Introduction to Psychoanalysis

Chapter 38 People's Sexual Life (2)
Now, you can look at this phenomenon of sexual perversion with a new eye, and no longer ignore its relationship with human sexual life.But there will be displeasure about these horrific discoveries.First of all, they want to deny everything, deny the existence of the so-called sexual life of children, deny the truth and accuracy of our observations, deny our argument that children's behavior is related to later sexual perversion.We first describe the motives for these protests and then outline what we have seen.If you say that children have no sexual life, such as sexual excitement, needs and satisfaction, etc., until they are suddenly acquired at the age of 12 or 14, this is inconsistent with all observations, and it is meaningless biologically, as if they were born It's just as absurd to have no genitals and only start to develop hair at puberty.In fact, what adolescence produces is the reproductive function, which, after its emergence, makes use of the material already present in the body and mind for its original purpose.Your mistake is that you do not separate the sex life from the genitals, and thus fail to understand the sex life and its perverted symptoms and psychosis.There is another layer to this error.Oddly enough, the wrong reason is that you were all once children, and you were all influenced by your education as children.Among them, one of the most important social tasks of education, that is, the requirement of society is to make the sexual instinct as a reproductive function subject to the restraint and control of the individual itself.Society, therefore, for its own well-being, restrains the full development of the child until he has matured mentally.On the contrary, if the sexual instinct is out of control, it is bound to collapse and get out of hand, and the civilization that has been painstakingly built will be swept away.However, it is not easy to control well. The success of control is taken for granted, but sometimes it is suspected of being too severe.The basic driving force of society is economic, and society certainly does not want its members to be reduced to a minimum, and to devote all its energies to work and away from sex life.The perpetual struggle for existence that has existed since primitive society remains unchanged today.

Educators have learned from experience that the cultivation of children's sexual will must begin early.We should control children's sexual life before puberty, not after their instinctive forces have exploded.Therefore, all sexual activities of babies must be prohibited, which makes children feel uncomfortable; the ideal of education is to make children's lives "asexual". If things go on like this, even science believes that children have no sex life.Naturally, the sexual life of children has been neglected in order to bring established beliefs and goals into line with facts, which, by the way, is no small feat, and science is satisfied with its own rationale.Children are assumed to be "pure" and "innocent", and if they say "no", they become unholy slanderers.

Only the children turn a blind eye to this belief, and they all obey and naturally expose their nature. From this we can see that the so-called "pure nature" is actually learned.Strangely enough, those who deny children's sexual life are the workers who are the last to loosen the control of children's sexuality through the hand of education; Express.Another point that most contradicts the prejudice that "children have no sex life" is at the age of five or six. This period happens to be the stage that most people forget; although this stage of forgetting can only be recalled through psychoanalytic research conscious, but there is also the possibility of dreaming.This is very fascinating in theory.

So far we have dealt with the most obvious sexual activities of the child.I would first draw your attention to the term "libido." "Primitive desire", like hunger, is a kind of power and instinct, it is a sexual instinct, while hunger is a nutritional instinct, that is, it uses this power to achieve its purpose.Other terms, such as sexual excitement and satisfaction, need not be defined.Most of the analysis of psychosis is related to the sex life of infants, which is not difficult for you to understand; of course, you can also use this as one of the bases for resistance.This explanation is based on psychoanalytic research, tracing its origin from a symptom.The infant's first sexual arousal seems to be closely related to other important physiological functions.You know that the chief interest of the child is nourishment; and that a baby sleeps soundly contented in his arms with the same air of contentment as a grown man has experienced in sexual gratification.Of course, this is not enough for the following conclusions.We also know, however, that infants like to do that motion which is indispensable for absorbing nourishment, even if it does not actually absorb any nourishment; therefore, they are not compelled to do so by hunger.We call this action "pleasure sucking", for example, sucking on a rubber nipple; the baby sleeps comfortably in this action, and it is known that the act of sucking itself can satisfy the baby.Sometimes this sucking action is necessary before babies can fall asleep peacefully.Lindner, a Budapest-based pediatrician, is the No. 1 advocate for the sexual undertones of the sucking action.He was convinced that the infant's sole purpose in this movement was pleasure; and he called it a child's "prank," and if the children did not cancel it of their own accord, they forced him to give it up by severe means.We thus learn that infants act for no other purpose than to seek pleasure.We also believe that this pleasure is initially felt during the absorption of nutrients, but that the infants can enjoy this pleasure even without the absorption of nutrients after a while.The mouth and lips are important areas of this enjoyment; we therefore call these parts of the body "erogenous zones" or "erogenous zones," and thus consider the pleasure derived from sucking to have a sexual connotation.We shall give considerable reason for the use of this term.

