Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality 1925 I' The Sexual Aberrations

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Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1925)I.
The Sexual Aberrations

• Psy 250.
• Feb. 9, 2005

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Nancy Chodorows introduction argues for Freuds
contemporary relevance. See especially pages,
vii, xiii, xv, xviii
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Sexual Instinct libido
Normal toward a person of the
opposite sex
Perverse toward someone/thing else
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Sexual Aim Sexual act
Sexual Object Who/what you are attracted to
Normal person of opposite sex
Normal copulation Sexual union
Perverse something else
Perverse something else
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Mental forces which act as resistances Disgust S
hame
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• Inverts wrong sexual object?
• Absolute, p. 2
• Amphigenic, p.2
• Contingent, p. 3

But see p. 5 comments! And then the footnote on
p. 11- 12
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It has been brought to our notice that we have
been in the habit of regarding the connection
between the sexual instinct and the sexual object
as more intimate than it in fact is p. 13
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The study of inverts and the changes possible
over the life cycle brings Freud to this radical
conclusion We are thus warned to loosen the
bond that exists in our thoughts between instinct
and object. It seems probable that the sexual
instinct is in the first instance independent of
its object nor is its origins likely to be due
to its objects attractions, p. 14
10
Freud finds perversions more readily in the
sexual aim rather than the sexual object.
But ONLY if it is extreme is it perverse
or neurotic because Freud finds elements of these
present in normal sexuality. For example,
kissing, touching and looking, sadism and
masochism(causing pain and being hurt),
voyeurism and exhibitionism (exposing oneself
and looking at ones lover)... Notice that Freud
theorizes each of these as two sides of the same
coin and all occur in normal sexuality. P. 16.
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Attentive examination always shows that even what
seem to be the strangest of these new aims are
already hinted at in the normal sexual process.
P. 22
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Thus the extraordinarily wide dissemination of
the perversions forces us to suppose that the
disposition to perversions is itself of no great
rarity but must form a part of what passes as the
normal constitution p. 37.
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The conclusion now presents itself to us that
there is indeed something innate lying behind the
perversions but that it is something innate in
everyone, though as a disposition it may vary in
its intensity and may be increased by the
influences of actual life p. 37. (emphasis
Freud)