Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality
In the Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality Freud is able to expand the psychoanalytic field by elaborating on the importance of studying infantile sexuality. Though Freud coined the term infantile sexuality, a better understanding would be infantile pleasures. The first essay is based on the subject of perversions and how they are fairly more normal that people take them to be. The second essay generates and explains infantile sexuality. In the last essay Freud links the pleasures in the infantile state to the process of puberty. By taking such an uncommon stance Freud makes way to a larger interest in child development.
The first essay goes through commonly known perversions and gives each a deeper …show more content…
Infantile sexuality is not supposed to mean infants having genital drive, but rather pleasures that can lead on to affect sexual development later in life. Sexuality does not simply appear after puberty, but instead begins development starting from infancy. The two types of infantile sexuality Freud mentions is the oral pleasure and anal pleasure. The oral pleasure involves the satisfaction that babies are provided while sucking on their mother’s breast, infants try to recreate this pleasure by sucking their thumb. This type of pleasure can later turn into a perversion as through means of sucking in the act of oral sex. The anal pleasure is due to the holding in and release of stool, this pleasure when overvalued is shown in adulthood by the act of anal sex. At this point infants are auto-erotic because the child has “no sexual object...and its sexual aim is dominated by an auto erotogenic zone.” When a child becomes fixated to the oral or anal pleasure this becomes evident in adult sexual life. The sexuality of infancy can not be remembered due to infantile amnesia, and Freud claims that “without infantile amnesia there would be no hysterical amnesia.” Freud makes this link to establish how infantile sexuality does in fact affect later …show more content…
After this stage the infant’s sexual object is turned towards the person that provides comfort and affection, this person is the mother. Both sexes have the same first sexual object, the mother, who helps in the shaping of the child’s sexuality. The mother “regards him with feelings that are derived from her own sexual life, ” therefore the child is taught love by the mother. Over affection to a child can cause later life issues with a greater need for love or the want of greater amounts of affection (Freud 289). It is easy for males to move on from the sexual object of the mother to another motherly female figure, yet this is much more complicated for the female. The female must reject the affection for the same sex, and redirect towards the opposite sex. Neurosis in women is more common, due to this switch of sexual object choice that is essential to establishing a normal sexual life. The relationship between the parents and the child have a large impact on how the child chooses his/her sexual
In the Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality Freud is able to expand the psychoanalytic field by elaborating on the importance of studying infantile sexuality. Though Freud coined the term infantile sexuality, a better understanding would be infantile pleasures. The first essay is based on the subject of perversions and how they are fairly more normal that people take them to be. The second essay generates and explains infantile sexuality. In the last essay Freud links the pleasures in the infantile state to the process of puberty. By taking such an uncommon stance Freud makes way to a larger interest in child development.
The first essay goes through commonly known perversions and gives each a deeper …show more content…
Infantile sexuality is not supposed to mean infants having genital drive, but rather pleasures that can lead on to affect sexual development later in life. Sexuality does not simply appear after puberty, but instead begins development starting from infancy. The two types of infantile sexuality Freud mentions is the oral pleasure and anal pleasure. The oral pleasure involves the satisfaction that babies are provided while sucking on their mother’s breast, infants try to recreate this pleasure by sucking their thumb. This type of pleasure can later turn into a perversion as through means of sucking in the act of oral sex. The anal pleasure is due to the holding in and release of stool, this pleasure when overvalued is shown in adulthood by the act of anal sex. At this point infants are auto-erotic because the child has “no sexual object...and its sexual aim is dominated by an auto erotogenic zone.” When a child becomes fixated to the oral or anal pleasure this becomes evident in adult sexual life. The sexuality of infancy can not be remembered due to infantile amnesia, and Freud claims that “without infantile amnesia there would be no hysterical amnesia.” Freud makes this link to establish how infantile sexuality does in fact affect later …show more content…
After this stage the infant’s sexual object is turned towards the person that provides comfort and affection, this person is the mother. Both sexes have the same first sexual object, the mother, who helps in the shaping of the child’s sexuality. The mother “regards him with feelings that are derived from her own sexual life, ” therefore the child is taught love by the mother. Over affection to a child can cause later life issues with a greater need for love or the want of greater amounts of affection (Freud 289). It is easy for males to move on from the sexual object of the mother to another motherly female figure, yet this is much more complicated for the female. The female must reject the affection for the same sex, and redirect towards the opposite sex. Neurosis in women is more common, due to this switch of sexual object choice that is essential to establishing a normal sexual life. The relationship between the parents and the child have a large impact on how the child chooses his/her sexual