A General Introduction to PsychoanalysisFreud, Sigmund
Science
A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis
Freud, Sigmund
Psychoanalysis
alienating him from these tendencies, he transfers the evaluation of the
faeces to the "present" and to "money." On the other hand, he appears to
regard his achievements in urination with especial pride.
I know that you have been wanting to interrupt me for a long time and to
cry: "Enough of these monstrosities! Excretion a source of sexual
gratification that even the suckling exploits! Faeces a valuable
substance! The anus a sort of genital! We do not believe it, but we
understand why children's physicians and pedagogues have decidedly
rejected psychoanalysis and its results." No, you have merely forgotten
that it was my intention to present to you infantile sexuality in
connection with the facts of sexual perversion. Why should you not know
that in the case of many grown-ups, homosexuals as well as
heterosexuals, the locus of intercourse is transferred from the normal
to a more remote portion of the body. And that there are many
individuals who confess to a pleasurable sensation of no slight degree
in the emptying of the bowels during their entire lives! Children
themselves will confirm their interest in the act of defecation and the
pleasure in watching the defecation of another, when they are a few
years older and capable of giving expression to their feelings. Of
course, if these children have previously been systematically
intimidated, they will understand all too well the wisdom of preserving
silence on the subject. As for the other things that you do not wish to
believe, let me refer you to the results of analysis and the direct
observation of children, and you will realize that it is difficult not
to see these things or to see them in a different light. I do not even
object to making the relation between child-sexuality and sexual
perversion quite obvious to you. It is really only natural; if the child
has sexual life at all, it must necessarily be perverse, because aside
from a few hazy illusions, the child does not know how sexuality gives
rise to reproduction. The common characteristic of all perversions, on
the other hand, is that they have abandoned reproduction as their aim.
We term sexual activity perverse when it has renounced the aim of
reproduction and follows the pursuit of pleasure as an independent goal.
And so you realize that the turning point in the development of sexual
life lies in its subjugation to the purpose of reproduction. Everything
this side of the turning point, everything that has given up this
purpose and serves the pursuit of pleasure alone, must carry the term
"perverse" and as such be regarded with contempt.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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