Sigmund Freud, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
Infantile sexuality is the discovery that cost me more professional goodwill than almost any other — and it is also the one I am most certain of. The resistance it provokes is itself instructive. Most men, physicians included, do not wish to know anything about the sexual life of the child; and the explanation is not difficult to find. They have forgotten their own infantile sexual activity under the pressure of education for civilization and do not care to be reminded of the repressed material.1
That forgetting is not innocent — it is the very mechanism, operating at the cultural level, that my clinical findings were obliged to undo. What the analyses showed is this: the child has a sexual life, and it is a complex one. The sexual impulse of the child permits of an analysis into many components, which spring from different sources, and it is entirely disconnected from the function of reproduction which it is later to serve.2
The infant's sexuality is not a faint premonition of adult genital life; it is something organized on entirely different principles. In its earliest phase — what I call auto-erotism — the satisfaction is found on the child's own body, in the excitation of particularly sensitive regions: the genitals, the rectum, the opening of the urinary canal, the skin.
The thumb-sucking of very young children is the clearest example of such auto-erotic satisfaction of an erogenous zone.3 The development proceeds through phases, each with its own organization. Before the primacy of the genitals is established there is what I call the pre-genital period, in which the sadistic and anal components are in the foreground.
The contrast between masculine and feminine plays no part as yet; its place is taken by the contrast between active and passive.4 Behind this sadistico-anal phase lies a still more primitive one, in which the erogenous mouth-zone plays the chief role — the oral phase, whose traces Abraham has documented in the sexual life of later years.5 The anal zone deserves particular attention, because the resistance to what it reveals is especially fierce.
The child values his faeces as a part of his body from which he does not part lightly, and uses them as the first present he can give to persons he esteems; education later transfers this evaluation to the gift and to money.6 There are but few neurotics who have not their special scatological customs and ceremonies, retained with cautious secrecy, and the connection between anal erotism and the character formations of later life is among the most thoroughly documented findings in the whole of psychoanalysis.7
As for the genital zone itself: the sexual activities of the penis and clitoris begin in infancy and constitute the beginning of the later normal sexual life.8 Infantile masturbation divides into three phases — the first belonging to the nursing period, the second to the short flourishing period at about the fourth year, and only the third corresponding to what is ordinarily called onanism of puberty.9
The second phase is what the Oedipus complex accompanies and what repression then buries in the latency period. Now — you will perhaps wish to object that all of this sounds monstrous. Excretion a source of sexual gratification! Faeces a valuable substance! I anticipated the objection and I answer it directly: if the child has a sexual life at all, it must necessarily be perverse in the technical sense, because the child does not know how sexuality gives rise to reproduction.
The common characteristic of all perversions is that they have abandoned reproduction as their aim; and infantile sexuality, organized entirely around pleasure rather than reproduction, meets that definition exactly.10 This is not a scandal but a structural observation. The turning point in the development of sexual life lies in its subjugation to the purpose of reproduction; everything this side of that turning point serves the pursuit of pleasure as an independent goal.11
The practical consequence for anyone who doubts this: begin the investigation by a self-analysis, by an interpretation of your own childhood memories, and your doubts will not long survive the encounter.12
They have forgotten their own infantile sexual activity under the pressure of education for civilization and do not care to be reminded now of the repressed material.The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis
The sexual impulse of the child manifests itself as a very complex one, it permits of an analysis into many components, which spring from different sources. It is entirely disconnected from the function of reproduction which it is later to serve.The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis
The great source of infantile sexual pleasure is the auto-excitation of certain particularly sensitive parts of the body; besides the genitals are included the rectum and the opening of the urinary canal, and also the skin and other sensory surfaces.The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis
In the foreground of this phase, however, the partial instincts of the genitals are not prominent, rather the sadistic and anal. The contrast between masculine and feminine plays no part as yet, its place is taken by the contrast between active and passive.A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis
Back of the sadistico-anal phase of libido-development, we get a view of an earlier, even more primitive phase of organization, in which the erogenous mouth-zone plays the chief role. Abraham only recently published material concerning the traces which this primitive oral phase has left upon the sexual life of later years.A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis
He experiences no disgust toward his faeces, values them as a part of his body from which he does not part lightly, for he uses them as the first 'present' he can give to persons he esteems particularly. Even after education has succeeded in alienating him from these tendencies, he transfers the evaluation of the faeces to the 'present' and to 'money.'A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis
The whole significance of the anal zone is mirrored in the fact that there are but few neurotics who have not their special scatologic customs, ceremonies, etc., which they retain with cautious secrecy.Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex
The sexual activities of this erogenous zone, which belongs to the real genitals, are the beginning of the later normal sexual life.Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex
It can only help towards clearness if I state that the infantile masturbation should be divided into three phases. The first phase belongs to the nursing period, the second to the short flourishing period of sexual activity at about the fourth year, only the third corresponds to the one which is often considered exclusively as onanism of puberty.Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex
It is really only natural; if the child has sexual life at all, it must necessarily be perverse, because aside from a few hazy illusions, the child does not know how sexuality gives rise to reproduction.A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis
We term sexual activity perverse when it has renounced the aim of reproduction and follows the pursuit of pleasure as an independent goal. And so you realize that the turning point in the development of sexual life lies in its subjugation to the purpose of reproduction.A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis
You will be convinced otherwise if you begin the investigation by a self-analysis, by an interpretation of your own childhood memories.The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis