Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex by Sigmund Freud

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*Constitution and Heredity.*--In the first place, we must mention here
the congenital _variation of the sexual constitution_, upon which the
greatest weight probably falls, but the existence of which, as may be
easily understood, can be established only through its later
manifestations and even then not always with great certainty. We
understand by it a preponderance of one or another of the manifold
sources of the sexual excitement, and we believe that such a difference
of disposition must always come to expression in the final result, even
if it should remain within normal limits. Of course, we can also imagine
certain variations of the original disposition that even without further
aid must necessarily lead to the formation of an abnormal sexual life.
One can call these "degenerative" and consider them as an expression of
hereditary deterioration. In this connection I have to report a
remarkable fact. In more than half of the severe cases of hysteria,
compulsion neuroses, etc., which I have treated by psychotherapy, I have
succeeded in positively demonstrating that their fathers have gone
through an attack of syphilis before marriage; they have either suffered
from tabes or general paresis, or there was a definite history of lues.
I expressly add that the children who were later neurotic showed
absolutely no signs of hereditary lues, so that the abnormal sexual
constitution was to be considered as the last off-shoot of the luetic
heredity. As far as it is now from my thoughts to put down a descent
from syphilitic parents as a regular and indispensable etiological
determination of the neuropathic constitution, I nevertheless maintain
that the coincidence observed by me is not accidental and not without
significance.

The hereditary relations of the positive perverts are not so well known
because they know how to avoid inquiry. Still there is reason to believe
that the same holds true in the perversions as in the neuroses. We often
find perversions and psychoneuroses in the different sexes of the same
family, so distributed that the male members, or one of them, is a
positive pervert, while the females, following the repressive tendencies
of their sex, are negative perverts or hysterics. This is a good example
of the substantial relations between the two disturbances which I have
discovered.

*Further Elaboration.*--It cannot, however, be maintained that the
structure of the sexual life is rendered finally complete by the
addition of the diverse components of the sexual constitution. On the
contrary, qualifications continue to appear and new possibilities
result, depending upon the fate experienced by the sexual streams
originating from the individual sources. This _further elaboration_ is
evidently the final and decisive one while the constitution described as
uniform may lead to three final issues. If all the dispositions assumed
to be abnormal retain their relative proportion, and are strengthened
with maturity, the ultimate result can only be a perverse sexual life.
The analysis of such abnormally constituted dispositions has not yet
been thoroughly undertaken, but we already know cases that can be
readily explained in the light of these theories. Authors believe, for
example, that a whole series of fixation perversions must necessarily
have had as their basis a congenital weakness of the sexual impulse. The
statement seems to me untenable in this form, but it becomes ingenious
if it refers to a constitutional weakness of one factor in the sexual
impulse, namely, the genital zone, which later in the interests of
propagation accepts as a function the sum of the individual sexual
activities. In this case the summation which is demanded in puberty must
fail and the strongest of the other sexual components continues its
activity as a perversion.[13]

*Repression.*--Another issue results if in the course of development
certain powerful components experience a _repression_--which we must
carefully note is not a suspension. The excitations in question are
produced as usual but are prevented from attaining their aim by psychic
hindrances, and are driven off into many other paths until they express
themselves in a symptom. The result can be an almost normal sexual
life--usually a limited one--but supplemented by psychoneurotic disease.
It is these cases that become so familiar to us through the
psychoanalytic investigation of neurotics. The sexual life of such
persons begins like that of perverts, a considerable part of their
childhood is filled up with perverse sexual activity which occasionally
extends far beyond the period of maturity, but owing to inner reasons a
repressive change then results--usually before puberty, but now and then
even much later--and from this point on without any extinction of the
old feelings there appears a neurosis instead of a perversion. One may
recall here the saying, "Junge Hure, alte Betschwester,"--only here
youth has turned out to be much too short. The relieving of the
perversion by the neurosis in the life of the same person, as well as
the above mentioned distribution of perversion and hysteria in different
persons of the same family, must be placed side by side with the fact
that the neurosis is the negative of the perversion.

