Freud's Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality PDF

Freud, S. (1905). Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905). The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume VII (1901-1905): A Case of Hysteria, Three Essays on Sexuality and Other Works, 123-246...

Freud, S. (1905). Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905). The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume VII (1901-1905): A Case of Hysteria, Three Essays on Sexuality and Other Works, 123-246 Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905) Sigmund Freud This Page Left Intentionally Blank - 123 - Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).  Editor's Note to "Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905)" Drei Abhandlungen Zur Sexualtheorie James Strachey (a) German Editions: Drei Abhandlungen Zur Sexualtheorie 1905 Leipzig and Vienna: Deuticke. Pp. ii + 83 Drei Abhandlungen Zur Sexualtheorie 1910 2nd ed. Leipzig and Vienna: Deuticke. Pp. iii + 87. (With additions.) Drei Abhandlungen Zur Sexualtheorie 1915 3rd ed. Leipzig and Vienna: Deuticke. Pp. vi + 101. (With additions.) Drei Abhandlungen Zur Sexualtheorie 1920 4th ed. Leipzig and Vienna: Deuticke. Pp. viii + 104. (With additions.) Drei Abhandlungen Zur Sexualtheorie 1922 5th ed. Leipzig and Vienna: Deuticke. Pp. viii + 104. (Unchanged.) Drei Abhandlungen Zur Sexualtheorie 1924 G.S., 5, 3-119. (With additions.) Drei Abhandlungen Zur Sexualtheorie 1925 6th ed. Leipzig and Vienna: Deuticke. Pp. 120. (= G.S. 5.) Drei Abhandlungen Zur Sexualtheorie 1942 G.W., 5, 29-145. (Unchanged.) (b) English Translations: Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory 1910 New York: Journal of Nerv. and Ment. Dis. Publ. Co. (Monograph Series No. 7). Pp. x + 91. (Tr. A. A. Brill; Introd. J. J. Putnam.) Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex 1916 2nd ed. of above. Pp. xi + 117. (With additions.) Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex 1918 3rd ed. Pp. xii + 117. Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex 1930 4th ed. Pp. xiv + 104. (Revised.) Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex 1938 Basic Writings, 553-629. (Reprint of above.) Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality 1949 London: Imago Publishing Go. Pp. 133. (Tr. James Strachey.) The present translation is a corrected and expanded version of the one published in 1949. - 125 - Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).  Freud's Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality stand, there can be no doubt, beside his Interpretation of Dreams as his most momentous and original contributions to human knowledge. Nevertheless, in the form in which we usually read these essays, it is difficult to estimate the precise nature of their impact when they were first published. For they were submitted by their author, in the course of a succession of editions over a period of twenty years, to more modifications and additions than any other of his writings, with the exception of, perhaps, The Interpretation of Dreams itself.1 The present edition differs in an important respect from all previous editions, whether in German or English. Though it is based on the German sixth edition of 1925, the last published in Freud's lifetime, it indicates, with dates, every alteration of substance that has been introduced into the work since its first issue. Wherever material has been dropped or greatly modified in later editions, the cancelled passage or earlier version is given in a footnote. This will enable the reader to arrive at a clearer notion of what these essays were like in their original shape. It will probably come as a surprise to learn, for instance, that the entire sections on the sexual theories of children and on the pregenital organizations of the libido (both in the second essay) were only added in 1915, ten years after the book was first published. The same year, too, brought the addition of the section on the libido theory to the third essay. Less surprisingly, the advances of biochemistry made it necessary (in 1920) to rewrite the paragraph on the chemical basis of sexuality. Here, indeed, the surprise works the other way. For the original version of this paragraph, here printed in a footnote, shows Freud's remarkable foresight in this connection and how little modification was required in his views (p. 216). But in spite of the considerable additions made to the book after its first appearance, its essence was already there in 1905 and can, indeed, be traced back to still earlier dates. The whole history of Freud's concern with the subject can now, thanks to the publication of the Fliess correspondence (1950a),be followed in detail; but here it will be enough to indicate its outlines. Clinical observations of the importance of sexual factors in the ————————————— 1 Freud himself commented at some length on this circumstance, and the possible inconsistencies it might have introduced into the text, in the second paragraph of his paper on the ‘phallic phase’ (1923e ). - 126 - Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).  causation, first, of anxiety neurosis and neurasthenia, and later, of the psychoneuroses, were what first led Freud into a general investigation of the subject of sexuality. His first approaches, during the early nineties, were from the physiological and chemical standpoints. A hypothesis on neuro- physiological lines, for instance, of the processes of sexual excitation and discharge will be found in Section III of his first paper on anxiety neurosis (1895b); and a remarkable diagram illustrating this hypothesis occurs in Draft G in the Fliess letters at about the same date but had been mentioned a year earlier (in Draft D). Freud's insistence on the chemical basis of sexuality goes back at least as far as this. (It, too, is alluded to in Draft D, probably dating to the spring of 1894.) In this case Freud believed that he owed much to suggestions from Fliess, as is shown in, among other places, his associations to the famous dream of Irma's injection in the summer of 1895 (The Interpretation of Dreams, Chapter II). He was also indebted to Fliess for hints on the kindred subject of bisexuality (p. 143, footnote), which he mentioned in a letter of December 6, 1896 (Letter 52) and later came to regard as a ‘decisive factor’ (p. 220), though his ultimate opinion on the operation of that factor brought him into disagreement with Fliess. It was in this same letter at the end of 1896 (Freud, 1950a, Letter 52) that we find the first mention of erotogenic zones (liable to stimulation in childhood but later suppressed) and their connections with perversions. And, again, at the beginning of the same year (Draft K, of January 1, 1896)—and here we can see indications of a more psychological approach—a discussion appears of the repressive forces, disgust, shame and morality. But though so many elements of Freud's theory of sexuality were already present in his mind by 1896, its keystone was still to be discovered. There had from the very first been a suspicion that the causative factors of hysteria went back to childhood; the fact is alluded to in the opening paragraphs of the Breuer and Freud ‘Preliminary Communication’ of 1893. By 1895 (see, for instance, Part II of the ‘Project’, printed as an appendix to the Fliess letters) Freud had a complete explanation of hysteria based on the traumatic effects of sexual seduction in early childhood. But during all these years before 1897 infantile sexuality was regarded as no more than a dormant factor, only liable to be brought into the open, with disastrous results, by the intervention of an adult. An apparent exception to this might, it is - 127 - Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).  