Freud, Sigmund (1923-004/1924.1.en): The infantile genital organization of the libido

THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL

OF
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS
VOLUME V APRIL 1924 PART 2

ORIGINAL PAPERS

THE INFANTILE GENITAL ORGANIZATION OF THE
LIBIDO:
A SUPPLEMENT TO THE THEORY OF SEXUALITY
BY
SIGM. FREUD
VIENNA

It is indicative of the difficulties which beset the work of psycho-
analytic research that it is possible, in spite of unremitting observation
extending over periods of years, to overlook quite broad general
features and typical situations, until at last they confront one in a
completely unmistakable guise. The remarks that follow are intended
to retrieve a lapse of this sort in the field of infantile sexuality.

Readers of my Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie (1905) will be
aware that I have never undertaken any thorough alteration of this
work for later editions, but have preserved the original arrangement
and have fulfilled the claims of later advances in our knowledge by
supplementing and correcting the text. Thus it may well be that the
old and the new do not admit of fusion without indications of con-
tradietion. In the beginning, for instance, the emphasis fell upon
pointing out the fundamental difference between the sexual life of
children and of adults; later on the pregenital organizations of the
libido swung into the foreground, together with the remarkable and
significant fact of the double thrust of sexual development, twice
making a start at separate periods. Finally the curiosity of the child
engaged our interest ; and from this proceeded the recognition of the
far-reaching similarity between the last stages of infantile sexuality
(about the fifth year) and the final form to which it develops in the adult.
In the last edition of the Sexualtheorie (1922) I left things at this
point.

I stated there (on p. 63) that ‘ often, or perhaps regularly, sompiete

125

126 SIGM. FREUD

object-choice is established in early childhood, of the kind that we have
inferred to be characteristic of the pubertal phase of development,
namely, such as occurs when all the sexual trends become directed
towards one single person and in that person seek to reach their aims.
This constitutes the most complete approximation possible in childhood
to the definitive form taken by sexual life after puberty. The sole
difference from the latter is that the coalescence of the component-
impulses and their concentration under the primacy of the genital
organs is not effected in childhood or only very imperfectly. The
institution of this primacy is, therefore, the last phase which the
sexual organization undergoes.’

Iam to-day no longer satisfied with the statement that the primacy
of the genitals is not effected in the early period of childhood, or only
very imperfectly. The approximation of childhood-sexuality to that
of the adult goes much farther and is not limited solely to the establish-
ment of an object-attachment. Even if perfect concentration of the
component-impulses under the primacy of the genitals is not attained,
at any rate at the height of the development of childhood-sexuality the
functioning of the genitals and the interest in them reaches predominant
significance, which comes little short of that reached in maturity.
The difference between these two—the ‘ infantile genital organization ’
and the final genital organization of the adult—constitutes also the
main characteristic of the infantile form, namely, that for both sexes
in childhood only one kind of genital organ comes into account—
the male. The primacy reached is not therefore a primacy of the
genital, but of the Zhallus.

Unfortunately we can describe this state of things only as it con-
cerns the male child ; the corresponding processes in the little girl
are not suffieiently known tous. The little boy undoubtedly perceives
the distinction between men and women, but to begin with he has
no occasion to connect it with any difference in the genitals. It is
naturdl for him to assume that all living beings, persons and
animals, possess a genital organ like his own; indeed we know that
he investigates inanimate objects with a view to discovering some-
thing like his member in them.t This part of the body, so easily

ı It is remarkable, by the way, what a small degree of interest the
other part of the male genitals, the little sac with its contents, arouses in
the child. From all one hears in analyses one could not guess that the
male genitals consist of anything more than the penis.

INFANTILE GENITAL ORGANIZATION OF THE LIBIDO 127

excitable and changeable, and so rich in sensation, occupies the boy’s
interest to a high degree and never ceases to provide new problems
for his epistemological impulse. He wants to see the same thing
in other people, so as to compare it with his own; he behaves as
if’ he had a dim idea that this member might be and should be larger.
The driving force which this male portion of his body will generate
later at puberty expresses itself in childhood essentially as an impulsion
to inquire into things—as sexual curiosity. Many of those deeds of
exhibitionism and aggression which children commit, and which in
later years would be judged without hesitation to be manifestations
of sensual passion, prove on analysis to be experiments undertaken
in the search for sexual knowledge.

