Chapter Two: Sex
Introduction
Angela Richards notes in her commentary to Freud’s Three Essays on Sexuality (1977) that Freud was the one who made the unconscious real to us. The path to this discovery was laid principally by his patients, most of whom were middle-class Viennese women. In listening to their stories, Freud was first of the opinion that the source of their trauma lay in their molestation by adults when they were children. Later he changed his mind to believe that the hysterical and neurotic symptoms they exhibited in adulthood could be tracked to difficulties in dealing with their own infantile sexuality. In this view the unconscious is governed by primary instinctive processes, including the sexual drive, that have the sole function of gaining immediate satisfaction. Freud reasoned that when these run up against social constraints as to what constitutes acceptable civilized behaviour, these unconscious currents of desire would prove to be so shocking that they would be pushed down, or repressed by the adult. It took Freud some time to come to what was, at the time, the shocking conclusion that children are sexual beings, but when he did he did not shirk the potential odium that might have been heaped upon him had he been more guarded in his exposition. His Three Essays on Sexuality (1905), retain the power to strike modern readers with their forceful directness in dealing with sex.
In seeking to understand human sexuality, Freud became convinced that his discovery of the Oedipus Complex provided a convincing basis for his explanation of male sexual development, although he was much more tentative with respect to female sexual development and rather non-specific when it came to homosexuality. It was not sufficient for him that his theory explained current sexuality; rather it had to explain its sociogenesis, or how it comes into being. He was sure that the expression of the sexual instinct, which he noted was very diverse, would have differed through the course of human history. He thought that primitive human development would have been characterised by free expression of the sexual instinct, but that this would have been progressively curtailed or repressed, for example with the instigation of the incest taboo, which allows for social stability and the development of “higher social units” than the family. In his view repression of the powerful sexual drive has had positive and negative features. On the plus side, this has led to the creation of a stable society based on the family, where ‘spare’ sexual energy had a potential route for expression by means of sublimation, which allowed for the displacement of sexual energy into socially acceptable forms such as for instance art, architecture and literature. Freud attributed a great deal to the power of sublimation which he felt was responsible for some of humankind’s greatest achievements. On the minus side he surmised that in a ‘civilized’ society, those males who were prone to perversion would experience the potential frustration of their desire, leading ironically to its being re-doubled. On the other hand the demands placed on the psyche by a ‘civilised’ society that expects its women to be ‘pure’, will create in them enormous guilt feelings, to the extent that they could repress the sources of their infantile sexual pleasures and become subject to neurosis.
This idea, that there has been a wholesale repression in the expression of the sexual drive due to the growth of civilization, has since been developed by a number of authors. Critics of consumer society such as Herbert Marcuse contend that at the root of the ‘comfortable, smooth, democratic, un-freedom’ that he detected at the heart of Western society, lies the repression of genuine sexuality and its replacement by one that is ersatz and artificial. This argument has been contested by Michel Foucault, who calls it the ‘Repressive Hypothesis’. Foucault writes that instead of sexuality being repressed, it actually became produced as a subject for the surveillance, observation and control of the medical profession.
The bare bones of Freud’s theory are first sketched below, prior to describing the Repressive Hypothesis in more detail and discussing this in relation to Foucault’s critique. Finally there is a reflection on the extent to which the production of sexuality has moved from beyond the clinic and into mass media marketing and onward to the Internet.
Eros and sexuality
Freud places sexuality at the core of human being, which has led to the objection that he over-emphasizes our animal nature. Freud counters that the sexuality described by psychoanalysis has little to do with explaining the brute sexual impulse and much more to do with the Eros of the Symposium. Here the fount of the erotic lies in the body and is directed towards bodies. Not long after the beginning of his first essay on sexuality (Freud 1991 [1905]) , in dwelling on homosexuality, he ruminates on Aristophanes story, that long ago there were three human genders, not just the present two. The third gender was a combination of the two and was known as “androgynous”, as it combined the male and female. At that time humans were the doubles of what they are now, created by the gods as rounded wholes, with four legs, four arms and two faces, one facing to the front and one to the rear. But the humans became so powerful that they challenged the power of the gods, so Zeus devised a plan to cut them into two, as one might a sorb apple. The first time he did this, the experiment failed as each half sought the other out and clung to it. Zeus repeated the operation in a different way and as a consequence, from then on humans were doomed to wander the world in search of their lost half. From here we can see how Freud will have confirmed, perhaps even formed, his views on the essentially bi-sexual nature of humans. The Symposium was not just a source of inspiration for Freud. D.H. Lawrence plaintively writes:
“Why were we crucified into sex?
Why were we not left rounded off, and finished in ourselves,
As we began,
As he so certainly began, so perfectly alone?
Perhaps more importantly for Freud, the Symposium informs about the nature of romantic love, how people long for a ‘soul-mate’. Moving beyond Aristophanes’ speech, the important link with psychoanalysis is that while it dwells on animal nature in some specific sections, it moves beyond this, particularly towards the end where the beautiful Alchibiadies, object of desire because of his great beauty, is in thrall to Socrates whose mind is considered even more beautiful. Thus while the erotic sensibility is constituted in the body and begins with a preoccupation with bodily concerns, it is not contained by this, but rather provoked to reach beyond itself, towards even greater forms of beauty. According to Lear, (Lear 2005) Freud made use of the human eros to shape a peculiar conversation through which we would reach out beyond ourselves and change even the fixed structure of our psyches. He called that conversation psychoanalysis.
