones have not yet a.s.sumed 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 s.e.xual organizations is the _oral_, or if we wish, the cannibalistic. Here the s.e.xual activity is not yet separated from the taking of nourishment, and the contrasts within the same not yet differentiated. The object of the one activity is also that of the other, the s.e.xual aim consists in the _incorporating_ into one's own body of the object, it is the prototype of that which later plays such an important psychic role as _identification_. As a remnant of this fict.i.tious phase of organization forced on us by pathology we can consider thumbsucking. Here the s.e.xual activity became separated from the nourishment activity and the strange object was given up in favor of one from his own body.

A second pregenital phase is the s.a.d.i.s.tic-a.n.a.l organization. Here the contrasts which run through the whole s.e.xual life are already developed, but cannot yet be designated as _masculine_ and _feminine_, but must be called _active_ and _pa.s.sive_. The activity is supplied by the musculature of the body through the mastery impulse; the erogenous mucous membrane of the bowel manifests itself above all as an organ with a pa.s.sive s.e.xual aim, for both strivings there are objects present, which however do not merge together. Besides them there are other partial impulses which are active in an autoerotic manner. The s.e.xual polarity and the strange object can thus already be demonstrated in this phase. The organization and subordination under the function of propagation are still lacking.

*Ambivalence.*--This form of the s.e.xual organization could be retained throughout life and continue to draw to itself a large part of the s.e.xual activity. The prevalence of sadism and the role of the cloaca of the a.n.a.l zone stamps it with an exquisitely archaic impression. As another characteristic belonging to it we can mention the fact that the contrasting pair of impulses are developed in almost the same manner, a behavior which was designated by Bleuler with the happy name of _ambivalence_.

The a.s.sumption of the pregenital organizations of the s.e.xual life is based on the a.n.a.lysis of the neuroses and hardly deserves any consideration without a knowledge of the same. We may expect that continued a.n.a.lytic efforts will furnish us with still more disclosures concerning the structure and development of the normal s.e.xual function.

To complete the picture of the infantile s.e.xual life one must add that frequently or regularly an object selection takes place even in childhood which is as characteristic as the one we have represented for the phase of development of p.u.b.erty. This object selection proceeds in such a manner that all the s.e.xual strivings proceed in the direction of one person in whom they wish to attain their aim. This is then the nearest approach to the definitive formation of the s.e.xual life after p.u.b.erty, that is possible in childhood. It differs from the latter only in the fact that the collection of the partial impulses and their subordination to the primacy of the genitals is very imperfectly or not at all accomplished in childhood. The establishment of this primacy in the service of propagation is therefore the last phase through which the s.e.xual organization pa.s.ses.

*The Two Periods of Object Selection.*--That the object selection takes place in two periods, or in two shifts, can be spoken of as a typical occurrence. The first shift has its origin between the age of three and five years, and is brought to a stop or to retrogression by the latency period; it is characterized by the infantile nature of its s.e.xual aims.

The second shift starts with p.u.b.erty and determines the definitive formation of the s.e.xual 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 later period; they are either preserved as such or are even refreshed at the time of p.u.b.erty. But due to the development of the repression which takes place between the two phases they turn out as unutilizable. The s.e.xual aims have become softened and now represent what we can designate as the _tender_ streams of the s.e.xual life. Only psychoa.n.a.lytic investigation can demonstrate that behind this tenderness, such as honoring and esteeming, there is concealed the old s.e.xual strivings of the infantile partial impulses which have now become useless. The object selection of the p.u.b.escent period must renounce the infantile objects and begin anew as a sensuous stream. The fact that the two streams do not meet often enough has as a result that one of the ideals of the s.e.xual life, namely, the union of all desires in one object, can not be attained.