true, be supposed to follow from the contrast drawn by Freud between the causation of hysteria and obsessional neurosis: the former, he maintained, could be traced to passive sexual experiences in childhood, but the latter to active ones. But Freud makes it quite plain in his second paper on the ‘Neuropsychoses of Defence’ (1896b), in which this distinction is drawn, that the active experiences at the bottom of obsessional neurosis are invariably preceded by passive ones—so that once again the stirring-up of infantile sexuality was ultimately due to external interference. It was not until the summer of 1897 that Freud found himself obliged to abandon his seduction theory. He announced the event in a letter to Fliess of September 21 (Letter 69),1 and his almost simultaneous discovery of the Oedipus complex in his self-analysis (Letters 70 and 71 of October 3 and 15) led inevitably to the realization that sexual impulses operated normally in the youngest children without any need for outside stimulation. With this realization Freud's sexual theory was in fact completed. It took some years, however, for him to become entirely reconciled to his own discovery. In a passage, for instance, in his paper on ‘Sexuality in the Aetiology of the Neuroses’ (1898a) he blows hot and cold on it. On the one hand he says that children are ‘capable of every psychical sexual function and of many somatic ones’ and that it is wrong to suppose that their sexual life begins only at puberty. But on the other hand he declares that ‘the organization and evolution of the human species seek to avoid any considerable sexual activity in childhood’, that the sexual motive forces in human beings should be stored up and only released at puberty and that this explains why sexual experiences in childhood are bound to be pathogenic. It is, he goes on, the after-effects produced by such experiences in maturity that are important, owing to the development of the somatic and psychical sexual apparatus that has taken place in the meantime. Even in the first edition of The Interpretation of Dreams (1900a), there is a curious passage towards the end ————————————— 1 His abandonment of the seduction theory was first publicly announced in a brief passage and footnote in the present work (p. 190) and soon afterwards at greater length in his second paper on ‘The Part Played by Sexuality in the Aetiology of the Neuroses’ (1906a; this volume p. 274 ff.). He later described his own reactions to the event in his ‘History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement’ (1914d) and in his Autobiographical Study (1925d). - 128 - Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).  of Chapter III (Standard Ed., 4, 130), in which Freud remarks that ‘we think highly of the happiness of childhood because it is still innocent of sexual desires’. (A corrective footnote was added to this passage in 1911, according to Ernest Jones on Jung's suggestion.) This was no doubt a relic from an early draft of the book, for elsewhere (e.g. in his discussion of the Oedipus complex in Chapter V) he writes quite unambiguously of the existence of sexual wishes even in normal children. And it is evident that by the time he drew up his case history of ‘Dora’ (at the beginning of 1901) the main lines of his theory of sexuality were firmly laid down. (See above, p. 5.) Even so, however, he was in no hurry to publish his results. When The Interpretation of Dreams was finished and on the point of appearing, on October 11, 1899 (Letter 121), he wrote to Fliess: ‘A theory of sexuality might well be the dream book's immediate successor’; and three months later, on January 26, 1900 (Letter 128): ‘I am putting together material for the theory of sexuality and waiting till some spark can set what I have collected ablaze.’ But the spark was a long time in coming. Apart from the little essay On Dreams and The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, both of which appeared before the autumn of 1901, Freud published nothing of importance for another five years. Then, suddenly, in 1905 he brought out three major works: his book on Jokes, his Three Essays and his case history of ‘Dora’. It is certain that the last-named of these had for the most part been written four years earlier (see p. 3 ff.). It was published in October and November, 1905. The other two were published almost simultaneously, some months earlier, though the exact dates are not known: see a longer discussion of this in the Editor's Preface to the book on Jokes (1905c), Standard Ed., 8, 5. In the German editions the sections are numbered only in the first essay; and indeed before 1924 they were numbered only half-way through the first essay. For convenience of reference, the numbering of the sections has here been extended to the second and third essays. - 129 - 1 Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).  Preface to the Second Edition1 The author is under no illusion as to the deficiencies and obscurities of this little work. Nevertheless he has resisted the temptation of introducing into it the results of the researches of the last five years, since this would have destroyed its unity and documentary character. He is, therefore, reprinting the original text with only slight alterations, and has contented himself with adding a few footnotes which are distinguished from the older ones by an asterisk.2 It is, moreover, his earnest wish that the book may age rapidly—that what was once new in it may become generally accepted, and that what is imperfect in it may be replaced by something better. Vienna, December 1909 Preface to the Third Edition I Have now been watching for more than ten years the effects produced by this work and the reception accorded to it; and I take the opportunity offered by the publication of its third edition to preface it with a few remarks intended to prevent misunderstandings and expectations that cannot be fulfilled. It must above all be emphasized that the exposition to be found in the following pages is based entirely upon everyday medical observation, to which the findings of psycho-analytic research should lend additional depth and scientific significance. It is impossible that these Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality should contain anything but what psycho-analysis makes it necessary to assume or possible to establish. It is, therefore, out of the question that they could ever be extended into a complete ‘theory of sexuality’, and it is natural that there should be a number of important problems of sexual life with which they do not deal at all. But the reader should not conclude from this that the branches of this large subject which have been thus passed over are unknown to the author or have been neglected by him as of small importance. ————————————— [PEP] This page can be read in German in GESAMMELTE WERKE Vol 5, Page 29 1 [This preface was omitted from 1920 onwards.] 2 [The distinction was dropped in all subsequent editions.] - 130 - Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).  The fact that this book is based upon the psycho-analytic observations which led to its composition is shown, however, not only in the choice of the topics dealt with, but also in their arrangement. Throughout the entire work the various factors are placed in a particular order of precedence: preference is given to the accidental factors, while disposition is left in the background, and more weight is attached to ontogenesis than to phylogenesis. For it is the accidental factors that play the principal part in analysis: they are almost entirely subject to its influence. The dispositional ones only come to light after them, as something stirred into activity by experience: adequate consideration of them would lead far beyond the sphere of psychoanalysis. The relation between ontogenesis and phylogenesis is a similar one. Ontogenesis may be regarded as a recapitulation of phylogenesis, in so far as the latter has not been modified by more recent experience. The phylogenetic disposition can be seen at work behind the ontogenetic process. But disposition is ultimately the precipitate of earlier experience of the species to which the more recent experience of the individual, as the sum of the accidental factors, is super-added. I must, however, emphasize that the present work is characterized not only by being completely based upon psychoanalytic research, but also by being deliberately independent of the findings of biology. I have carefully avoided introducing any preconceptions, whether derived from general sexual biology or from that of particular animal species, into this study—a study which is concerned with the sexual functions of human beings and which is made possible through the technique of psycho-analysis. Indeed, my aim has rather been to discover how far psychological investigation can throw light upon the biology of the sexual life of man. It was legitimate for me to indicate points of contact and agreement which came to light during my investigation, but there was no need for me to be diverted from my course if the psycho-analytic method led in a number of important respects to opinions and findings which differed largely from those based on biological considerations. In this third edition I have introduced a considerable amount of fresh matter, but have not indicated it in any special way, as I did in the previous edition. Progress in our field of scientific work is at present less rapid; nevertheless it was essential to make ————————————— [PEP] This page can be read in German in GESAMMELTE WERKE Vol 5, Page 29 - 131 - Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).  a certain number of additions to this volume if it was to be kept in touch with recent psycho-analytic literature.1 Vienna, October 1914 ————————————— [PEP] This page can be read in German in GESAMMELTE WERKE Vol 5, Page 30 1 [The following footnote appeared at this point in 1915 only:] In 1910, after the publication of the second edition, an English translation by A. A. Brill was published in New York; and in 1911 a Russian one by N. Ossipow in Moscow. [Translations also appeared during Freud's lifetime in Hungarian (1915), Italian (1921), Spanish (1922), French (1923), Polish (1924), Czech (1926) and Japanese (1931).] - 132 - Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).  