Three Issues
The problem of civilization
Freud encountered Darwin’s work as an undergraduate at the University of Vienna and it perhaps attributable to this that, when subsequently confronted with the apparently sexually-related problems of patients in his consulting room, he resorted to first principles in seeking to understand the basis of human sexuality. Freud did not study animal sexual behaviour in any depth and in any event he believed that human consciousness ruled out any direct equivalence. But experience had also led him to believe that the human sexual drive is extremely powerful in humans and this led him to pose the question as to how, in the face of such a powerful instinct, did human civilization arise in the first place? He narrowed down this problem by formulating the hypothesis that human civilization initially arose with and is maintained by, the institution of the taboo against incest. Freud spent much of his life in addressing this problem and in revising and expanding his theory.
The puzzle of gender
A second question, which is related to the first, relates to how humans attain a gender identity? For example if a person is born as sexually male, equipped with a penis and scrotum, then how does that person come later to identify his sexuality as being male? Freud believed it to be the case that individuals are born bi-sexual and so the fact that a person has the physical accoutrements of male or female sexuality, in his view does not determine their identification as being male or female. Consequently he had to come up with an explanation linked to some cultural process by which they subsequently come to identify with themselves as being male or female. His solution to this question is closely related to the aforementioned incest taboo
The question of normality
A third question was that, given what he discovered the polymorphous nature of human sexual behaviour, what would constitute a normal sexuality and how could he classify the huge variety of sexual practices that he observed? Here he reasoned that if the proper aim of the ego instinct is self-preservation, then the aim of the sexual instinct is to treat its host as a node that links it as part of a chain from past and to future generations. Freud argues that while the sexual instinct might express itself in relation to a number of objects, its proper object is a sexual partner from the opposite sex and its proper goal that of human reproduction.
Normality: The Long and Winding Road
Think of desire as being composed of two great currents as comprised by the ego and sexual instincts. In his early work Freud directed more of his attention to the understanding and description of the sexual instinct, although he did turn to explore the ego in more detail in later life.
Given that Freud was interested in understanding the pathological, then why did he also feel the need also to explain normality? The simple answer is that what is pathological will consist in a deviation from the normal course and that logically one must have some grasp of the latter prior to being able to form any sound opinion with regard to the former. Freud fancied himself as an explorer; he described the mind and especially the female mind, to be analogous to a dark continent, for which he would provide the map. The fragmentary picture that he drew from the analysis of dreams revealed the contours of a land that was strange by any standard of physical map-making. This uncovered a realm of reversals, condensations and displacements that was fabulous even by the standards of Alice in Wonderland. What was it that necessitated this immensely complex dream work? Why the need for such heavily coded messages? Freud initially had the hunch, from his work with neurotics, that some extremely powerful impulse was being covered up by the need to conform to ‘normal’ civilised conduct. But in investigating the norms of sexual behaviour, Freud was confounded not by the strength of the norm, but by the immense variety of expressions of ‘normal’ sexuality which varied in proportion to its aims and its objects. With respect to sexuality he was deeply pessimistic that any more than a few “educated” people could fuse the two currents of sensuality and affection in a “normal” manner and that certainly most men are “psychically impotent”. In the battle between civilization and sexuality, he concedes victory to the sinuous power of the sexual instinct:
“Thus we may perhaps be forced to become reconciled to the idea that it is quite impossible to adjust the claims of the sexual instinct to the demands of civilization; that in consequence of its cultural development in renunciation and suffering, as well as the danger of extinction in the remotest future, cannot be avoided by the human race.”
Stages of Sexual Development
Try to imagine sexual development as comprising a set of gates or fences that must be negotiated in sequence, towards the goal of attaining a “normal” sexuality. Like the salmon that must negotiate the various weirs on a river if it is to successfully spawn, so the infant must negotiate the various stages of formation if it is to attain a normal sexuality. Difficulties experienced at any stage will leave it psychically stranded at that stage. Thus to move beyond the gate of primary narcissism, the infant must first dissociate from fascination with self and turn towards an other, such as the mother, to form what Freud calls an anaclitic or leaning attachment. If infantile narcissism is transcended, the next passage is through the anal stage where the infant must learn to balance autonomy and shame. The next transition is to traverse the phallic stage under the shadow of the Oedipus complex. Finally as the person grows beyond puberty they must reconcile the two alternating currents of desire, as expressed in the ability to combine love (which springs from the ego instinct) and sensuality (which springs from the sexual instinct) in their response towards a partner. The process can be crudely thought of as being akin to the game ‘Snakes and Ladders’. Some shock or disturbance in later life may bring a regression to a stage that presented some particular satisfactions or frustrations.
Component Instincts
Although the main source of satisfaction for the infant is linked to the oral, the instincts of scopophilia, exhibitionism and cruelty appear independently during primary narcissism. The sexual instinct is not yet fully developed but is split into its component parts that operate separately from one another. In this way Freud explains the tendency to exhibitionism, especially in younger children, who are without shame and who proudly display their genitals to others. Scopophilia, or more commonly voyeurism, may start from the infant expressing a ‘lively’ interest by peeking at the genitals of others. Freud argued that cruelty comes easily to the child because the sense of mastery linked to building the capacity for pity, comes relatively late. Cruelty towards playmates and animals arises from the instinct for mastery and Freud warns that if a strong enough link is made between cruelty and feelings of pleasure, prior to the development of pity, this link may prove to be unbreakable in later life. Cruelty or the sadistic impulse may reverse into its opposite to reflect a masochistic tendency where the child gains a degree of pleasure from being smacked or bitten.
