Chapter 21 Lecture 20 People's Sexual Life

You must think it beyond doubt what the word "sexual" means.First, the so-called "sexual" is of course improper, and should not be spoken or written.There was once upon a time a well-known psychiatrist who had several pupils who tried to convince the teacher that hysterical symptoms often had sexual undertones.To this end they lead him to the bedside of a hysterical woman.The woman's symptoms apparently mimicked the act of giving birth.But the teacher said: "Having a child is not necessarily sexual." Of course it is correct, and having a child is not necessarily an illegal thing.

I know you don't approve of me telling jokes about such an important issue.However, this statement is not all jokes.To be honest, it is not easy to give a precise definition to the word "sexual".Perhaps only things related to the difference between the sexes can be used as a definition of the word "sexual"; but, you know, that is too general and uncertain.If you take the sexual act itself as a central point, you may think that "sexual" means the gratification of pleasure obtained from the body of the opposite sex, especially the sexual organs; and the completion of the sexual act.But with that said, you almost think that "sexual" and "improper" have the same meaning, and that having a baby really has nothing to do with sex.If you regard reproductive function as the essence of sexual life, then you will inevitably exclude masturbation and even kissing from the definition of "sexuality". However, although masturbation and kissing do not end in reproduction, they are undoubtedly sexual.We have seen that the difficulty of defining always arises; there is no need to make such an attempt here.We may suspect that the concept of "sexual" cannot have a perfect definition.But generally speaking, everyone knows what the word "sexual" means.

According to the general opinion, the meaning of "sexual" also refers to the difference between the sexes, the stimulation and satisfaction of pleasure, the reproductive function, and the concept of illicitness that must be hidden.Although this insight is applicable in ordinary life, it is not enough in science.Because painstaking research, of course only possible with self-restraint, has shown that there are people whose sex lives are different from those of ordinary people. These people may be called "the perverts" There is no gender difference in life.From their point of view, only those of the same sex can arouse sexual desire; the opposite sex, especially the genitals of the opposite sex, have absolutely no sexual stimulation for them, and even become a kind of horror object.Therefore, they have no reproductive function at all.Such people can be called homosexuals.They are often in other respects of psychological development, whether intellectual or ethical, of an impeccably high standard, and are only slightly deficient in this characteristic.Scientists call them a special species of human beings, the so-called "third sex" and "third sex", who have equal rights with other sexes.This opinion may have the opportunity to be criticized in the future.They are not, of course, the "superior" of humanity, which they themselves like to call themselves; there are at least as many inferior and useless individuals in them as there are in the other sexes.

These perverts also at least achieve what ordinary people want to achieve by having an object of lust.But among them there are many kinds of perverted people, whose sexual activities are far from what ordinary people are interested in.These people are so varied and grotesque that they may be compared with the monsters painted by Breuigher to represent the temptation of St. Anthony, or Flaubert's walk before his penitents. Compared with the legion of decrepit idols and worshipers of the past.We must classify this jumbled mass, if it does not completely confuse us.Therefore, they are divided into the first category, whose sexual objects have changed, the same as homosexuals; and the second category, whose sexual goals have changed.Those belonging to the first category do not want genital joints, but replace their genitals with other organs or parts of the other party, such as the mouth or anus instead of the vagina, regardless of whether there is any hindrance or shame.Others still have the genitals as objects; not because of their sexual functions, but because of other closely related functions.In such persons, excretory functions, which others regard as indecent, are sufficient to arouse their whole sexual interest.Still others have no genitals at all; but other parts of the body, such as a woman's breasts, feet, or hair, are objects of lust.There are also those who even think that body parts are meaningless, but that a garment, a shoe, or a shirt can satisfy their lusts; these people are no different from believers in fetishism.Then there are those who, in general, want to have objects; yet their demands come in a peculiar and terrible way—even to irresistible cadavers, impelled by criminal obsessions to do so. A tool for satisfying desires.There is no need to say more about these appalling things!