Preface to the Fourth Edition Now that the flood-waters of war have subsided, it is satisfactory to be able to record the fact that interest in psycho-analytic research remains unimpaired in the world at large. But the different parts of the theory have not all had the same history. The purely psychological theses and findings of psycho-analysis on the unconscious, repression, conflict as a cause of illness, the advantage accruing from illness, the mechanisms of the formation of symptoms, etc., have come to enjoy increasing recognition and have won notice even from those who are in general opposed to our views. That part of the theory, however, which lies on the frontiers of biology and the foundations of which are contained in this little work is still faced with undiminished contradiction. It has even led some who for a time took a very active interest in psycho-analysis to abandon it and to adopt fresh views which were intended to restrict once more the part played by the factor of sexuality in normal and pathological mental life. Nevertheless I cannot bring myself to accept the idea that this part of psycho- analytic theory can be very much more distant than the rest from the reality which it is its business to discover. My recollections, as well as a constant re- examination of the material, assure me that this part of the theory is based upon equally careful and impartial observation. There is, moreover, no difficulty in finding an explanation of this discrepancy in the general acceptance of my views. In the first place, the beginnings of human sexual life which are here described can only be confirmed by investigators who have enough patience and technical skill to trace back an analysis to the first years of a patient's childhood. And there is often no possibility of doing this, since medical treatment demands that an illness should, at least in appearance, be dealt with more rapidly. None, however, but physicians who practise psycho-analysis can have any access whatever to this sphere of knowledge or any possibility of forming a judgement that is uninfluenced by their own dislikes and prejudices. If mankind had been able to learn from a direct observation of children, these three essays could have remained unwritten. ————————————— [PEP] This page can be read in German in GESAMMELTE WERKE Vol 5, Page 31 - 133 - Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).  It must also be remembered, however, that some of what this book contains— its insistence on the importance of sexuality in all human achievements and the attempt that it makes at enlarging the concept of sexuality—has from the first provided the strongest motives for the resistance against psycho-analysis. People have gone so far in their search for high-sounding catchwords as to talk of the ‘pan-sexualism’ of psycho-analysis and to raise the senseless charge against it of explaining ‘everything’ by sex. We might be astonished at this, if we ourselves could forget the way in which emotional factors make people confused and forgetful. For it is some time since Arthur Schopenhauer, the philosopher, showed mankind the extent to which their activities are determined by sexual impulses—in the ordinary sense of the word. It should surely have been impossible for a whole world of readers to banish such a startling piece of information so completely from their minds. And as for the ‘stretching’ of the concept of sexuality which has been necessitated by the analysis of children and what are called perverts, anyone who looks down with contempt upon psycho- analysis from a superior vantage-point should remember how closely the enlarged sexuality of psycho-analysis coincides with the Eros of the divine Plato. (Cf. Nachmansohn, 1915.) Vienna, May 1920 ————————————— [PEP] This page can be read in German in GESAMMELTE WERKE Vol 5, Page 32 - 134 - Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).  Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality I The Sexual Aberrations1 The fact of the existence of sexual needs in human beings and animals is expressed in biology by the assumption of a ‘sexual instinct’, on the analogy of the instinct of nutrition, that is of hunger. Everyday language possesses no counterpart to the word ‘hunger’, but science makes use of the word ‘libido’ for that purpose.2 Popular opinion has quite definite ideas about the nature and characteristics of this sexual instinct. It is generally understood to be absent in childhood, to set in at the time of puberty in connection with the process of coming to maturity and to be revealed in the manifestations of an irresistible attraction exercised by one sex upon the other; while its aim is presumed to be sexual union, or at all events actions leading in that direction. We have every reason to believe, however, that these views give a very false picture of the true situation. If we look into them more closely we shall find that they contain a number of errors, inaccuracies and hasty conclusions. I shall at this point introduce two technical terms. Let us call the person from whom sexual attraction proceeds the sexual ————————————— [PEP] This page can be read in German in GESAMMELTE WERKE Vol 5, Page 33 1 The information contained in this first essay is derived from the well-known writings of Krafft-Ebing, Moll, Moebius, Havelock Ellis, Schrenck-Notzing, Loewenfeld, Eulenburg, Bloch and Hirschfeld, and from the Jahrbuh für sexuelle zwischenstufen, published under the direction of the last-named author. Since full bibliographies of the remaining literature of the subject will be found in the works of these writers, I have been able to spare myself the necessity for giving detailed references. [Added 1910:] The data obtained from the psycho-analytic investigation of inverts are based upon material supplied to me by I. Sadger and upon my own findings. 2 [Footnote added 1910:] The only appropriate word in the German language, ‘Lust’, is unfortunately ambiguous, and is used to denote the experience both of a need and of a gratification. [Unlike the English ‘lust’ it can mean either ‘desire’ or ‘pleasure’. See footnote page 212.] - 135 - Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).  object and the act toward the instinct tends the sexual aim. Scientifically sifted observation, then, shows that numerous deviations occur in respect of both of these—the sexual object and the sexual aim. The relation between these deviations and what is assumed to be normal requires thorough investigation. (1) Deviations in Respect of the Sexual Object The popular view of the sexual instinct is beautifully reflected in the poetic fable which tells how the original human beings were cut up into two halves— man and woman—and how these are always striving to unite again in love.1 It comes as a great surprise therefore to learn that there are men whose sexual object is a man and not a woman, and women whose sexual object is a woman and not a man. People of this kind are described as having ‘contrary sexual feelings’, or better, as being ‘inverts’, and the fact is described as ‘inversion’. The number of such people is very considerable, though there are difficulties in establishing it precisely.2 (A) Inversion BEHAVIOUR OF INVERTS Such people vary greatly in their behaviour in several respects. (a) They may be absolute inverts. In that case their sexual objects are exclusively of their own sex. Persons of the opposite sex are never the object of their sexual desire, but leave them cold, or even arouse sexual aversion in them. As a consequence of this aversion, they are incapable, if they are men, of carrying out the sexual act, or else they derive no enjoyment from it. (b) They may be amphigenic inverts, that is psychosexual hermaphrodites. In that case their sexual objects may equally well be of their own or of the opposite sex. This kind of inversion thus lacks the characteristic of exclusiveness. ————————————— [PEP] This page can be read in German in GESAMMELTE WERKE Vol 5, Page 34 1 [This is no doubt an allusion to the theory expounded by Aristophanes in Plato's Symposium. Freud recurred to this much later, at the end of Chapter VI of Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920g).] 2 On these difficulties and on the attempts which have been made to arrive at the proportional number of inverts, see Hirschfeld (1904). - 136 - Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).  (a) They may be contingent inverts. In that case, under certain external conditions—of which inaccessibility of any normal sexual object and imitation are the chief—they are capable of taking as their sexual object someone of their own sex and of deriving satisfaction from sexual intercourse with him. Again, inverts vary in their views as to the peculiarity of their sexual instinct. Some of them accept their inversion as something in the natural course of things, just as a normal person accepts the direction of his libido, and insist energetically that inversion is as legitimate as the normal attitude; others rebel against their inversion and feel it as a pathological compulsion.1 Other variations occur which relate to questions of time. The trait of inversion may either date back to the very beginning, as far back as the subject's memory reaches, or it may not have become noticeable till some particular time before or after puberty.2 It may either persist throughout life, or it may go into temporary abeyance, of again it may constitute an episode on the way to a normal development. It may even make its first appearance late in life after a long period of normal sexual activity. A periodic oscillation between a normal and an inverted sexual object has also sometimes been observed. Those cases are of particular interest in which the libido changes over to an inverted sexual object after a distressing experience with a normal one. As a rule these different kinds of variations are found side by side independently of one another. It is, however, safe to assume that the most extreme form of inversion will have been present from a very early age and that the person concerned will feel at one with his peculiarity. Many authorities would be unwilling to class together all ————————————— [PEP] This page can be read in German in GESAMMELTE WERKE Vol 5, Page 35 1 The fact of a person struggling in this way against a compulsion towards inversion may perhaps determine the possibility of his being influenced by suggestion [added 1910:] or psycho-analysis. 2 Many writers have insisted with justice that the dates assigned by inverts themselves for the appearance of their tendency to inversion are untrustworthy, since they may have repressed the evidence of their heterosexual feelings from their memory. [Added 1910:] These suspicions have been confirmed by psycho-analysis in those cases of inversion to which it has had access; it has produced decisive alterations in their anamnesis by filling in their infantile amnesia.—[In the first edition (1905) the place of this last sentence was taken by the following one: ‘A decision on this point could be arrived at only by a psycho-analytic investigation of inverts.’] - 137 - Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).  the various cases which I have enumerated and would prefer to lay stress upon their differences rather than their resemblances, in accordance with their own preferred view of inversion. Nevertheless, though the distinctions cannot be disputed, it is impossible to overlook the existence of numerous intermediate examples of every type, so that we are driven to conclude that we are dealing with a connected series. NATURE OF INVERSION The earliest assessments regarded as inversion an innate indication of nervous degeneracy. This corresponded to the fact that medical observers first came across it in persons suffering, or appearing to suffer, from nervous diseases. This characterization of inversion involves two suppositions, which must be considered separately: that it is innate and that it is degenerate. DEGENERACY The attribution of degeneracy in this connection is open to the objections which can be raised against the indiscriminate use of the word in general. It has become the fashion to regard any symptom which is not obviously due to trauma or infection as a sign of degeneracy. Magnan's classification of degenerates is indeed of such a kind as not to exclude the possibility of the concept of degeneracy being applied to a nervous system whose general functioning is excellent. This being so, it may well be asked whether an attribution of ‘degeneracy’ is of any value or adds anything to our knowledge. It seems wiser only to speak of it where (1) several serious deviations from the normal are found together, and (2) the capacity for efficient functioning and survival seem to be severely impaired.1 Several facts go to show that in this legitimate sense of the word inverts cannot be regarded as degenerate: (1) Inversion is found in people who exhibit no other serious deviations from the normal. ————————————— [PEP] This page can be read in German in GESAMMELTE WERKE Vol 5, Page 36 1 Moebius (1900) confirms the view that we should be chary in making a diagnosis of degeneracy and that it has very little practical value: ‘If we survey the wide field of degeneracy upon which some glimpses of revealing light have been thrown in these pages, it will at once be clear that there is small value in ever making a diagnosis of degeneracy.’ - 138 - Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).  (2) It is similarly found in people whose efficiency is unimpaired, and who are indeed distinguished by specially high intellectual development and ethical culture.1 (3) If we disregard the patients we come across in our medical practice, and cast our eyes round a wider horizon, we shall come in two directions upon facts which make it impossible to regard inversion as a sign of degeneracy: (a) Account must be taken of the fact that inversion was a frequent phenomenon—one might almost say an institution charged with important functions—among the peoples of antiquity at the height of their civilization. (b) It is remarkably widespread among many savage and primitive races, whereas the concept of degeneracy is usually restricted to states of high civilization (cf. Bloch); and, even amongst the civilized peoples of Europe, climate and race exercise the most powerful influence on the prevalence of inversion and upon the attitude adopted towards it.2 INNATE CHARAGTER As may be supposed, innateness is only attributed to the first, most extreme, class of inverts, and the evidence for it rests upon assurances given by them that at no time in their lives has their sexual instinct shown any sign of taking another course. The very existence of the two other classes, and especially the third [the ‘contingent’ inverts], is difficult to reconcile with the hypothesis of the innateness of inversion. This explains why those who support this view tend to separate out the group of absolute inverts from all the rest, thus abandoning any attempt at giving an account of inversion which shall have universal application. In the view of these authorities inversion is innate in one group of cases, while in others it may have come about in other ways. The reverse of this view is represented by the alternative one that inversion is an acquired character of the sexual ————————————— [PEP] This page can be read in German in GESAMMELTE WERKE Vol 5, Page 37 1 It must be allowed that the spokesmen of ‘Uranism’ are justified in asserting that some of the most prominent men in all recorded history-were inverts and perhaps even absolute inverts. 2 The pathological approach to the study of inversion has been displaced by the anthropological. The merit for bringing about this change is due to Bloch (1902-3), who has also laid stress on the occurrence of inversion among the civilizations of antiquity. - 139 - Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).  instinct. This second view is based on the following considerations: (1) In the case of many inverts, even absolute ones, it is possible to show that very early in their lives a sexual impression occurred which left a permanent after-effect in the shape of a tendency to homosexuality. (2) In the case of many others, it is possible to point to external influences in their lives, whether of a favourable or inhibiting character, which have led sooner or later to a fixation of their inversion. (Such influences are exclusive relations with persons of their own sex, comradeship in war, detention in prison, the dangers of heterosexual intercourse, celibacy, sexual weakness, etc.) (3) Inversion can be removed by hypnotic suggestion, which would be astonishing in an innate characteristic. In view of these considerations it is even possible to doubt the very existence of such a thing as innate inversion. It can be argued (cf. Havelock Ellis ) that, if the cases of allegedly innate inversion were more closely examined, some experience of their early childhood would probably come to light which had a determining effect upon the direction taken by their libido. This experience would simply have passed out of the subject's conscious recollection, but could be recalled to his memory under appropriate influence. In the opinion of these writers inversion can only be described as a frequent variation of the sexual instinct, which can be determined by a number of external circumstances in the subject's life. The apparent certainty of this conclusion is, however, completely countered by the reflection that many people are subjected to the same sexual influences (e.g. to seduction or mutual masturbation, which may occur in early youth) without becoming inverted or without remaining so permanently. We are therefore forced to a suspicion that the choice between ‘innate’ and ‘acquired’ is not an exclusive one or that it does not cover all the issues involved in inversion. EXPLANATION OF INVERSION The nature of inversion is explained neither by the hypothesis that it is innate nor by the alternative hypothesis that it is acquired. In the former case we must ask in what respect it is innate, unless we are to accept the crude explanation that everyone is born with ————————————— [PEP] This page can be read in German in GESAMMELTE WERKE Vol 5, Page 38 - 140 - Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).  