Oral stage
In the first year of life the mouth of the child is the zone of interest and the breast of the mother (or its substitute) is the object of interest. Winnicott (1958) a follower of Freud developed the idea of the transitional object, to refer to the substitution of objects in the world for the breast. He argued that comfort blankets, teddy bears and the like are important as they enable the infant to master its separation from the mother by transferring the site of satisfaction to another object. The child obtains most gratification from sucking and when teeth develop, pleasure comes from biting. If the mother responds by either over or under gratifying the demands of the child, then the child may develop great tension and anxiety about feeding. This anxiety may reach intolerable levels, at which stage the ego may act to repress the impulses which are responsible for this tension. The ego must expend large amounts of energy in repressing this anxiety, which may lead it to develop as a fragile and weak entity. In this case when the child develops into an adult it is likely that the oral zone will be a source of fascination and of anxiety. In focusing on the mouth the adult may experience pleasure and guilt in engaging in oral activities such as smoking, drinking or perhaps a preoccupation with the preparation and consumption of food. However, a severe trauma such as the death of a relative may so stretch the resources of the ego that it can no longer contain the repressed anxieties of childhood which return in full force. This can result in a neurotic disorder where the adult regresses back to the oral stage and may exhibit a range of disorders associated with eating.
Anal stage
The next phase which lasts from around the one year old to the age of three is the anal phase. By this time the child's sphincter control has reached the point where s/he can take pleasure in holding onto or letting go of bodily wastes. Anyone who has been around a child aged around three years old will be struck by the frequency to which it refers to ‘pooh’, often accompanied by shrieks of laughter. Not only do children openly refer to their faeces, they will play with them, have ‘accidents’ involving them and will use their new-found ability to control the evacuation of faeces in a battle of wills with their parents. Freud notes the many cultural associations between obstinacy with the anal region; where for example an ‘invitation to caress” the anal region or the display of the bare buttocks are taken as expressions of scorn and defiance. The link with money is another age-old association made in myth and fairy tales. In Babylon gold was known as ‘the faeces of Hell’.
An article that caught my eye in the Irish Independent, subsequently widely reported in others, featured Italian artist Piero Manzoni who put his excrement into tin cans in the early 1960s and offered it as art. True to the spirit of the age he said that he was exposing “the gullibility of the art-buying public”. Collectors and galleries the world over, including London’s Tate, queued to pay high prices for Manzoni’s canned doings. According to the newspaper report they appeared even more gullible when on the 11 th June 2007, Manzoni revealed that the tin at the Tate, labeled as being number four out of ninety, for which it paid £22,300 in 2000, with the description “Merda d’Artista’ 1961 and described by it as a seminal work, contained no excrement at all but merely, plaster. Agostino Bonalumi who worked closely with Manzone recalled that he, Manzoni and a third young artist called Enrico Castellani had rebelled against traditional art forms but had found no takers for their ideas in Milan. Piero is reported as saying; “All these Milanese bourgeois basterads want is c***”, Mr. Bonalumi wrote in Corriere della Serra. Shortly afterwards Manzoni asked him and Castellani to his studio where he showed them a can on which he had replaced the label with another on which he had written the words “Merda d’Artista”
Phallic stage
The phallic stage which lasts from between three and five years of age culminates in the emotional crisis known as the ‘Oedipus complex’. Prior to the Oedipus complex, named after the Greek myth described in Chapter One, both boys and girls identify with their mother. Freud believed that he had confirmed his insight with evidence as the result of his analysis of a five year old boy. The situation is where the mother has a second child. This has two implications, the most significant of which is that the child who was once the centre of attention is now sidelined. The second is that the child is filled with a curiosity to find out where this imposter has issued from. The boy receives rather evasive replies from his parents, perhaps being told that the stork or some such animal has conveyed the new rival. But, Freud argues, even infants can notice the changes taking place in their mother during pregnancy and in the case of one of his analysands, Little Hans, the child was only 5 years old when he alluded that the baby had grown inside his mother. When Freud questioned him further, Little Hans attributed a penis to everyone, including females and when he saw his sister’s genitals he said “Her ______’s still quite small. But when she gets bigger it’ll grow all right.”
Eventually Freud came to believe that the child comes to believe that, on sight of the female genitals, they have been castrated. In seeking for the perpetrator of this crime the boy need look no further than his father, who up until now has been the central rival for his mother’s attention. The father is perceived to be a powerful rival and the terror of the father becomes so great that eventually the boy splits his affections away from his mother and identifies himself with the father. It is by means of this identification that the boy child achieves a male identity. In identifying with the father and ‘introjecting’, or internalising the father's values, he develops from the ideal-ego, a new structure, the super-ego, or conscience, which replaces the external control his parents exercised over him.
Freud argues that the first sight of the genitals of another is shocking and that when confronted with the sight the boy may literally refuse to believe the truth of what he has seen. If the idea of a woman with a penis becomes ‘fixated’ in him, then the adult when in later life confronted with a oman’s genitalia, will be horrified by their mutilation. He asserts that the infantile image is so powerful that this reaction cannot be altered in any way when informed by science in later life ([1905], (1977: 195). In this instance, where they refuse to believe the evidence of their eyes, the adult is likely to develop a homosexual object choice in later life by believing that he is a woman who seeks out men who remind him of women. Other boys will react to the trauma of the sight of the female genitalia by disavowing the reality of what they see by turning away from it. Such is the trauma for the child that the fetishist chooses as his sexual object that which he saw immediately prior to the female genitals. This might be a foot or shoe, pubic-hair, underwear or stockings or pubic-hair. For Freud the fetishistic attachment to this object is perverse in that in later life the adult cannot achieve orgasm in the absence of the fetish object.