In the second category of sexual perverts, the object of sexual desire is merely a sexual preparatory act performed by ordinary people.Some people watch or caress, or spy on others' most secret actions, in order to satisfy their sexual desire; some people expose parts of their bodies that should not be exposed, vaguely hoping that the other party will respond with similar actions.There are also some ruthless sadists who specifically want to inflict pain and punishment on the other party. The lesser ones just want to make the opponent submit, and the more serious ones will cause the opponent's body to be seriously injured.The opposite of the sadist is the masochist, who seeks only to be subdued or punished, real or symbolic, by his opponent.There are also people who have both of these pathological phenomena.Finally, we also know that the perverts belonging to these two categories can be divided into two kinds: the first kind actually seeks the gratification of their sexual desire in a special way, and the second kind only seeks gratification in imagination, and does not need to be satisfied. There are real objects, and in their place are created fantasies.

There can be no doubt that these insane, grotesque, monstrous activities constitute the activities of these men's sexual lives.Not only do they themselves think so, acknowledging their surrogate character; but we too are compelled to admit that these activities occupy the same place in their lives as normal sexual gratification occupies in ours; or greater sacrifice.We can also describe roughly or in detail where these abnormal phenomena are confused with the normal, and where they are different from the normal.You also know that all the illicit nature of sexual activity is still present in these modes: sometimes its intensity is increased to the point of repulsion.

What is our present attitude to these perverted forms of sexual gratification?It is of little use for us to express anger and disgust, and to be confident that we do not have these desires.That's not the point of the question.This phenomenon is exactly similar to other phenomena; if you try to ignore these phenomena and avoid talking about them on the pretext that they are strange and uncommon, it is easy to be refuted, because these phenomena are very common and everywhere. visible.But if you think that these phenomena are merely perverted sexual instincts, and that our theories about human sexual life need not be modified, then a serious rebuttal must be made.If we cannot understand these pathological ways of sex and connect them with normal sex life, then normal sex life will also be impossible to understand.In short, we must theoretically explain fully the existence of all perversions and their relation to normal sexual life.

To this end we have the help of a point of view and two new kinds of evidence.That view is due to Ivan Bloch; for him the statement that "all inversions are symptoms of degeneration" is unreliable; The primitive as well as the most civilized are all without this perversion of sexual goals and objects, and this perversion is sometimes tolerated by ordinary people.As for the two kinds of evidence, they come from psychoanalytic studies of neurotics; there can be no doubt that they have had a great influence on the theory of sexual perversions. We have said that the symptoms of neurosis are substitutes for sexual gratification; we have also said that there are many difficulties in proving this statement from the analysis of the symptoms.In all honesty, we should regard those so-called "perverted" sexual needs as a kind of sexual satisfaction; for explanations of symptoms are so often based on this term.Homosexuals boast that they are an excellent class of human beings, but if we know that every neurotic patient has a homosexual tendency, and most of the symptoms are the manifestation of this latent homosexual tendency, we can see that this boasting will be untenable immediately feet up.Those who profess to be homosexuals are only conscious or overt about their homosexuality; the number of these people is actually very small compared with the number of people who only have latent homosexuality.In fact, we must regard the matter of choosing a same-sex as an object as a normal form of the capacity for love, and are increasingly aware of the special importance of this fact.The distinctions between homosexuality and normality are not thereby abolished, of course; they still matter in practice but are of much less theoretical value.We have even come to the conclusion that paranoia is a type of insanity, now no longer a "transference neurosis" which often arises from an attempt to suppress its powerful homosexual tendencies.You may recall the aforementioned patient who imitated, in compulsive movements, the behavior of a man, that is, her estranged husband. Neurotic women often have this masquerading symptom.If this cannot be attributed to homosexuality in fact, it does have a very close relationship with the origin of homosexuality.