his sexual instinct attached to a particular sexual object. In the latter case it may be questioned whether the various accidental influences would be sufficient to explain the acquisition of inversion without the co-operation of something in the subject himself. As we have already shown, the existence of this last factor is not to be denied. BISEXUALITY A fresh contradiction of popular views is involved in the considerations put forward by Lydston , Kiernan and Chevalier in an endeavour to account for the possibility of sexual inversion. It is popularly believed that a human being is either a man or a woman. Science, however, knows of cases in which the sexual characters are obscured, and in which it is consequently difficult to determine the sex. This arises in the first instance in the field of anatomy. The genitals of the individuals concerned combine male and female characteristics. (This condition is known as hermaphroditism.) In rare cases both kinds of sexual apparatus are found side by side fully developed (true hermaphroditism); but far more frequently both sets of organs are found in an atrophied condition.1 The importance of these abnormalities lies in the unexpected fact that they facilitate our understanding of normal development. For it appears that a certain degree of anatomical hermaphroditism occurs normally. In every normal male or female individual, traces are found of the apparatus of the opposite sex. These either persist without function as rudimentary organs or become modified and take on other functions. These long-familiar facts of anatomy lead us to suppose that an originally bisexual physical disposition has, in the course of evolution, become modified into a unisexual one, leaving behind only a few traces of the sex that has become atrophied. It was tempting to extend this hypothesis to the mental sphere and to explain inversion in all its varieties as the expression of a psychical hermaphroditism. All that was required further in order to settle the question was that inversion should be regularly accompanied by the mental and somatic signs of hermaphroditism. ————————————— [PEP] This page can be read in German in GESAMMELTE WERKE Vol 5, Page 39 1 For the most recent descriptions of somatic hermaphroditism, see Taruffi (1903), and numerous papers by Neugebauer in various volumes of the Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen. - 141 - Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).  But this expectation was disappointed. It is impossible to demonstrate so close a connection between the hypothetical psychical hermaphroditism and the established anatomical one. A general lowering of the sexual instinct and a slight anatomical atrophy of the organs is found frequently in inverts (cf. Have- lock Ellis, 1915). Frequently, but by no means regularly or even usually. The truth must therefore be recognized that inversion and somatic hermaphroditism are on the whole independent of each other. A great deal of importance, too, has been attached to what are called the secondary and tertiary sexual characters and to the great frequency of the occurrence of those of the opposite sex in inverts (cf. Havelock Ellis, 1915). Much of this, again, is correct; but it should never be forgotten that in general the secondary and tertiary sexual characters of one sex occur very frequently in the opposite one. They are indications of hermaphroditism, but are not attended by any change of sexual object in the direction of inversion. Psychical hermaphroditism would gain substance if the inversion of the sexual object were at least accompanied by a parallel change-over of the subject's other mental qualities, instincts and character traits into those marking the opposite sex. But it is only in inverted women that character-inversion of this kind can be looked for with any regularity. In men the most complete mental masculinity can be combined with inversion. If the belief in psychical hermaphroditism is to be persisted in, it will be necessary to add that its manifestations in various spheres show only slight signs of being mutually determined. Moreover the same is true of somatic hermaphroditism: according to Halban (1903),1 occurrences of individual atrophied organs and of secondary sexual characters are to a considerable extent independent of one another. The theory of bisexuality has been expressed in its crudest form by a spokesman of the male inverts: ‘a feminine brain in a masculine body’. But we are ignorant of what characterizes a feminine brain. There is neither need nor justification for replacing the psychological problem by the anatomical one. Krafft-Ebing's attempted explanation seems to be more exactly framed than that of Ulrichs but does not differ from it in essentials. According to Krafft-Ebing (1895, 5), every individual's ————————————— [PEP] This page can be read in German in GESAMMELTE WERKE Vol 5, Page 41 1 His paper includes a bibliography of the subject. - 142 - Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).  bisexual disposition endows him with masculine and feminine brain centres as well as with somatic organs of sex; these centres develop only at puberty, for the most part under the influence of the sex-gland, which is independent of them in the original disposition. But what has just been said of masculine and feminine brains applies equally to masculine and feminine ‘centres’; and incidentally we have not even any grounds for assuming that certain areas of the brain (‘centres’) are set aside for the functions of sex, as is the case, for instance, with those of speech.1 Nevertheless, two things emerge from these discussions. In the first place, a bisexual disposition is somehow concerned in ————————————— [PEP] This page can be read in German in GESAMMELTE WERKE Vol 5, Page 42 1 It appears (from a bibliography given in the sixth volume of the Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischensttiferi) that E. Gley was the first writer to suggest bisexuality as an explanation of inversion. As long ago as in January, 1884, he published a paper, ‘Les aberrations de l'instinct sexuel’, in the Revue Philosophique. It is, moreover, noteworthy that the majority of authors who derive inversion from bisexuality bring forward that factor not only in the case of inverts, but also for all those who have grown up to be normal, and that, as a logical consequence, they regard inversion as the result of a disturbance in development. Chevalier (1893) already writes in this sense. Krafft-Ebing (1895, 10) remarks that there are a great number of observations ‘which prove at least the virtual persistence of this second centre (that of the subordinated sex)’. A Dr. Arduin (1900) asserts that ‘there are masculine and feminine elements in every human being (cf. Hirschfeld, 1899); but one set of these— according to the sex of the person in question—is incomparably more strongly developed than the other, so far as heterosexual individuals are concerned.….’ Herman (1903) is convinced that ‘masculine elements and characteristics are present in every woman and feminine ones in every man’, etc. [Added 1910:] Fliess (1906) subsequently claimed the idea of bisexuality (in the sense of duality of sex) as his own. [Added 1924:] In lay circles the hypothesis of human bisexuality is regarded as being due to O. Weininger, the philosopher, who died at an early age, and who made the idea the basis of a somewhat unbalanced book (1903). The particulars which I have enumerated above will be sufficient to show how little justification there is for the claim. [Freud's own realization of the importance of bisexuality owed much to Fliess (cf. p. 220 n.), and his forgetfulness of this fact on one occasion provided him with an example in his Psychopathology of Everyday Life, 1901b, Chapter VII (11). He did not, however, accept Fliess's view that bisexuality provided the explanation of repression. See Freud's discussion of this in ‘A Child is Being Beaten’ (1919e , half-way through Section VI). The whole question is gone into in detail by Kris in Section IV of his introduction to the Fliess correspondence (Freud, 1950a).] - 143 - Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).  