The transition for girls is not so simple. Indeed Freud struggled to provide an adequate understanding of female sexuality and openly acknowledges the tentative nature of his reasoning. Young girls also form an attachment to the mother after they give up their narcissism. The key moment for her is her recognition that she has been castrated. Freud says that she can then follow one of three courses of action; she can respond with revulsion against sexuality; she can defiantly cling to her threatened masculinity; or finally she can, by follow the third “very circuitous” path leads her to adopt the normal female sexuality. In this last course the girl seeks to identify with her father and to distance herself from her mother whom she views as a rival for his affections. However, the girl's physical resemblance to the mother means that she cannot physically identify with the father or with his power. As a result Freud thought that the development of the female super-ego was a more difficult process. He suggests that those who are fixated at the phallic stage cling to their now-threatened infantile masculinity, by becoming obsessed by power and its symbols. This may be expressed through the purchase of products which are recognised as signifying prestige and power, i.e. anything from powerful sports cars to expensive watches or the latest technological toys. Woody Allen’s film Annie Hall set the style for what came to be known as ‘power-dressers’; women executives to mimic male dress codes in businesses, e.g. by wearing suits which have jackets with wide shoulders and sometimes even shirts and ties.
Latency
Following the phallic stage Freud argues that there is a period of quiescence known as ‘latency’ which may last between five years of age and puberty. During this period, at around the age of 5, reaction-formations or counter-forces rise like dams in the mind. Activities that were previously found to be pleasurable now produce a reaction of shame or disgust in the child. This process is instigated through the formation of the super-ego. Here it is useful to think of the relation of the superego to another formation called the ideal ego. The ideal-ego is formed when the infant abandons its primary narcissism and identifies with a caregiver, its mother or its parents. The ideal-ego is an image of perfection that the child seeks to live up to and which also arouses feelings of being watched. However the ideal universe of mother and child cannot persist indefinitely and so the boy comes to identify with his father by introjecting his values and desires following the resolution of the Oedipus Complex. Consequently the old ideal-ego is shed, rather in the manner that a snake might shed its skin.
Sublimation
Under the gaze of the judgemental and watchful superego, activities that would have been pleasurable to the infant are deemed to be bad and may be abandoned. Anal eroticism experienced as a child through playing with, or withholding faeces is then sublimated into socially acceptable aims such as orderliness, reliability, conscientiousness and cleanliness. These are reaction formations against what is unclean and disturbing and should not be part of the body; Freud described dirt as simply being matter in the wrong place. Those who have sublimated their anal eroticism may also display a stubbornness akin to that which is linked with the withholding of their stools during potty training alongside traits of parsimony, avarice and obstinacy. The original erotic interest in defecation is extinguished and the interest in making money appears as a new interest. This makes it easier for the earlier impulse to be carried over into a new aim.
A screen fantasy
Freud recalls with some delight the story of a friend who, on reading Freud’s account of the infant, sitting on the pot and pondering on whether or not to defecate, began to laugh. Later, while they were sharing some cocoa, the friend said that on seeing the cocoa he suddenly remembered that as a child he had used to pretend to himself that he was the cocoa-manufacturer Van Houten (he pronounced it ‘Van Hauten’) and that he possessed a great secret for the manufacture of this cocoa. Everyone was trying to get hold of his secret that was a boon to humanity, but he had managed to hold onto it himself. He said that he did not know why he had settled on Van Houten, but that this was probably because their advertisements had persuaded him more than anyone else. Freud had replied “Wann Hautn’n die Mutter”? (When does the mother smack?). The first two words in the German phrase are exactly like Van Houten. It was only then that Freud realized that this was a screen fantasy. His friend’s fantasy had actually involved the use of phonetic associations (“Kakao” [‘cocoa’ = ‘Kaka” is the common German nursery word for faeces]. There was a displacement from the back of the body to the front, excreting food became taking food in, and something that was shameful and had to be concealed became a secret that was a boon to humanity.
Puberty into adulthood
At the onset of puberty, the sexual instinct, which had been hitherto auto-erotic and based on the pleasure obtained from different parts of the body, now finds a sexual object which is bound to the reproductive function. Although it may take some considerable time before they actually have sexual relations with someone else, Freud notes that; “the sexual life of maturing youth is almost entirely restricted to indulging in phantasies, that is, in ideas that are not destined to be carried into effect.” In the next section he discusses the difficulties of ensuring that such fantasies are attached to the opposite sex, noting that this is largely a matter for the authoritative prohibition by society.
At this stage the end of the long road is in sight but has not quite been reached and even more will fall at this last hurdle. To be ‘normal’ Freud insists, one must re-connect the primitive currents of affection (proceeding from the ego) and sensuality (proceeding from the sexual instinct). He likens this process to the joining of a tunnel that is dug through a mountain from two different directions. Affection comes from the ego. After his own self, a man’s first love-object (ideal-ego) is based on the mother or the parents. This imago is taken as the model for the basis of new object choices; the man leaves father and mother and marries a woman based on the imago, onto whose person he transfers this affection. All then goes well if this affection is united to the sensual passions that issue from the sex drive. On the other hand affection and sensuality may occupy different registers that one may crudely describe as the ‘virgin vs. whore’ dichotomy. Freud notes that this may result in impotence, for instance where a man becomes involved with a woman who reminds him of his mother. On the other side of the coin, those women who most interest him sexually, he regards as sluts. He explains their “psychical impotence”; “Where they love they do not desire and where they desire they cannot love.” Most men fall at this last gate; Freud says that;
“There are only a very few educated people in whom the two currents of affection and sensuality have become properly fused; the man almost always feels his respect for the woman acting as a restriction on his sexual activity, and only develops full potency with a debased sexual object; and this in turn is partly caused by the entrance of perverse components into his sexual aims, that he does not venture to satisfy with a woman he respects.”