*Sublimation.*--The third issue in abnormal constitutional dispositions
is made possible by the process of "sublimation," through which the
powerful excitations from individual sources of sexuality are discharged
and utilized in other spheres, so that a considerable increase of
psychic capacity results from an, in itself dangerous, predisposition.
This forms one the sources of artistic activity, and, according as such
sublimation is complete or incomplete, the analysis of the character of
highly gifted, especially of artistically disposed persons, will show
any proportionate, blending between productive ability, perversion, and
neurosis. A sub-species of sublimation is the suppression through
_reaction-formation_, which, as we have found, begins even in the
latency period of infancy, only to continue throughout life in
favorable cases. What we call the _character_ of a person is built up to
a great extent from the material of sexual excitations; it is composed
of impulses fixed since infancy and won through sublimation, and of such
constructions as are destined to suppress effectually those perverse
feelings which are recognized as useless. The general perverse sexual
disposition of childhood can therefore be esteemed as a source of a
number of our virtues, insofar as it incites their creation through the
formation of reactions.[14]

*Accidental Experiences.*--All other influences lose in significance
when compared with the sexual discharges, shifts of repressions, and
sublimations; the inner determinations for the last two processes are
totally unknown to us. He who includes repressions and sublimations
among constitutional predispositions, and considers them as the living
manifestations of the same, has surely the right to maintain that the
final structure of the sexual life is above all the result of the
congenital constitution. No intelligent person, however, will dispute
that in such a cooeperation of factors there is also room for the
modifying influences of occasional factors derived from experience in
childhood and later on.

It is not easy to estimate the effectiveness of the constitutional and
of the occasional factors in their relation to each other. Theory is
always inclined to overestimate the first while therapeutic practice
renders prominent the significance of the latter. By no means should it
be forgotten that between the two there exists a relation of cooeperation
and not of exclusion. The constitutional factor must wait for
experiences which bring it to the surface, while the occasional needs
the support of the constitutional factor in order to become effective.
For the majority of cases one can imagine a so-called "etiological
group" in which the declining intensities of one factor become balanced
by the rise in the others, but there is no reason to deny the existence
of extremes at the ends of the group.

It would be still more in harmony with psychoanalytic investigation if
the experiences of early childhood would get a place of preference among
the occasional factors. The one etiological group then becomes split up
into two which may be designated as the dispositional and the definitive
groups. Constitution and occasional infantile experiences are just as
cooeperative in the first as disposition and later traumatic experiences
in the second group. All the factors which injure the sexual development
show their effect in that they produce a _regression_, or a return to a
former phase of development.

We may now continue with our task of enumerating the factors which have
become known to us as influential for the sexual development, whether
they be active forces or merely manifestations of the same.

*Prematurity.*--Such a factor is the spontaneous sexual _prematurity_
which can be definitely demonstrated at least in the etiology of the
neuroses, though in itself it is as little adequate for causation as the
other factors. It manifests itself in a breaking through, shortening, or
suspending of the infantile latency period and becomes a cause of
disturbances inasmuch as it provokes sexual manifestations which, either
on account of the unready state of the sexual inhibitions or because of
the undeveloped state of the genital system, can only carry along the
character of perversions. These tendencies to perversion may either
remain as such, or after the repression sets in they may become motive
powers for neurotic symptoms; at all events, the sexual prematurity
renders difficult the desirable later control of the sexual impulse by
the higher psychic influences, and enhances the compulsive-like
character which even without this prematurity would be claimed by the
psychic representatives of the impulse. Sexual prematurity often runs
parallel with premature intellectual development; it is found as such in
the infantile history of the most distinguished and most productive
individuals, and in such connection it does not seem to act as
pathogenically as when appearing isolated.