Perhaps as you know, hysteria is a neurological disease that can produce symptoms in various systems of the body, such as circulation, breathing, etc., and can therefore disturb all bodily functions.From the results of the analysis we know that the so-called perverted impulses to substitute other organs for the genitals are expressed in these symptoms.Therefore, other organs can also replace the genitals: it is precisely because of the study of the symptoms of hysteria that we know that the organs of the body, in addition to their original functions, have a sexual meaning and that sex requires them. If it is too strong, the original function will be restricted.In the nonsexual organs, therefore, the sensations and impulses which we encounter as symptoms of hysteria are nothing but perverted sexual gratifications.From this, we can better understand how the organs of nutrition and excretory can be used to produce sexual excitement.Sexual inversions may have similar symptoms; only the symptoms of sexual inversions are easier to recognize than those of hysteria, which are more difficult to explain.Furthermore, you have to assume that the perverted sexual impulses belong to the unconscious part of the patient's personality, not to the conscious.

Among the many symptoms of obsessive-compulsive neurosis, the most important is the perversion of the object of the sadistic sexual tendency caused by excessive energy.These symptoms, according to the organization of the obsessive-compulsive neuroses, serve primarily to resist those perverted desires, or to express the conflict between their gratification and refusal.Contentment, however, does not take shortcuts; it knows how to make twists and turns in the patient's behavior to achieve its ends, so that he prefers to ask for it.There are other forms of this kind of neurosis, such as excessive worry and deep thinking, etc.; and excessively regard normal actions that are only preparatory as sexual satisfaction: such as peeping, fondling, and the desire to explore.Here we can explain why the fear of contact and compulsive handwashing play such an important role in this disease.Most compulsions are masturbation in a modified form, and masturbation may be regarded as the only basic act of all sexual fantasies.