On the other hand women can come to link sensuality with prohibition and so become frigid. Freud equates this frigidity in women to the tendency for debasement engaged in by men, attributing both consequences to the long period of delay between sexual maturity and sexual activity.
Neurosis
The idea of neurosis is characterised as a form of flight from reality where powerful instinctual impulses that may have been a source of infantile pleasure are censored by means of repression. However repression is imperfectly executed and as a result the repressed material hollows out alternate channels through it flows, producing symptoms in its wake. In Freud’s time it was middle-class women, who were subject to intense demands to be ‘pure’ who suffered most from neurosis. He describes for example one case where a woman had fallen in love with her brother in law but had repressed this knowledge. Any time that she came into his presence or that this knowledge threatened to come to consciousness, she was troubled by a severe pain in her leg. In Freud’s view obsessional neurotics form themselves around their own mini-religion of rites and observances, a pattern of behaviour to which they appear to be addicted. Neurotic ceremonials consist of little prescriptions, performances and restrictions that appear to be mere formalities but where neglect can lead to a formidable angst which forces the addict to perform the rite instantly.
Freud thought that obsessional neuroses arose because of their relation to a repressed sexual impulses which usually could be traced to infancy where it had been a particular source of pleasure, but which were repressed following the Oedipal period. The repressed impulse does not go away, because repression had been imperfectly carried out and so threatens to break down. The impulse gnaws at its restraints and in seeking release it is felt as a potentially overwhelming source of temptation. The situation threatens to become intolerable as fresh mental efforts are required to counterbalance the constant pressure of the impulse. Ceremony and obsessive behaviour operate in this narrow context as a defence against temptation. These prohibitions aim at keeping at a distance situations that might lead to temptation and in this way prohibitions replace the obsessive acts, just as phobias ward off hysterical attacks.
Freud offers as an example the experience of a woman, but does not explain the infantile origin of her obsession. At the time he met her she was living apart from her husband and suffers from the compulsion to leave the best of whatever she ate; for example Freud tells us that she would only nibble around the outside of a piece of roast meat. Following much discussion with her she told him that on the very day on which she originated this behaviour she gave up sexual relations with her husband, or in other words, the best.
Perversion
As its name suggests, perversion denotes perversity or a veering away from the norm. If one takes as the norm the view that heterosexual relations should be based on mutual love and respect and should occur solely in the interests of begetting offspring, then a lot of sexual behaviour is indeed perverse. Some introduce a sense of play into their sexual behaviour, which may include clothing and fetishes. Or other objects may be introduced including oral and anal sex in addition to what is deemed to be the proper object of sexual relations
When Freud uses terminology such as ‘perversion’ and ‘inversion’ this is largely meant to be value free. Such language cannot be so to us, as it comes already loaded with moral messages. Thus it will seem offensive to many that Freud discusses homosexuality under the heading of perversion. In which case one should remind the reader that Freud argued that everyone is subject to homoerotic desires: that homosexuality is a component of human development and that it is not innate in that everyone is capable of making a homosexual identification as their means for resolving the Oedipus Complex.
In Freud’s terminology perverts are those who for one reason or another have not managed to successfully negotiate the various gates of development and whose sexual development has consequently been altered off the normal course. Perversions are conventional, meaning that these are not in themselves remarkable, but become the target of normalising influences by means of being proscribed by society.
As is described above in the first paragraph of this section most normal sexual conduct can have some element of perversity contained within it. Freud deemed a behaviour to be perverse if it deviated in terms of the normal sexual object – the genitals, or the normal sexual aim - reproduction. Homosexuality was labelled as perverse because as a consequence of the subject’s denial that the mother lacked a penis during the Oedipal phase, the subject failed to identify with his father and therefore he unconsciously believes himself to be a woman who is looking for a man. Other perverse objects mentioned by Freud include those practices that include exclusively oral and anal sex, or fetishism, where, as was explained above, the subject substitutes another object for the sexual object. Perversions with respect to the sexual aim can involve activities that are also part of the normal course of procreational sex, including touching, looking, sadism and masochism. Here what is important is that this is taken by the subject as the exclusive means for obtaining full sexual satisfaction. Nowadays pathological touching or rubbing (froteurism), voyeurism and exhibitionism form part of the DSM.
An Extreme Case
In an article entitled “Cannibal case ‘just the tip of the iceberg’, Alan Hall reported that on the second day of testimony at the trial of self-confessed cannibal Armin Meiwes, of police officers who found neatly labelled packages of “steak”, “ham” and “stew meat” in a deep freeze, all 65 pounds of it filleted from the body of Bernd Juergen Brandes. Police will also describe how they found a video tape that showed Brandes whilst still alive, apparently willingly having his penis cut off. Both Meiwes and Brandes are shown attempting to eat the penis but ‘found it too tough’ because Brandes had begun to feel so faint that he could not wait for it to be fully cooked, in garlic, salt and pepper. The video ends with Meiwes plunging a knife into Brandes as he begs for forgiveness, State prosecutors charged Meiwes with “murder for sexual gratification”. Commenting on the case, Prof. Marneros of the psychiatric clinic of the University of Halle-Wittenberg is quoted as saying that cannibals disobey the rules of society because they do not believe that they apply to them; that they gain feelings of self-respect and worth through eating of their victim’s flesh and that there is always a sexual element involved. Commenting on the case sex expert Joachim Orstermann is quoted as saying that the true extent of cannibalism and vampirism has yet to be discovered. Jacques, a cannibal expert says; „I can say with certainty he will not be able to stop. They never can. It is in them like paedophilia. The internet has created a fantasy universe for like-minded souls to connect. It may just be the tip of a vast iceberg that has been penetrated by this trial.”