*Temporal Factors.*--Just like prematurity, other factors, which under
the designation of _temporal_ can be added to prematurity, also demand
consideration. It seems to be phylogenetically established in what
sequence the individual impulsive feelings become active, and how long
they can manifest themselves before they succumb to the influence of a
newly appearing active impulse or to a typical repression. But both in
this temporal succession as well as in the duration of the same,
variations seem to occur, which must exercise a definite influence on
the experience. It cannot be a matter of indifference whether a certain
stream appears earlier or later than its counterstream, for the effect
of a repression cannot be made retrogressive; a temporal deviation in
the composition of the components regularly produces a change in the
result. On the other hand impulsive feelings which appear with special
intensity often come to a surprisingly rapid end, as in the case of the
heterosexual attachment of the later manifest homosexuals. The strivings
of childhood which manifest themselves most impetuously do not justify
the fear that they will lastingly dominate the character of the
grown-up; one has as much right to expect that they will disappear in
order to make room for their counterparts. (Harsh masters do not rule
long.) To what one may attribute such temporal confusions of the
processes of development we are hardly able to suggest. A view is opened
here to a deeper phalanx of biological, and perhaps also historical
problems, which we have not yet approached within fighting distance.

*Adhesion.*--The significance of all premature sexual manifestations is
enhanced by a psychic factor of unknown origin which at present can be
put down only as a psychological preliminary. I believe that it is the
_heightened adhesion_ or _fixedness_ of these impressions of the sexual
life which in later neurotics, as well as in perverts, must be added for
the completion of the other facts; for the same premature sexual
manifestations in other persons cannot impress themselves deeply enough
to repeat themselves compulsively and to succeed in prescribing the way
for the sexual impulse throughout later life. Perhaps a part of the
explanation for this adhesion lies in another psychic factor which we
cannot miss in the causation of the neuroses, namely, in the
preponderance which in the psychic life falls to the share of memory
traces as compared with recent impressions. This factor is apparently
dependent on the intellectual development and grows with the growth of
personal culture. In contrast to this the savage has been characterized
as "the unfortunate child of the moment."[15] Owing to the oppositional
relation existing between culture and the free development of sexuality,
the results of which may be traced far into the formation of our life,
the problem how the sexual life of the child evolves is of very little
importance for the later life in the lower stages of culture and
civilization, and of very great importance in the higher.

*Fixation.*--The influence of the psychic factors just mentioned favored
the development of the accidentally experienced impulses of the
infantile sexuality. The latter (especially in the form of seductions
through other children or through adults) produce the material which,
with the help of the former, may become fixed as a permanent
disturbance. A considerable number of the deviations from the normal
sexual life observed later have been thus established in neurotics and
perverts from the beginning through the impressions received during the
alleged sexually free period of childhood. The causation is produced by
the responsiveness of the constitution, the prematurity, the quality of
heightened adhesion, and the accidental excitement of the sexual impulse
through outside influence.

The unsatisfactory conclusions which have resulted from this
investigation of the disturbances of the sexual life is due to the fact
that we as yet know too little concerning the biological processes in
which the nature of sexuality consists to form from our isolated
examinations a satisfactory theory for the explanation of either the
normal or the pathological.

[1] The differences will be emphasized in the schematic representation
given in the text. To what extent the infantile sexuality approaches the
definitive sexual organization through its object selection has been
discussed before (p. 60).

[2] See my work, Wit and its Relation to the Unconscious, translated by
A.A. Brill, Moffat Yard Pub. Co., New York: "The fore-pleasure gained by
the technique of wit is utilized for the purpose of setting free a
greater pleasure by the removal of inner inhibitions."

[3] Cf. Zur Einfuehrung des Narzismus, Jahrbuch der Psychoanalyse, VI,
1913.

[4] It is necessary to make clear that the conceptions "masculine" and
"feminine," whose content seems so unequivocal to the ordinary meaning,
belong to the most confused terms in science and can be cut up into at
least three paths. One uses masculine and feminine at times in the sense
of activity and passivity, again, in the biological sense, and then also
in the sociological sense. The first of these three meanings is the
essential one and the only one utilizable in psychoanalysis. It agrees
with the masculine designation of the libido in the text above, for the
libido is always active even when it is directed to a passive aim. The
second, the biological significance of masculine and feminine, is the
one which permits the clearest determination. Masculine and feminine are
here characterized by the presence of semen or ovum and through the
functions emanating from them. The activity and its secondary
manifestations, like stronger developed muscles, aggression, a greater
intensity of libido, are as a rule soldered to the biological
masculinity but not necessarily connected with it, for there are species
of animals in whom these qualities are attributed to the female. The
third, the sociological meaning, receives its content through the
observation of the actual existing male and female individuals. The
result of this in man is that there is no pure masculinity or feminity
either in the biological or psychological sense. On the contrary every
individual person shows a mixture of his own biological sex
characteristics with the biological traits of the other sex and a union
of activity and passivity; this is the case whether these psychological
characteristic features depend on the biological or whether they are
independent of it.