In the course of these investigations the child makes the discovery
that the penis is not one of the possessions common to all creatures
who are like himself. The accidental sight of the genitalia of a little
sister or a little playmate is the occasion of this. In unusually
intelligent children the sight of girls urinating arouses the suspicion
that something is different here even earlier; for they will have
noticed the different position adopted and the different sound heard
and have taken steps to repeat their observations in such a way as
to find out the truth. We know how they react to their first per-
ception of the absence of the penis. They deny its absence, and
believe they do see a penis all the same; the discrepancy between
what they see and what they imagine is glossed over by the idea
that the penis is still small and will grow; gradually they come to
the conclusion, so fraught with emotion, that at least it had been
there and had at some time been taken away. The absence of the
penis is thought to be the result of a castration, and then the child
is faced with the task of dealing with the thought of a castration
in relation to himself. Subsequent developments are too well known
for it to be necessary to recapitulate them here. It seems to me,
however, that the significance of the castration complex can only
be rightly appreciated when its origin in the phase of primacy of
the phallus is also taken into account.?

® It has quite correctly been pointed out that the child acquires the
idea of a narcissistic wound or deprivation of a part of its body by the
experience of the loss of the nipple after suckling and of the daily produc-
tion of its feces, even already by its separation from the womb of the
mother at birth. Nevertheless, the castration complex should be a term

128 SIGM. FREUD

We know, too, to what a degree depreciation of women, loathing
of women, and a disposition to homosexuality are derived from a
final conviction of women’s lack of a penis. Ferenczi has recently
with complete justification traced back the mythological symbol of
loathing—the head of Medusa—to the impression made by the female
genitals devoid of a penis.® i

It should not be presumed, however, that the child instantly and
readily makes a generalization of its perception that many women
possess no penis; in the way of this there lies the assumption that
the absence of the penis is due to a castration performed as a punish-
ment. On the contrary, the child imagines that only unworthy
female persons have thus sacrificed their genital organ, such persons
as have probably been guilty of the same forbidden impulses as he
himself. Women who are regarded with respect, such as the mother,
retain the penis long after this date. Not yet is being a woman
the same thing to the child as having no penis.* Not till later, when
the child takes up the problems of the origin and birth of children,
and divines that only women can bear children, does the mother
too become deprived of a penis; and along with this quite com-
plicated theories are constructed, so as to account for the exchange of
a penis in return for achild. At the same time the real female genitals
never seem to be discovered. As we know, the baby is supposed to
live in the mother’s body (bowels) and to be born through the bowel
passage. These last theories take us up to the end of the period of
infantile sexuality or beyond.

It is as well, further, to bear in mind the transformations which
the familiar polarity of the sexes goes through in the course of the

teserved for the occasion when the idea of such deprivations comes to be
associated with the loss of the male organ.

® International Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, 1923, Heft ı. I will
merely add that in the myth it is the genital of the mother that is repre-
sented. Athene, who carries the head of Medusa on her armour, becomes
by virtue of it the unapproachable, the woman at sight of whom all
thought of sexual desire is stifled.

4 From the analysis of a young woman I learnt that, having no father
and several aunts, until quite late in the latency-period she clung to a
belief that her mother and some of her aunts possessed a penis. One of
the aunts, however, was weak-minded, and she was zegarded by the child
as castrated like herself.

INFANTILE GENITAL ORGANIZATION OF THE LIBIDO 129

sexual development of childhood. A first contrast is introduced with
object-choice, which of course presupposes a subject and an object.
At the level of the pregenital sadistic-anal organization nothing is
yet heard of any maleness and femaleness ; the dominant antithesis
is that between active and passive® In the following stage of the
infantile genital organization maleness has come to life, but no female-
ness. The antithesis runs: a male genital organ or a castrated
condition. Not until completion of development at the time of
puberty does the polarity of sexuality coincide with male and female.
In maleness is concentrated subject, activity, and the possession
of a penis; femaleness carries on the object, and passivity. The
vagina becomes valued henceforth as an asylum for the penis; it
comes into an inheritance from the mother’s womb,.

5 C£. Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexwaltheorie. Fünfte Auflage, S.62.