Sex Sells
Marketers find the diverse field of human sexuality to be an excellent referent system for the metaphorical images of the products they wish to purvey. Freud’s insights have been so well integrated into culture and media reproduction that even if sexual symbolism did not exist before he wrote about it, it is alive and well in present-day advertising. Look at the following advertisement and consider what is being substituted-for in the image.
Source GQ: July 2007
I call the process of using substitute sexual objects in advertisements ‘Eiffel Tower Syndrome’ – if only because of the fancy that the Eiffel Tower is reminiscent of a classic “Freudian” symbol and – who knows – Freud may well have seen this when he visited Paris to work with Charcot. Marketers do not confine their use of sexual imagery to the ‘straight’ heterosexual market. They also identify products with avant-garde and risque images which fit the profile of their target audience. During the 1970s David Bowie and Ziggy Stardust pioneered a new androgynous look for men. The Rocky Horror Show created a genre that played around with images of fetish objects, inspiring “Goth” culture that has been pandered to through mass media programmes such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lucy Lawless in Xena: Warrior Princess. Marketers have taken up the circulation of images of minority preferences. Nevertheless as is discussed below, marketing sits in an uneasy relation to the identities it promotes
During the 1980s ads started to appear in UK magazines that contained coded references to male homosexuals, things like a handkerchief or perhaps a glove hanging out of the back pocket of a pair of jeans for example. Now the market has grown to incorporate what is called the ‘Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transvestite, Queer” market, although whether or not this constitutes one identity or one market is open to dispute. LGBTQ themes in advertising aimed at the general public are often used for comic effect. But images of LGBTQ people have begun to appear that are more realistic and less stereotypical.
Alcohol companies woke up early to the existence of the LGBTQ market. Absolut vodka seems to have been first in with the placement of an ad in a gay magazine called Advocate, in 1979. Companies also make extensive use of direct marketing campaigns. In 1994 AT&T mailed a letter about the corporation’s lesbian and gay-friendly policies alongside a rainbow-coloured phone cord in a lavender envelope to a list of 70,000 people whose names were provided by Strubco, a company that specializes in selling lesbian and gay marketing lists.
Danae Clark coined the term “gay window advertising” to refer to advertising in mainstream publications that is intended to appeal to lesbian and gay consumers without offending or even alerting conservative heterosexuals. The codes in the ad are likely to be subtle, perhaps showing physical proximity in same-sex groupings that could be read in several ways. Or it might use models that are known in gay contexts. Today with sexual variation and gender bending becoming increasingly considered chic in some circles, explicit references appear more often, especially in haute couture magazines
Erica Rand asks is this attention from marketers good or bad for people who are LGBTQ? On the one hand ads from corporations have provided funds to support events and publications that previously had been supported by individuals. On the other hand this also creates brand loyalty for the companies. Secondly, she argues that ads provide a sense of recognition, the pleasure one feels seeing oneself mirrored in culture and in the case of gay window-advertising the pleasure of recognizing queer codes and scenarios selected for queer appeal. Some would argue that beyond this the visibility created by advertising enhances the recognition of LGBT people as being political constituents, which is a pre-requisite if one wishes to influence public policy on this matter. On the other hand market research has intensified following the publication of results by gay marketing groups such as Overlooked Opinions, which indicated that the LGBT market was more affluent than others. However such conclusions were perhaps biased as the sampling used disproportionately reflected affluent, white males. Nonetheless these false numbers are used by opponents of equal rights to stir up resentment and to argue that gay people do not deserve civil rights protection because they earn too much to count as being disadvantaged. Another worry is that the use of diversity marketing by companies merely serves as a form of “gay-wash”, acting as a foil to displace attention from their products or production processes that might otherwise attract unwelcome criticism. Finally such advertising promotes consumerism, or the idea that consumer culture is a social good. She notes that the term “consumerism” generally has negative connotations. For some critics it suggests moral problems such as greed, gluttony and materialism, while for others it suggests political issues ranging from environmental pollution and disposal of products to social inequality. Consumerism has also been seen as promoting a false sense of freedom. Freedom to choose among products may be mistaken for freedom to choose the social and economic conditions in which we live. This raises two related concerns in her mind for LGBTQ people. First they are seen to primarily express their identities through the purchase of commodities. This is reinforced by advertising images featuring LGBTQ images in association with a range of fashionable consumer goods. This image may exclude and render invisible those LGBTQ people who are of colour and who are female since institutional sexism and racism affect economic status. A second concern is the idea that being lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer is a “lifestyle”? She asks do the primary issues regarding sexual and gender identities really concern style? Does individual or media attention to style divert attention from human rights matters, or encourage people to confuse purchasing power with safety, dignity and respect? Also the term “lifestyle” suggests that identities can be adopted and discarded like the latest fashion.
Forget Freud?
Freud’s work was controversial, even in his own time. Below are addressed two contemporary issues. First, what is the relevance in our time of Freud’s explanation, based on Sophocles’ tale of Oedipus? Second, does Freud’s global explanation that civilization has developed on the back of the repression of desire stand up in the face of Foucault’s counter-claim, which holds to the contrary, that civilization has itself produced perversity?
Oedipus Now?
There are three points of view with respect to the Oedipus Complex; its defenders; those who accept its premise but work within its framework to undermine it; those who believe it true at one point in time but no longer relevant; finally those who never believed in its efficacy. Some of the key arguments are highlighted here.