[5] Psychoanalysis teaches that there are two paths of object-finding;
the first is the one discussed in the text which is guided by the early
infantile prototypes. The second is the narcissistic which seeks its own
ego and finds it in the other. The latter is of particularly great
significance for the pathological outcomes, but does not fit into the
connection treated here.

[6] Those to whom this conception appears "wicked" may read Havelock
Ellis's treatise on the relations between mother and child which
expresses almost the same ideas (The Sexual Impulse, p. 16).

[7] For the explanation of the origin of the infantile fear I am
indebted to a three-year-old boy whom I once heard calling from a dark
room: "Aunt, talk to me, I am afraid because it is dark." "How will that
help you," answered the aunt; "you cannot see anyhow." "That's nothing,"
answered the child; "if some one talks then it becomes light."--He was,
as we see, not afraid of the darkness but he was afraid because he
missed the person he loved, and he could promise to calm down as soon as
he was assured of her presence.

[8] Cf. here what was said on page 83 concerning the object selection of
the child; the "tender stream."

[9] The incest barrier probably belongs to the historical acquisitions
of humanity and like other moral taboos it must be fixed in many
individuals through organic heredity. (Cf. my work, Totem and Taboo,
1913.) Psychoanalytic studies show, however, how intensively the
individual struggles with the incest temptations during his development
and how frequently he puts them into phantasies and even into reality.

[10] Compare the description concerning the inevitable relation in the
Oedipus legend (The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 222, translated by A.A.
Brill, The Macmillan Co., New York, and Allen & Unwin, London).

[11] Innumerable peculiarities of the human love-life as well as the
compulsiveness of being in love itself can surely only be understood
through a reference to childhood or as an effective remnant of the same.

[12] This was true not only of the "negative" tendencies to perversion
appearing in the neurosis, but also of the so-called positive
perversions. The latter are not only to be attributed to the fixation of
the infantile tendencies, but also to regression to these tendencies
owing to the misplacement of other paths of the sexual stream. Hence the
positive perversions are also accessible to psychoanalytic therapy. (Cf.
the works of Sadger, Ferenczi, and Brill.)

[13] Here one often sees that at first a normal sexual stream begins at
the age of puberty, but owing to its inner weakness it breaks down at
the first outer hindrance and then changes from regression, to perverse
fixation.

[14] That keen observer of human nature, E. Zola, describes a girl in
his book, La Joie de vivre, who in cheerful self renunciation offers all
she has in possession or expectation, her fortune and her life's hopes
to those she loves without thought of return. The childhood of this girl
was dominated by an insatiable desire for love which whenever she was
depreciated caused her to merge into a fit of cruelty.

[15] It is possible that the heightened adhesion is only the result of a
special intensive somatic sexual manifestation of former years.

INDEX

Aberrations (see Perversions)
a fragment of inhibited development, 89
Sexual, 1, 13, 14
shown by the psychoneurotic, 29
with animals, 13

Absolute Inversion (sexual object of the same sex), 2

Activity and Passivity in sexual aim in exhibitionism, 21
of Sadism and Masochism, 23
precursors and masculine and feminine, 59

Activity, Muscular, 63

Adhesion, heightened, or fixedness of impressions of sexual life, 99
may be only result of a special intensive somatic sexual manifestation of former years, 99

Affective Processes, 64
pathogenic action of, 64
value of unconscious thought formation, 27

Aggression, Sadism and Masochism not attributable to mixture of, 24
taint of, shown by sexuality of most men, 22

Agoraphobia and neurotic disturbances of walking, 64, note 22

Aims of impulses distinguish them from one another, 31

Algolagnia, 22

Alkaloids, introduction of, analogous in neuroses and phenomena of intoxication and abstinence, 76