It would not have been difficult for me to explain in more detail the connection of inversions and neuroses, but I believe what I have said has served our purpose.Nor should we overestimate the frequency and strength of perverted tendencies in man, just because they play such an important part in the explanation of symptoms.You already know that a lack of normal sexual satisfaction can cause neurosis.In fact, as a result of this lack, sexual need has to make sexual excitement seek perverted outlets.How this happened, you will know later.In any case, you can always know that this "side" check must increase the force of the perverted impulse, so that the force of the perverted impulse must be weaker if the normal sexual gratification is actually not hindered.A similar cause is also seen in the apparently perverted states.In many instances, the perverted state arises when the normal satisfaction of the sexual instincts is difficult to achieve either because of temporary blockages or because of permanent hindrances of social institutions.In other cases, the perverted tendencies have nothing to do with these conditions; they seem to be the original state of one's sexual life. You may temporarily feel that these words are not enough to explain the relationship between normal sex life and perverted sex life, but add to the confusion.But you have to remember the following argument.If actual hindrance or lack of sexual gratification does cause perverted tendencies to be manifested in persons who did not show them before, then we have to conclude that these persons are more susceptible to perverted symptoms; or in other words In other words, there is an inversion tendency latent in their bodies.We thus arrive at the second new kind of evidence mentioned above.We already know from psycho-analytic research that the sexual life of children is also worth studying, since the reminiscences and associations elicited by the analytic symptoms often go back to the earliest years of childhood.Everything thus discovered has recently been confirmed by direct observation of children.Therefore we know that all perverted tendencies originate in childhood, and that children not only have perverted tendencies, but also perverted behaviors, in proportion to their immaturity; in short, perverted sex life means The sex life of a baby is just slightly different in size and composition. Now you can look at the phenomenon of inversions in a completely different light and no longer ignore its relation to human sexual life; however, these appalling new discoveries may stir up unpleasant emotions in you!First, you must deny everything—deny that children also have a so-called sex life, deny the truth of our observations, deny the argument that children's behavior has any relationship to later perverted behavior.Let us now state the motives of your protest, and then outline the facts which we have observed.You want to say that children do not have sexual life—such as sexual excitement, sexual needs, sexual satisfaction, etc., and they only suddenly acquire it at the age of twelve to fourteen, which is inconsistent with all observations. Biologically, is nonsensical, as absurd as assuming that they are born without genitals and only start to develop them at puberty.In fact, what adolescence causes is the reproductive function. After this function takes effect, it uses the materials already in the body and mind to achieve its original purpose.Your mistake is that you do not distinguish between sex life and reproduction, and therefore do not understand sex life, perverted symptoms and neuroses.There is another layer of meaning to this error.Strangely enough, the source of this error is that you have all been children yourself, and that when you were children you were all influenced by education.One of the most important social tasks of education is to make the sexual instinct as a reproductive function accept the restraint and control of the individual itself, which is the requirement of society.Society, therefore, for its own happiness, postpones for a time the full development of the child until he has attained a certain degree of intellectual maturity, since educability practically ceases with the full activation of the sexual instincts.On the contrary, if the sexual instinct is out of control, it will collapse beyond control, and the cultural organization that has been painstakingly built will be swept away.But control is not easy; successes in control are often small, and sometimes too great.The basic motives of society are economic; since society cannot sustain its members without work, society wishes to have as few non-workers as possible, and to divert their energies from sexual activity to work . —This perpetual struggle for existence, which has existed since primitive times, is of course still present today. As a result of experience, educators already know that the cultivation of children's sexual will must start early. We should control children's sexual life before puberty, and not wait until the instinctive forces erupt.Therefore, all sexual activities belonging to infants are prohibited and make children feel uncomfortable; the ideal of education is to make children's life "asexual" asexual. Over time, even science is convinced that children have no sex life.In order not to contradict established beliefs and purposes, the sex life of children is ignored - no small achievement, by the way - and science is left to justify itself.The child is then assumed to be pure and innocent: whoever says "no" is a slanderer against the law of slander. Only children disregard this set of routines; they let their bestiality be exposed, so that the so-called "pure nature" is really learned.It is strange that those who deny the sexual life of children are the least willing to relax the work of controlling children's sexuality in education; although they do not want to admit the existence of children's sexual life, they still deal with children very severely. representation of each character.There is another layer, the period that most conflicts with the prejudice that "children have no sex life" is at the age of five or six, which is precisely the period that most people forget; although this period of forgetting can only be confirmed by analytical research Recall consciousness, but there is also the possibility of dreaming.This is theoretically of great interest. I have now come to describe the most obvious sexual activities of children.I thought it best to first draw your attention to the term