A General Introduction to PsychoanalysisFreud, Sigmund
Science
A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis
Freud, Sigmund
Psychoanalysis
At any rate, this type among the perverse seek to achieve the same ends
with the object of their desires as do normal people. But in the same
group there exists a long succession of abnormal individuals whose
sexual activities are more and more alien to what seems desirable to the
sensible person. In their manifold strangeness they seem comparable only
to the grotesque freaks that P. Breughel painted as the temptation of
Saint Anthony, or the forgotten gods and believers that G. Flaubert
pictures in the long procession that passes before his pious penitent.
This ill-assorted array fairly clamors for orderly classification if it
is not to bewilder our senses. We first divide them, on the one hand,
into those whose sexual object has changed, as is the case with
homosexualists, and, on the other, those whose sexual aim has changed.
Those of the first group have dispensed with the mutual union of the
genital organs, and have, as one of the partners of the act, replaced
the genitals by another organ or part of the body; they have thus
overcome both the short-comings of organic structure and the usual
disgust involved. There are others of this group who still retain the
genitals as their object, but not by virtue of their sexual function;
they participate for anatomic reasons or rather by reason of their
proximity. By means of these individuals we realize that the functions
of excretion, which in the education of the child are hushed away as
indecent, still remain capable of drawing complete sexual interest on
themselves. There are still others who have relinquished the genitals
entirely as an objective, have raised another part of the body to serve
as the goal of their desire; the woman's breast, the foot, the tress of
hair. There are also the fetishists, to whom the body part means
nothing, who are gratified by a garment, a piece of white linen, a shoe.
And finally there are persons who seek the whole object but with certain
peculiar or horrible demands: even those who covet a defenseless corpse
for instance, which they themselves must criminally compel to satisfy
their desire. But enough of these horrors.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account