Ambivalence, 59

Amnesia, Infantile, 37
connected with infantile sexual activity, 51
and hysterical compared, 39

Amphigenous inversion, 2

Anal Erotic, 10, note 11
Zone, activity of, 47
erogenous significance of, 48
masturbatic irritation of, 49

Androgyny, 8

Anesthesia, causes of, are partly psychic, 81
continuance of, caused by retention of clitoris excitability, 81
of newly married women, 80
of wives due to parent complex, 85
of women often only apparent and local, 81
of women only at vaginal entrance, 81

Animals as sexual objects, 13

Anus (see also Anal)
as aim of inverts, 12; 17
especially frequent example of transgression, 29
part played by erogenous zone in, 32

Anxiety on railroads, 63

Archaic constitution, 10, note 11

Arduin, Dr., 9, note 11

Attractions connected with pleasure, 70

Autoerotism, the gratification of sexual impulse on own body, 43
separation of, from object love, not temporal, 55, note 19
essential, of infantile sexuality, 58
of erogenous zones, same in boy and girl, 79
regular, of sexual impulse, 81

Baths, warm, therapeutic effects of, 62

Bayer, 40, note 6

Beautiful, concept of, 21
a quality of excitation, 70

Bell, S., 37,
note 2; 55,
note 19

Binet; 19; 34

Birth theories, 57

Bisexuality, Relation of, 7
as explanation of inversion, 9, note 11
Sadism and Masochism, 24
necessary to understanding of sexual in man and woman, 80

Bladder, disturbances of childhood sexual in nature, 51

Bleuler, 37, note 2; 60

Bloch, I., 1, note 1; 5; 16

Breast, rubbing of, 43
woman's, as erogenous zone, 71

Cadavers, 25

Cannibalistic pregenital phase, 59

Castration complex, 22; 56
of males does not always injure sexual libido, 75

Catarrh, intestinal, produces irritations in anal zone, 48

Cathartic treatment, 26

Character built up from the material of sexual excitations, 96
composed of impulses fixed since infancy and won through sublimation, 96
of individual determined by infantile sexual activity, 50

Chemical theories of sexual excitement, 76

Chevalier, 7; 9, note 11

Childish, see Infantile

Children and neurotics compared, 38
as sexual objects, 13
cruelty especially characteristic of, 30
educability of, impaired by premature sexual activity, 91
impressionability of, 38
in school, behavior of and germinating sexuality, 64
sexual life of, 40

Clitoris, chief erogenous zone in female child, 80
erection of, in little girls, 80
excitability retained causes continuance of anesthesia, 81
excitation, destinies of, 80
conducts excitement to adjacent female parts, 80
transfer of, to other parts, takes time, 80
sexuality is a part of male sexual life, 80
sexuality repressed in girl at puberty, 80

Coitus, 36

Colin, 23

Complex, castration, 22; 56
Oedipus, 85
parent, 15, note 14
strongest in girls, 85

Compulsion emanating from unconscious psychic material, 51
inversion is perceived as a morbid, 3
neurosis, 32
psychoanalysis enlightens ego libido, 77
from fixation on erogenous zones in infancy, 77

Congeniality in inversions, 4
of perversions in all persons, 34

Conscience, 22

Constitutional factor, relation of, to occasional 96

Contrary Sexuals, 2

Conversion, 27

Coprophilic smell desire, 20, note 19

Copulation, 14

Courting, 22

Craving, best English word for libido, 1, note 2

Cruelty and sexual impulse most intimately connected, 23
as component of infantile sexual life regarding others as sexual objects, 53
especially near the childish character, 54
partial desires as carriers of impulses of, 30

Culture and sex, 41

Dangers of fore-pleasure, 72

Degeneration, nervous, 4
high ethical culture in, 5

Dementia praecox, 26

Desire, coprophilic smell, 20, note 19
for knowledge, 55
immense sexual, in hysteria, 28
partial, 29

Dessoir, 87

Donation, idea of, 48; 49

Drinking, desire for, in former thumbsuckers, 44

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