libido.The libido, like hunger, is a force by which the instinct—here the sexual instinct, in the case of hunger the nutritional instinct—is the force by which it accomplishes its purpose.Other terms such as sexual excitement and satisfaction need not be defined.It is not difficult for you to know that the explanation of neurosis is mostly related to the sexual activities of infants; of course you also use this as a reason for objection.This explanation is based on the study of analysis, from a symptom back to its cause.The infant's first sexual arousal seems to be closely related to other important life functions.You know that the chief interest of the child is in the assimilation of nourishment; and that the infant's air of comfort, when he is fast asleep in the arms, seems to resemble that of an adult when he experiences sexual gratification.This is certainly not enough to draw conclusions.We know, however, that infants love to repeat the movements indispensable to the absorption of nourishment, without really taking in any nourishment; so they are not compelled to do so by hunger.We call this action "lutschen" or "ludeln" in German for the pleasure of sucking for sucking's sake - as in sucking on a rubber nipple [a rubber "comforter"]; Sleeping comfortably, it can be seen that the sucking action itself can satisfy the baby.And babies don't want to fall asleep without first having this sucking action.Lindner, a Budapest pediatrician, was the first to argue that the gesture had a sexual undertone.Although nannies and babysitters don't talk about science, they seem to have the same idea about this sucking for sucking's sake.They are all convinced that the sole purpose of the action is pleasure; and they call it a child's "prank"; and if the child does not cancel it of his own accord, they force him to give it up by severe means.Therefore, we know that the baby's movements have no other purpose than pleasure.Let us also believe that this pleasure is first felt when nourishment is absorbed, but the infant soon learns that it can be enjoyed without nourishment.The mouth and lips are important areas for the enjoyment of this pleasure; we therefore call these parts of the body the erotogenic zone and consider the pleasure derived from sucking to have a sexual connotation.As for the use of this term, we have to give a considerable reason. If the child could express his thoughts, he would admit that the act of sucking in the mother's arms is the most important thing in his life; for in this act the child really satisfies two of life's greatest desires at the same time.From the research of psychoanalysis, we also know, not without surprise, how the spiritual importance of this action is retained throughout life.Breastfeeding is the point of departure from which the whole sexual life begins, the prototype of all subsequent sexual gratifications; when the need arises, fantasies often use it as a means of masturbation.The desire to suck the breast contains the desire to pursue the mother's breast; therefore the mother's breast is the first object of sexual desire. As for how important this first object is in the choice of various objects later, it is different for other species. I can't describe exactly how the transformation and replacement of spiritual life have a major impact on my spiritual life.But as soon as the baby is able to suck for sucking's sake, the object is discarded and replaced by a part of its own body; the baby sucks its own thumb or tongue.He thus obtains pleasure without resorting to external things, and expands the area of ​​​​excitement to a second area of ​​the body to increase the intensity of the pleasure.The pleasure produced by the erogenous area cannot have the same intensity; as Dr. Lindner said, the baby strokes his body around and finds the genital area particularly stimulating, so he abandons sucking and masturbates, so This is an important experience. This appraisal of the nature of the sucking action now directs our attention to two important points in the sexual life of the infant.In order to satisfy the basic desires of his organism, the infant engages in an act of masturbation, that is to say, he pursues sexual objects in himself.Absorption of nutrients is most clearly seen, and excretion is no exception to a certain extent.We conclude that infants experience pleasure in defecation and defecation, and that they soon perform these movements deliberately, in the hope that the concomitant membrane excitement in these erogenous zones will give them the greatest possible satisfaction.But, as Lou Adrian has pointed out, external pressures do not allow the child's desire to pursue this pleasure to interfere--and so the child is first vaguely aware of the internal and external conflict experienced only by adults.He is not allowed to defecate at will; the time for defecation must be appointed by others.In order to make him give up these pleasures, the adults tell him that everything about defecation is "unrefined" and must be kept secret.He had to give up his own happiness in exchange for the value in the eyes of others.In fact, his own attitude towards excretion was very different at first.His own excrement is not enough to arouse his disgust; he originally regarded the excrement as a part of his body and was unwilling to abandon it, and wanted to give it as the first "gift" to the most beloved one.Even after being educated to abandon these tendencies, he still regarded excrement as a "gift" and "gold," and pissing seemed something to be especially proud of. I know you have long wanted to interrupt me by shouting: "Enough nonsense! The peristalsis of the bowels is used by babies as a source of pleasure and sexual satisfaction! The excrement has become an object of great value, and the anus has become an object of great value. genitals: how can we believe it? Yet we understand why pediatricians and educators so firmly reject psychoanalysis and its theories!" Absolutely wrong; you have only temporarily forgotten what I was thinking Tell your babies the relationship between the facts of sex and the facts of perversion.Don't you know that many adults, gay or straight, do use an anus instead of a vagina during intercourse?And don't you know that there are many who keep the pleasure of excretion as a matter of life?You may have heard children who are old enough to talk about these things talk about their interest in defecation, and the joy it gives them to watch other people defecate.If you have consistently frightened these children