inversion, though we do not know in what that disposition consists, beyond anatomical structure. And secondly, we have to deal with disturbances that affect the sexual instinct in the course of its development. SEXUAL OBJECT OF INVERTS The theory of psychical hermaphroditism presupposes that the sexual object of an invert is the opposite of that of a normal person. An inverted man, it holds, is like a woman in being subject to the charm that proceeds from masculine attributes both physical and mental: he feels he is a woman in search of a man. But however well this applies to quite a number of inverts, it is, nevertheless, far from revealing a universal characteristic of inversion. There can be no doubt that a large proportion of male inverts retain the mental quality of masculinity, that they possess relatively few of the secondary characters of the opposite sex and that what they look for in their sexual object are in fact feminine mental traits. If this were not so, how would it be possible to explain the fact that male prostitutes who offer themselves to inverts—to-day just as they did in ancient times—imitate women in all the externals of their clothing and behaviour? Such imitation would otherwise inevitably clash with the ideal of the inverts. It is clear that in Greece, where the most masculine men were numbered among the inverts, what excited a man's love was not the masculine character of a boy, but his physical resemblance to a woman as well as his feminine mental qualities— his shyness, his modesty and his need for instruction and assistance. As soon as the boy became a man he ceased to be a sexual object for men and himself, perhaps, became a lover of boys. In this instance, therefore, as in many others, the sexual object is not someone of the same sex but someone who combines the characters of both sexes; there is, as it were, a compromise between an impulse that seeks for a man and one that seeks for a woman, while it remains a paramount condition that the object's body (i.e. genitals) shall be masculine. Thus the sexual object is a kind of reflection of the subject's own bisexual nature.1 ————————————— [PEP] This page can be read in German in GESAMMELTE WERKE Vol 5, Page 43 1 [This last sentence was added in 1915.—Footnote added 1910:] It is true that psycho-analysis has not yet produced a complete explanation of the origin of inversion; nevertheless, it has discovered the psychical mechanism of its development, and has made essential contributions to the statement of the problems involved. In all the cases we have examined we have established the fact that the future inverts, in the earliest years of their childhood, pass through a phase of very intense but shortlived fixation to a woman (usually their mother), and that, after leaving this behind, they identify themselves with a woman and take themselves as their sexual object. That is to say, they proceed from a narcissistic basis, and look for a young man who resembles themselves and whom they may love as their mother loved them. Moreover, we have frequently found that alleged inverts have been by no means insusceptible to the charms of women, but have continually transposed the excitation aroused by women on to a male object. They have thus repeated all through their lives the mechanism by which their inversion arose. Their compulsive longing for men has turned out to be determined by their ceaseless flight from women. [At this point the footnote proceeded as follows in the 1910 edition only: ‘It must, however, be borne in mind that hitherto only a single type of invert has been submitted to psycho-analysis—persons whose sexual activity is in general stunted and the residue of which is manifested as inversion. The problem of inversion is a highly complex one and includes very various types of sexual activity and development. A strict conceptual distinction should be drawn between different cases of inversion according to whether the sexual Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).  character of the object or that of the subject has been inverted.’] [Added 1915:] Psycho-analytic research is most decidedly opposed to any attempt at separating off homosexuals from the rest of mankind as a group of a special character. By studying sexual excitations other than those that are manifestly displayed, it has found that all human beings are capable of making a homosexual object-choice and have in fact made one in their unconscious. Indeed, libidinal attachments to persons of the same sex play no less a part as factors in normal mental life, and a greater part as a motive force for illness, than do similar attachments to the opposite sex. On the contrary, psycho- analysis considers that a choice of an object independently of its sex—freedom to range equally over male and female objects—as it is found in childhood, in primitive states of society and early periods of history, is the original basis from which, as a result of restriction in one direction or the other, both the normal and the inverted types develop. Thus from the point of view of psycho- analysis the exclusive sexual interest felt by men for women is also a problem that needs elucidating and is not a self-evident fact based upon an attraction that is ultimately of a chemical nature. A person's final sexual attitude is not decided until after puberty and is the result of a number of factors, not all of which are yet known; some are of a constitutional nature but others are accidental. No doubt a few of these factors may happen to carry so much weight that they influence the result in their sense. But in general the multiplicity of determining factors is reflected in the variety of manifest sexual attitudes in which they find their issue in mankind. In inverted types, a predominance of archaic constitutions and primitive psychical mechanisms is regularly to be found. Their most essential characteristics seem to be a coining into operation of narcissistic object-choice and a retention of the erotic significance of the anal zone. There is nothing to be gained, however, by separating the most extreme types of inversion from the rest on the basis of constitutional peculiarities of that kind. What we find as an apparently sufficient explanation of these types can be equally shown to be present, though less strongly, in the constitution of transitional types and of those whose manifest attitude is normal. The differences in the end-products may be of a qualitative nature, but analysis shows that the differences between their determinants are only quantitative. Among the accidental factors that influence object-choice we have found that frustration (in the form of an early deterrence, by fear, from sexual activity) deserves attention, and we have observed that the presence of both parents plays an important part. The absence of a strong father in childhood not infrequently favours the occurrence of inversion. Finally, it may be insisted that the concept of inversion in respect of the sexual object should be sharply distinguished from that of the occurrence in the subject of a mixture of sexual characters. In the relation between these two factors, too, a certain degree of reciprocal independence is unmistakably present. [Added 1920:] Ferenczi (1914) has brought forward a number of interesting points on the subject of inversion. He rightly protests that, because they have in common the symptom of inversion, a large number of conditions, which are very different from one another and which are of unequal importance both in organic and psychical respects, have been thrown together under the name of ‘homosexuality’ (or, to follow him in giving it a better name, ‘homo-erotism’). He insists that a sharp distinction should at least be made between two types: ‘subject homo-erotics’, who feel and behave like women, and ‘object homo- erotics’, who are completely masculine and who have merely exchanged a female for a male object. The first of these two types he recognizes as true ‘sexual intermediates’ in Hirschfeld's sense of the word; the second he describes, less happily, as obsessional neurotics. According to him, it is only in the case of object homo-erotics that there is any question of their struggling Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).  against their inclination to inversion or of the possibility of their being influenced psychologically. While granting the existence of these two types, we may add that there are many people in whom a certain quantity of subject homo-erotism is found in combination with a proportion of object homo-erotism. During the last few years work carried out by biologists, notably by Steinach, has thrown a strong light on the organic determinants of homo-erotism and of sexual characters in general. By carrying out experimental castration and subsequently grafting the sex-glands of the opposite sex, it was possible in the case of various species of mammals to transform a male into a female and vice versa. The transformation affected more or less completely both the somatic sexual characters and the psychosexual attitude (that is, both subject and object erotism). It appeared that the vehicle of the force which thus acted as a sex- determinant was not the part of the sex-gland which forms the sex-cells but what is known as its interstitial tissue (the ‘puberty-gland’). In one case this transformation of sex was actually effected in a man who had lost his testes owing to tuberculosis. In his sexual life he behaved in a feminine manner, as a passive homosexual, and exhibited very clearly-marked feminine sexual characters of a secondary kind (e.g. in regard to growth of hair and beard and deposits of fat on the breasts and hips). After an undescended testis from another male patient had been grafted into him, he began to behave in a masculine manner and to direct his libido towards women in a normal way. Simultaneously his somatic feminine characters disappeared. (Lipschütz, 1919, 356-7.) It would be unjustifiable to assert that these interesting experiments put the theory of inversion on a new basis, and it would be hasty to expect them to offer a universal means of ‘curing’ homosexuality. Fliess has rightly insisted that these experimental findings do not invalidate the theory of the general bisexual disposition of the higher animals. On the contrary, it seems to me probable that further research of a similar kind will produce a direct confirmation of this presumption of bisexuality. - 144 - Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).  