If the baby can "confess," he must regard the act of sucking at the mother's breast as the most important thing in his life; indeed, this act of the baby satisfies two great desires in his life at the same time.We are surprised to learn, through psychoanalytic studies, of the psychic importance of this movement and of its lifelong retention.Breast sucking is the starting point of the whole sexual life, and also the prototype of all kinds of sexual satisfaction in the future; whenever there is a need, fantasy often uses it to masturbate.The desire to suck breasts actually includes the desire to pursue the mother's breasts. Therefore, it is said that the mother's breasts are the first object of sexual desire. How important is this first object in the choice of other objects later? How different spiritual lives are transformed, replaced, and have any significant impact, I will omit it.However, as soon as the baby can suck for sucking sake, the object is replaced by a part of itself and discarded; the baby then begins to suck its own thumb or tongue.He obtains pleasure without resorting to external objects, and extends the excited area to a second area of ​​the body to enhance the pleasure.The intensity of pleasure produced by the erogenous zone originally varies. As Dr. Lindner said, the baby strokes his body around and thinks that the genital area is full of stimulation, so he gives up sucking and turns to masturbation. important experience.

The study and evaluation of this pleasure-seeking sucking draws our attention to two important points in the sexual life of infants.In order to satisfy its basic desires, the baby has a behavior of masturbation, or in other words, he pursues the sexual object in himself.Nutrient absorption is most notably full of pleasure, and excretory function is certainly no exception.We can conclude that infants have a pleasurable experience when they defecate and defecate, and that after a while they do so deliberately in the hope of stimulating the skin in these erogenous zones for maximum satisfaction.But, as Adrian points out, external pressures interfere so severely with the child's desire for such pleasure that, for the first time, the child experiences the internal and external conflicts experienced only by adults.If they cannot excrete at will, the time must also be specified.The adults told him that events related to defecation were "indecent" and should be kept secret.Therefore, he had to give up his pleasure to win his value in the hearts of others.In fact, their own attitudes towards excretion are initially very different.He didn't hate his own feces at first, but regarded it as a part of his body and refused to discard it. He wanted to use it as the first "gift" for the one he loved the most.Even after being educated to give up these tendencies, he still sees poop as a "gift" or "gold" and considers pissing something to be proud of.

I understand that you may have already wanted to interrupt me and shout at me: "Enough, stop talking nonsense! The peristalsis of the intestines is regarded as the source of pleasure for babies to satisfy sex! The excrement has also become a valuable item , and the anus has become a type of genitals? How can we believe this? We also understand why pediatricians and educators have resolutely protested against psychoanalysis and its theories.” Not at all, have you forgotten Is there, as we said above, the relationship between the fact of the baby's sex life and the fact of the sexual psychopathy?Don't you know that many adults, gay or straight, do use an anus instead of a vagina during intercourse?Don't you realize that there are many people who retain the pleasure of excretion all their lives and regard it as an important thing?Perhaps you've also heard children who are older enough to discuss these issues, talk about how they are interested in pooping, how excited they are to watch other people pooping, etc.If you frighten these children with forewarning, they will certainly not say such things again.As for the rest of the things you don't want to believe, go to the psychoanalytic evidence and all the reports of direct observations on children, and you'll see that it takes a lot of courage to get rid of prejudice and insist on a different point of view on this one issue and strength.I don't regret that you consider the perverted relationship between children's sexuality and adult sexuality to be appalling.This kind of relationship exists naturally, because children do not have the ability to transform their sexual life into reproductive function except for a little vague impression. Therefore, if children have sexual life, they must also be abnormal. Stop at sexual satisfaction, not for the purpose of reproduction.You should also understand that the developmental elements of sexual life are subordinated to the purpose of reproduction.All sexual activities that have not developed to this level, or all sexual activities that are unwilling to comply with this purpose and are only satisfied, are given the disreputable title of "pervert" and are despised by the world.