beforehand, they will naturally learn not to say such things.As for the rest of the things you don't want to believe, I would ask you to go to the psychoanalytic evidence and all the reports of direct observations of children, and to know that you can take a different view on this subject if you are not clouded by prejudice. Great talent is needed.I don't regret that you think the perverse relationship between the sexuality of children and the sexuality of adults is indeed appalling.This relationship is inherently natural; and since the child has no capacity, except for a few vague indications, to transform his sexual life into a reproductive function, it must be a perversion if the child has a sexual life. nature.And the abandonment of the purpose of reproduction is the common feature of all perversions.Whether sexual activity is perverted depends on whether it is limited to sexual gratification and not aimed at reproduction.From this, you should know that the main point of the development of sexual life is to comply with the purpose of reproduction.All sexual activity which has not been developed to this extent, and which does not follow this end but only seeks gratification, is despised by the disreputable name of "perversion." So please go back to the baby's sex life.I may perhaps supplement my observations of the two preceding organs by making the same investigations with various other organs.A child's sexual life is all about the activities of various instincts. Some of these instincts seek satisfaction in their own bodies, and some seek satisfaction in an external object. In short, they pursue each other and do not seek each other.Of the organs of the body, the genitals are naturally the most dominant; and some people masturbate continuously from infancy to puberty or beyond for the pleasure-gratification of their own genitals, without the help of other genitals or objects.But the question of masturbation is not easy to deal with in detail; for it has a great deal of material to discuss. Although I wish to limit the scope of this discussion, the matter of children's sexual curiosity has to be said a little.This kind of spying is characteristic of the sexual life of children and is a central point in the development of neurotic symptoms, so it cannot be omitted.Children's sexual exploration begins very early, sometimes before the age of three.Sexual voyeurism need not be of the opposite sex, and gender differences are trivial to children because they—at least in the case of boys—think that both sexes have male genitalia.If a boy happens to see the vulva of a little sister or friend, he immediately denies what he sees, because he cannot imagine how someone like himself should not have this vital organ.Later, when he realized that this was the case, he was terrified; so he began to feel the fear of this small organ in the past.He is then under the control of the castration complex; if he remains healthy, this complex is the cause of his character; if he becomes sickly, this complex is the cause of his neurosis; This complex is the cause of his resistance.As far as little girls are concerned, we know that because they lack a conspicuous penis, they are deeply lacking, and thus envy the boy's advantage; Desire can be seen again in neurosis.Furthermore, during childhood the girl's clitoris is equal to the boy's penis; for it is also a particularly stimulating area for self-satisfaction.If a girl becomes a woman, the sensitivity to this stimulation must be lowered from the clitoris to the vaginal opening as soon as possible.The so-called sexually insensitive women mean that the clitoris often retains the sensitivity of this stimulation without losing it. The child's sexual interest was initially preoccupied with the problem of childbirth—the same problem behind the riddle of the Sphinx.Curiosity about this question is mostly due to the fear of other children being born for self-interest.The nursery often answers this question by saying that the child is carried by the stork, but the child doubts this more often than we expect.The child knows that he has been deceived by the adult's lies, so he wants to solve it himself.But it is easier said than done.His sexual constitution has not developed, so his ability to understand the matter is greatly limited.He thought at first that children were made of some special mixture of objects and digested food; nor did he know that only women could bear children.Later he realized that this was not true, and the idea of ​​children being born of food was dropped, although it remained in the mythology.Later he thought that the father must have something to do with making the child, but he couldn't find out what the relationship was.If he happened to see his parents having intercourse, he thought it was a man's attempt to subdue a woman, or it was a fight.This is an explanation of sexual intercourse in terms of abuse, which is of course wrong; but he does not know the relationship between this action and childbirth; if he sees blood on the mother's bed or underwear, he thinks it is iron proof that the father has hurt the mother.A few years later, he may speculate that the male genitals play an important role in making children, but he still does not know that this organ has other functions besides urination. All children at first believed that the child was born from the bowels; that is to say, the child was formed like a lump of excrement.It is not until the child's interest in the anal region has completely waned that this theory is replaced by another assumption, that the navel or between the breasts is the region where the child is born.Gradually, there is little knowledge of sexual facts, unless due to ignorance, inattention to these facts, usually before puberty, an incomplete and untrue impression is received; this is often his later onset. causes of trauma. You now or know that the word "sexual" in the hands of psychoanalysts expands its meaning indefinitely, in order that all psychoanalytical statements about the sexual origin of neuroses and the sexual meaning of symptoms can be maintained unsustainably. fell.Whether this expansion is justified or not, you are now always free to judge.We have extended the concept of sexuality only to include the sexual lives of perverts and children; that is to say, we have restored the original range of meanings of sexuality.As for the so-called "sex" outside of psychoanalysis, it only applies to what is called normal and belongs to the narrow sense of reproductive function.