During the 1920s a major challenge was presented to Freud’s proposition that the Oedipus Complex is universal across humanity. Anthropologist Franz Boas, advocated cultural relativism and believed that Freud’s ideas were only applicable to the narrow and restrictive context enclosed by Western philosophy and civilization. He encouraged his Ph.D. student Margaret Mead to go to Samoa in order to determine whether or not the sexual practices of the islanders bore any resemblance to those of Europeans. Mead’s book, entitled Coming of Age in Samoa and published in 1928 vigorously supported Boas’ claims. Her tale of a culture that was sexually liberated challenged Western ideals of propriety, in arguing that the Samoans had no understanding of romantic love and scoffed at infidelity. Mead’s book sold in the millions and projected her to celebrity status. It was only many years later that the true story emerged. Mead had spent years in Samoa and was disconsolate as she could find no evidence to support Boas, her powerful supervisor. She had a good relationship with some of the local women, but they always shied away from her questions about sexuality. One day, late in the course of her stay, she and a few of the women visited a local island. Here, away from the regular life of their home, they confided to her that all that she had suspected was indeed true, but that they had kept this under wraps. It took many years for researchers to find that the women had been sympathetic to Mead, who was far away from home and obviously unhappy. Consequently it seemed to them a good idea at the time to give her the news she so badly wanted. It took many years for the record to be set straight – that far from encouraging ‘free’ sexual behaviour, in fact the Samoans had a strict code relating to virginity among young women in addition to a range of prohibitions for sexual conduct among adults.
Feminist writers have devoted a lot of time and attention to exploring the implications of the Oedipus Complex. Many theoreticians challenge what they perceive to be the phallocentrism of Freud and Lacan and look to pre-Oedipal formations that can be linked to female eroticism. For example they focus on separation anxiety not castration anxiety as the key to perversity. This at once displaces the power of the father in the explanation while recovering that of the mother who is the key component of the child’s attachment. While the work of French feminists such as Helene Cixious (Cixious 1981) and Julia Kristeva (Kristeva 1980) , can be difficult, Rosaline Coward provides an excellent and most accessible commentary on Freud’s work (Coward 1984) , addressing issues such as women’s relations between eating habits and body image; fashion; the body; the mirror and the look..
Rachel Bowlby is a believer that the Oedipal myth may have been relevant to society at one point in time, during the course of the twentieth century, but it is no longer so. Freud argued that the story of Oedipus is as relevant to the formation of sexual identity today as it was in the days of ancient Greece and as will continue to be for all time. Others challenge this view. Bowlby, (Bowlby 2007) argues that given the decline of the nuclear family in Western society, that the image of Oedipal myth, which features a mother, father and their children, living in the same house and sharing this social space together, has lost much of its relevance. She also argues that there are other aspects of ancient Greek stories that do have relevance for those living in the present day but which Freud did not pay much attention to.
Civilization and Discontent
Freud’s ideas about the relation between psychogenesis and sociogenesis influenced a number of social theorists. To recap, psychogenetic processes involving the structure of personality are intimately related to and dependent upon, sociogenesis, changes in social organization.
The Repressive Hypothesis
Norbert Elias draws upon Freud’s concepts in arguing that as opposed to the pre-modern period, modernity expects that individuals exert self-control over their actions. Consequently, as will be discussed in more detail in the next chapter, activities that were regarded as acceptable in Europe during the Medieval period, such as farting, spitting, pissing into the corners of rooms and sexual license times became withdrawn behind the scenes. Individuals learned to become ashamed of their own behaviour and embarrassed to observe similar behaviour in others. He explained this increase in the exercise of self-control as being due to the enhancement of the superego role is enhanced in modern societies, which places pressure on the ego to conform to the demands of society to sublimate sexual energies in ways that conform to the demands of society. One might think that such repression was at height at the time when Freud himself wrote to describe the ‘psychically impotent’ men and the frigid and neurotic women who peopled his consulting room.
Herbert Marcuse, a ‘guru’ of the 1960’s based his theory on ideological repression of erotic desire through a process which he termed ‘repressive de-sublimation’. Psychic view psychic growth comes about by means of the constant exchange of energy. For example hunger arising in the body provides energy which seeks sustenance and the food received replaces the energy which has been lost and gives back an additional amount. The hydraulic analogy is thus appropriate in that the person is seen as ‘growing’ and developing physically and psychically through the constant exchange of energy flows.
Marcuse argues that the topology of the self has been changed in modern industrial society. Because modern life is so comfortable and bland, the critical dimension of self represented by the ego has failed to develop and in fact has largely disappeared, leaving the repression of all desire by the superego, which represents the demands of the industrial system. What used to be liberty is represented as a pseudo ‘freedom of choice’ in the world of goods. As a result people come to identify themselves purely within the realm of commodities; of automobiles, hi-fi’s, split-level homes, kitchen equipment and so on. His concept of ‘repressive desublimation’ refers to the loss of the traditional role of the ego in mediating or sublimating id-instincts in socially acceptable ways. Marcuse argues that the traditional role played by sublimation was a painful but important means for facilitating the transfers of energies between the self and the world. But consumer society destroys the ability to sublimate (to increase the flow to the world and back to the self) of this energy.
The modern nuclear family is thus stripped from its extended context and fitted out for work in capitalist enterprise, in order to meet the demand for a stable, punctual workforce. The consumer society is interpreted in this context as a means of distracting workers from their real authentic interests and perpetuating that ‘comfortable smooth’ un-freedom which Marcuse talks about. The modern individual is rationalized in that the critical power of her ego has been reduced to the extent that all her desires are subject to social control.