The position in the case of women is less ambiguous; for among them the active inverts exhibit masculine characteristics, both physical and mental, with peculiar frequency and look for femininity in their sexual objects—though here again a closer knowledge of the facts might reveal greater variety. SEXUAL AIM OF INVERTS The important fact to bear in mind is that no one single aim can be laid down as applying in cases of inversion. Among men, intercourse per anum by no means coincides with inversion; masturbation is quite as frequently their exclusive aim, and it is even true that ————————————— [PEP] This page can be read in German in GESAMMELTE WERKE Vol 5, Page 44 - 145 - Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).  restrictions of sexual aim—to the point of its being limited to simple outpourings of emotion—are commoner among them than among heterosexual lovers. Among women, too, the sexual aims of inverts are various: there seems to be a special preference for contact with the mucous membrane of the mouth. CONCLUSION It will be seen that we are not in a position to base a satisfactory explanation of the origin of inversion upon the material at present before us. Nevertheless our investigation has put us in possession of a piece of knowledge ————————————— [PEP] This page can be read in German in GESAMMELTE WERKE Vol 5, Page 45 - 146 - Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).  which may turn out to be of greater importance to us than the solution of that problem. It has been brought to our notice that we have been in the habit of regarding the connection between the sexual instinct and the sexual object as more intimate than ————————————— [PEP] This page can be read in German in GESAMMELTE WERKE Vol 5, Page 46 - 147 - Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).  it in fact is. Experience of the cases that are considered abnormal has shown us that in them the sexual instinct and the sexual object are merely soldered together —a fact which we have been in danger of overlooking in consequence of the uniformity of the normal picture, where the object appears to form part and parcel of the instinct. We are thus warned to loosen the bond that exists in our thoughts between instinct and object. It seems probable that the sexual instinct is in the first instance independent of its object; nor is its origin likely to be due to its object's attractions. (B) Sexually Immature Persons and Animals as Sexual Objects People whose sexual objects belong to the normally inappropriate sex—that is, inverts—strike the observer as a collection of individuals who may be quite sound in other respects. On the other hand, cases in which sexually immature persons (children) are chosen as sexual objects are instantly judged as sporadic aberrations. It is only exceptionally that children are the exclusive sexual objects in such a case. They usually come to play that part when someone who is cowardly or has become impotent adopts them as a substitute, or when an urgent instinct (one which will not allow of postponement) cannot at the moment get possession of any more appropriate object. Nevertheless, a light is thrown on the nature of the sexual instinct by the fact that it permits of so much variation in its objects and such a cheapening of them—which hunger, with its far more energetic retention of its objects, would only permit in the most extreme instances. A similar consideration applies to sexual intercourse with animals, which is by no means rare, especially among country people, and in which sexual attraction seems to override the barriers of species. One would be glad on aesthetic grounds to be able to ascribe these and other severe aberrations of the sexual instinct to insanity; but that cannot be done. Experience shows that disturbances of the sexual instinct among the insane do not differ from those that occur among the healthy and in whole races or occupations. Thus the sexual abuse of children is found with uncanny frequency among school teachers and child attendants, simply because they have the best opportunity for it. The insane merely exhibit any such aberration to an intensified degree; or, ————————————— [PEP] This page can be read in German in GESAMMELTE WERKE Vol 5, Page 46 - 148 - Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).  what is particularly significant, it may become exclusive and replace normal sexual satisfaction entirely. The very remarkable relation which thus holds between sexual variations and the descending scale from health to insanity gives us plenty of material for thought. I am inclined to believe that it may be explained by the fact that the impulses of sexual life are among those which, even normally, are the least controlled by the higher activities of the mind. In my experience anyone who is in any way, whether socially or ethically, abnormal mentally is invariably abnormal also in his sexual life. But many people are abnormal in their sexual life who in every other respect approximate to the average, and have, along with the rest, passed through the process of human cultural development, in which sexuality remains the weak spot. The most general conclusion that follows from all these discussions seems, however, to be this. Under a great number of conditions and in surprisingly numerous individuals, the nature and importance of the sexual object recedes into the background. What is essential and constant in the sexual instinct is something else.1 (2) Deviations in Respect of the Sexual Aim The normal sexual aim is regarded as being the union of the genitals in the act known as copulation, which leads to a release of the sexual tension and a temporary extinction of the sexual instinct—a satisfaction analogous to the sating of hunger. But even in the most normal sexual process we may detect rudiments which, if they had developed, would have led to the deviations described as ‘perversions’. For there are certain intermediate relations to the sexual object, such as touching and looking at it, which lie on the road towards copulation and are recognized as being preliminary sexual aims. On the one hand these ————————————— [PEP] This page can be read in German in GESAMMELTE WERKE Vol 5, Page 48 1 [Footnote added 1910:] The most striking distinction between the erotic life of antiquity and our own no doubt lies in the fact that the ancients laid the stress upon the instinct itself, whereas we emphasize its object. The ancients glorified the instinct and were prepared on its account to honour even an inferior object; while we despise the instinctual activity in itself, and find excuses for it only in the merits of the object. - 149 - Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).  activities are themselves accompanied by pleasure, and on the other hand they intensify the excitation, which should persist until the final sexual aim is attained. Moreover, the kiss, one particular contact of this kind, between the mucous membrane of the lips of the two people concerned, is held in high sexual esteem among many nations (including the most highly civilized ones), in spite of the fact that the parts of the body involved do not form part of the sexual apparatus but constitute the entrance to the digestive tract. Here, then, are factors which provide a point of contact between the perversions and normal sexual life and which can also serve as a basis for their classification. Perversions are sexual activities which either (a) extend, in an anatomical sense, beyond the regions of the body that are designed for sexual union, or (b) linger over the intermediate relations to the sexual object which should normally be traversed rapidly on the path towards the final sexual aim. (A) Anatomical Extensions OVERVALUATION OF THE SEXUAL OBJECT It is only in the rarest instances that the psychical valuation that is set on the sexual object, as being the goal of the sexual instinct, stops short at its genitals. The appreciation extends to the whole body of the sexual object and tends to involve every sensation derived from it. The same overvaluation spreads over into the psychological sphere: the subject becomes, as it were, intellectually infatuated (that is, his powers of judgement are weakened) by the mental achievements and perfections of the sexual object and he submits to the latter's judgements with credulity. Thus the credulity of love becomes an important, if not the most fundamental, source of authority.1 This sexual overvaluation is something that cannot be easily reconciled with a restriction of the sexual aim to union of the ————————————— [PEP] This page can be read in German in GESAMMELTE WERKE Vol 5, Page 49 1 In this connection I cannot help recalling the credulous submissive-ness shown by a hypnotized subject towards his hypnotist. This leads me to suspect that the essence of hypnosis lies in an unconscious fixation of the subject's libido to the figure of the hypnotist, through the medium of the masochistic components of the sexual instinct. [Added 1910:] Ferenczi (1909) has brought this characteristic of suggestibility into relation with the ‘parental complex’.