We know less about the early sex life of the female child than about that of the male offspring,—a fact not so surprising since the sex life of even the mature woman still presents a “dark continent” to psychology. Nevertheless, we know that the female child is extremely sensitive about the lack of a sex organ equal to that of the male child. Accordingly, the girl comes to consider herself inferior to the boy, developing a condition of “Penis Envy,” from which may be traced a whole chain of reactions characteristic of the female. Another characteristic of the child is that excremental discharges of the body are drawn into the sphere of sexual interest. To be sure, education eventually draws a strict line of demarkation here. Later in life, however, this demarkation line is wiped out, when the stage of “off-color jokes” sets in. Although this may be distasteful to us it is, nevertheless, well known that the child requires some time, before he develops a sense of disgust. Even those who insist upon the seraphic purity of a child’s soul have never dared to deny this fact. No other manifestation in the sex life of the child is more important than the fact that sexual desires of a child always aim at persons most closely related to him. Such inclinations lean primarily toward the father and the mother; secondarily, toward sisters and brothers. While for the boy, the mother is the first object of love, for the girl it is the father, unless bisexual tendencies favor different inclinations. That parent toward whom the sexual tendencies of the child do not gravitate, comes to be considered a disturbing rival and thus, not too rarely, becomes the object of intense enmity. Be sure to understand me correctly. I do not mean to say that the child is bent upon receiving from the favored parent, only such demonstrations of affection which we adults are wont to consider the very essence of a beautiful relationship between parent and child. In the light of psychoanalysis, there is no doubt that the child desires much more than merely these demonstrations of parental affection. As a matter of fact, the child desires that which we conceive as sensual gratification, though naturally, only to the limited extent of the child’s understanding. It is obvious enough that the child never surmises the real facts as to the actual physical relations of the sexes, but this ignorance is compensated by impressions and experiences deducted from his own observations. Usually, a child’s desires culminate in the wish to give birth to a baby, or beget one, in some vague manner. Even the little boy, in his ignorance, has this desire to give birth to a child. Such manifestations, in their entirety, are termed, in accordance with Greek mythology, Œdipus Complex.