So let's come back to the baby's sex life.I have also done the same with various other organs, to supplement the observations of the above two organs.Children's sex life is completely an instinctive activity. Some of these instincts seek satisfaction within themselves, and some seek satisfaction from external objects.The genitals are of course the most dominant among the various organs of the body. Some people masturbate continuously from infancy to after puberty in order to obtain the satisfaction of pleasure from their own genitals without the help of other genitals or sexual objects.However, it is not easy to describe masturbation fully, because it can be discussed from many angles.

Although I would like to limit the scope of this discussion, I have to say a few words about children's sexual voyeurism.This voyeurism is characteristic of the sexual life of the child and an element in the formation of psychotic symptoms and cannot be ignored.Children's sexual voyeurism begins very early, even before the age of three.The object of sexual voyeurism is not necessarily the opposite sex, and gender differences are nothing in the eyes of children. In their eyes, at least for boys, both sexes have the same male genitalia.A boy who happens to see a little girl's vulva immediately denies the fact, because he cannot imagine why a fellow like himself should not have this vital organ.Later he knew that it was true, and he would be terrified; so the fear of this organ began to be felt.He then begins to be dominated by the "castration complex," which is the cause of his character if he remains physically and mentally healthy; otherwise, the cause of his psychosis; The main reason for the resistance has been formed.In the case of little girls, disturbed by their lack of a penis, they envy the boy's superiority and thus develop a desire to be a man, which will later recur in psychosis if the female development is maladaptive.Another point is that in childhood, the girl's clitoris is equal to the boy's penis, and it is also a very stimulating area that can be used for masturbation to obtain sexual satisfaction.If a girl becomes a woman, she must reduce the sensitivity of this stimulation to the vaginal opening as soon as possible.Women who are known as "sensitized" retain this sensitivity to stimuli because of the clitoris.

Children's interest in sex is initially preoccupied with reproductive issues, the same issues behind the Sphinx.Curiosity on the subject is mostly self-interested, and thus concerns about the birth of other children.The nursery often answers this question by saying that children are carried by storks.However, the skepticism of the young children far exceeded our expectations.Children learn of the adult's lies and seek to solve them themselves.At first he thought that children were made of some special substance mixed with digested food; of course he did not know that only women could give birth.Later, he realized that these were wrong, and the idea of ​​food formation was discarded, although this idea still remained in the myth.Then he knew that the father must have had something to do with making the child, and of course he couldn't have discovered any.Suppose he happens to find his parents having sex, or thinks it's a man subduing a woman, or a fight.Of course, this can be used to explain sexual intercourse as abuse, and it will not be correct; however, he does not know the relationship between this action and childbirth; if he finds blood on the mother's bed or underwear, he will think that it is the father who hurt the mother evidence.After a few years, he may have speculated that the male genitals are important for making children, but he has not yet understood the other functions of this organ besides urination.

At first the children believed that the birth of a child is made of the intestines; or that the child is formed like excrement.It was not until the child's interest in the anus had completely died away that this theory was replaced by another hypothesis, and he suggested that the liver or between the breasts was the place where the child is born.Gradually, he learned a little about the facts of sex.Unless there is no knowledge and no attention to this matter, an incomplete or incorrect impression is generally accepted before puberty, which is often the source of trauma that later causes illness.

Now you may understand that the meaning of the word "sexual" can be extended without guarantee by psychoanalysts, hopefully for all the sexual causes of psychosis and the sexual meaning of symptoms in psychoanalytic theory. The statement can be maintained without falling.Whether this extension is justified or not, you will now always be free to judge.We have expanded the concept of sex to include perversions and children's sex lives; that is, we have restored the original categories of what sex means.For the so-called "sex" outside of psychoanalysis, we only use it as "normal" sexual life in the narrow sense of reproductive function.

(End of this chapter)