— [The relation of the subject to the hypnotist was discussed by Freud much later, in Chapter VIII of his Group Psychology (1921c). See also below, p. 294 ff.] - 150 - Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).  actual genitals and it helps to turn activities connected with other parts of the body into sexual aims.1 The significance of the factor of sexual overvaluation can be best studied in men, for their erotic life alone has become accessible to research. That of women—partly owing to the stunting effect of civilized conditions and partly owing to their conventional secretiveness and insincerity—is still veiled in an impenetrable obscurity.2 SEXUAL USE OF THE OF THE MUCOUS MEMBRANE LIPS AND MOUTH The use of the mouth as a sexual organ is regarded as a perversion if the lips (or tongue) of one person are brought into contact with the genitals of another, but not if the mucous membranes of the lips of both of them come together. This exception is the point of contact with what is normal. Those who condemn the other practices (which have no doubt been common among mankind from primaeval times) as being perversions, are giving way to an unmistakable feeling of disgust, which protects them from accepting sexual aims of the kind. The limits of such disgust are, however, often purely conventional: a man who will kiss a pretty girl's lips passionately, may perhaps be disgusted at the idea of ————————————— [PEP] This page can be read in German in GESAMMELTE WERKE Vol 5, Page 50 1 [In the editions earlier than 1920 this paragraph ended with the further sentence: ‘The emergence of these extremely various anatomical extensions clearly implies a need for variation, and this has been described by Hoche as “craving for stimulation”.’ The first two sentences of the footnote which follows were added in 1915, before which date it had begun with the sentence: ‘Further consideration leads me to conclude that I. Bloch has over-estimated the theoretical importance of the factor of craving for stimulation.’ The whole footnote and the paragraph in the text above were recast in their present form in 1920:] It must be pointed out, however, that sexual overvaluation is not developed in the case of every mechanism of object-choice. We shall become acquainted later on with another and more direct explanation of the sexual role assumed by the other parts of the body. The factor of ‘craving for stimulation’ has been put forward by Hoche and Bloch as an explanation of the extension of sexual interest to parts of the body other than the genitals; but it does not seem to me to deserve such an important place. The various channels along which the libido passes are related to each other from the very first like inter- communicating pipes, and we must take the phenomenon of collateral flow into account. [See p. 170.] 2 [Footnote added 1920:] In typical cases women fail to exhibit any sexual overvaluation towards men; but they scarcely ever fail to do so towards their own children. - 151 - Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).  using her tooth-brush, though there are no grounds for supposing that his own oral cavity, for which he feels no disgust, is any cleaner than the girl's. Here, then, our attention is drawn to the factor of disgust, which interferes with the libidinal overvaluation of the sexual object but can in turn be overridden by libido. Disgust seems to be one of the forces which have led to a restriction of the sexual aim. These forces do not as a rule extend to the genitals themselves. But there is no doubt that the genitals of the opposite sex can in themselves be an object of disgust and that such an attitude is one of the characteristics of all hysterics, and especially of hysterical women. The sexual instinct in its strength enjoys overriding this disgust. (See below [p. 156f].) SEXUAL USE OF THE ANAL ORIFICE Where the anus is concerned it becomes still clearer that it is disgust which stamps that sexual aim as a perversion. I hope, however, I shall not be accused of partisanship when I assert that people who try to account for this disgust by saying that the organ in question serves the function of excretion and comes in contact with excrement— a thing which is disgusting in itself—are not much more to the point than hysterical girls who account for their disgust at the male genital by saying that it serves to void urine. The playing of a sexual part by the mucous membrane of the anus is by no means limited to intercourse between men: preference for it is in no way characteristic of inverted feeling. On the contrary, it seems that paedicatio with a male owes its origin to an analogy with a similar act performed with a woman; while mutual masturbation is the sexual aim most often found in intercourse between inverts. SIGNIFICANCE OF OTHER REGIONS OF THE BODY The extension of sexual interest to other regions of the body, with all its variations, offers us nothing that is new in principle; it adds nothing to our knowledge of the sexual instinct, which merely proclaims its intention in this way of getting possession of the sexual object in every possible direction. But these anatomical extensions inform us that, besides sexual overvaluation, there is a second factor at work which is strange to popular knowledge. Certain regions of the body, such as the mucous membrane of the mouth and anus, ————————————— [PEP] This page can be read in German in GESAMMELTE WERKE Vol 5, Page 51 - 152 - Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).  which are constantly appearing in these practices, seem, as it were, to be claiming that they should themselves be regarded and treated as genitals. We shall learn later that this claim is justified by the history of the development of the sexual instinct and that it is fulfilled in the symptomatology of certain pathological states. UNSUITABLE SUBSTITUTES FOR THE SEXUAL OBJECT—FETISHISM There are some cases which are quite specially remarkable—those in which the normal sexual object is replaced by another which bears some relation to it, but is entirely unsuited to serve the normal sexual aim. From the point of view of classification, we should no doubt have done better to have mentioned this highly interesting group of aberrations of the sexual instinct among the deviations in respect of the sexual object. But we have postponed their mention till we could become acquainted with the factor of sexual overvaluation, on which these phenomena, being connected with an abandonment of the sexual aim, are dependent. What is substituted for the sexual object is some part of the body (such as the foot or hair) which is in general very inappropriate for sexual purposes, or some inanimate object which bears an assignable relation to the person whom it replaces and preferably to that person's sexuality (e.g. a piece of clothing or underlinen). Such substitutes are with some justice likened to the fetishes in which savages believe that their gods are embodied. A transition to those cases of fetishism in which the sexual aim, whether normal or perverse, is entirely abandoned is afforded by other cases in which the sexual object is required to fulfil a fetishistic condition—such as the possession of some particular hair-colouring or clothing, or even some bodily defect— if the sexual aim is to be attained. No other variation of the sexual instinct that borders on the pathological can lay so much claim to our interest as this one, such is the peculiarity of the phenomena to which it gives rise. Some degree of diminution in the urge towards the normal sexual aim (an executive weakness of the sexual apparatus) seems to be a necessary precondition in every case.1 The point of contact with the normal ————————————— [PEP] This page can be read in German in GESAMMELTE WERKE Vol 5, Page 52 1 [Footnote added 1915:] This weakness would represent the constitutional precondition. Psycho-analysis has found that the phenomenon can also be accidentally determined, by the occurrence of an early deterrence from sexual activity owing to fear, which may divert the subject from the normal sexual aim and encourage him to seek a substitute for it. - 153 - Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org).