For many years Foucault agreed with the above account of the repression of sexuality. However as the result of his own research, he reasoned that this was an inadequate explanation of historical events. His own research into the creation of normality persuaded him that, far from being repressed, sexuality became increasingly subject to discourse, being talked about (to professionals); written about, medicalized and pathologized during the 18 th and 19 th centuries. Related to this while Marcuse and others argue that sexual repression was foisted onto the working classes Foucault found that a discourse of ‘sexuality’ was first applied to the bourgeois class by its own members. Most importantly, Foucault (1979: 129) disagrees with the idea that there ever was a period of repression. This was because at the time when such repression was supposed to be occurring the emerging bourgeoisie class had become preoccupied with ensuring and increasing the normality, health and longevity of its stock. The creation of a ‘healthy’ sexuality involved the identification and rooting out of all that was ‘unhealthy’ in the social body of the bourgeois class. This involved the construction of a ‘body’ of knowledge by medics and other experts (who were of course themselves bourgeois). The mechanism for revealing this knowledge was borrowed from the Church in the form of the confessional. People confessed their diverse problems to the medics and the medics in turn came up with a range of perversions and other ‘unnatural’ sexual identities. Sexuality thus began to be seen as the object of medical attention, via the understanding of the etiology (cause) of ‘nervous disorders’ and of psychiatric attention via the labelling and understanding of ‘mental illnesses’. The role of the expert was to identify the ‘unnatural’ or ‘perverted’ in the same way that a surgeon might identify a lesion. An entire mechanism of power was thus brought to bear on the body, on identifying what was ‘normal’. Foucault noticed an important difference between the ways in which perversions were treated by the pre-modern code of Christianity and by the new medicine. The focus of Christianity was upon the act or the sin; ‘buggery’ was thus a repugnant act for which a person should confess and do penance. Medicine on the other hand located the act as an essential part of the identity of the person. We see here what was scattered (the sin) becoming solidified and essentialized in the construction of an identity for the person. As a result the person becomes identified on the basis of his or her sex; ‘homosexual’. As Foucault notes ‘the sodomite had been a temporary aberration; the homosexual was now a species’.
Who is right, Freud or Foucault? Foucault’s account of the production of sexual identity is convincing. Given his account of the ‘long and winding road’ to normality discussed above, it is clear that Freud did not believe that more than a few privileged individuals could reach the pinnacle of normality. From this perspective it would be rather stretching the point to say that he formed part of the normalising intent of the psychiatric profession. On the other hand it is clear that some of those who have followed in his footsteps have not been chary of seeking to re-model the sexuality of their analysands (Schwartz 1999) . Freud’s concepts have become normalised in another sense in that they have now diffused widely throughout society and form part of the ‘common sense’ ways in which people seek to understand themselves. For example one sometimes hears of a person who is orderly and tidy being caustically referred to by others as being ‘anally retentive’. It is also clear that advertising has extensively borrowed from Freud and continues to reproduce images that are replete with “Freudian” symbolism. In this respect Freud’s writings have entered the discourse of a number of agencies in society which act to imperfectly reproduce them.
To return to the point made by Foucault, one can understand that, to the extent that one begins to define what is ‘normal’, anything that falls outside of this frame is by definition perverse. In arguing that sexuality was produced by medical discourse Foucault does not appear to be denying that at the same time it was distinctly dangerous for people to admit that they were homosexual – as their admission would undoubtedly have gained them a prison sentence. Nor does he seem to argue that, as the result of strong societal pressures, including the ideal that women be ‘pure’, many women led constricted and indeed ‘repressed’ lives, if we are to believe the evidence of Freud and many others. Instead Foucault seems to focus on the manner by which perversions that previously might have been regarded as behavioural aberrations, came to be seen as pathological identities in the modern period. So the answer may be that both Freud and Foucault are correct, each in his own way. In medical discourse sexuality was spoken about as never before; in public society it was shunned.
Bulimia: The fourth fetish?
“Women have long since made the choice between men and chocolate and have chosen chocolate” (Lucy Ellman, in Gamman & Makinen, 1994: 143)
As was described above, according to Freud, females cannot be fetishists, because this behaviour is specifically a consequence of the disavowal by some male children that the mother lacks a penis. Such disavowal leads them to substitute the item that they saw prior to this shocking discovery, the foot, shoe, stocking or pubic hair, for the genitalia. It follows that women simply cannot be fetishists within a Freudian explanation. Gamman and Makkinen (2000) agree that instances of female sexual fetishism are extremely rare, but argue that one can locate female fetishism in the female realm of food; thus where men tend to be sexual fetishists, women tend to be food fetishists. The authors quote statistics which claim that 95% of all fetishists are male and 90% of all bulimics are women, prior to noting bluntly that; “Traditionally, our culture constructed masculinity as he who fucks, femininity as she who cooks” (1994: 159).
The authors see bulimia as fetishistic because in their view it is comparable to sexual fetishism, though different enough to warrant its own category. They argue that it is fetishistic because:
In this explanation bulimia is a perverse coping strategy that seems to be useful and necessary to the lives of many women. While it is often thought of as a loss of control, it is used by the person to keep control over events that are perceived to be disruptive, frightening and destructive. What is it in bulimia that is being disavowed? Some suggest that bulimic women are caught between conflicting cultural demands
Parents of bulimic daughters do not allow them to individuate normally from the family – mothers intrude unduly into the lives of their children. In this respect in bulimics the gorging of food and laxatives reflects a loss of impulse control and is related to unsatisfied infantile yearnings for closeness and security as well as for the discharge of aggression. Women fail to move on from one stage to the next and get hooked on food. Most work has been done with college students, since that is often where it seems to manifest itself. College unlike school expects a high level of individual responsibility and is perhaps the first big separation of young women from the parental authority. They quote Chernin who discusses the case of Rebecca:
“The bulimic ritual offered a safe structure where she might go on automatic, relinquish her responsibilities and create a self-controlled world, a temporary respite. The loss of the stabilising family system was compensated for by the substitution of a mind-numbing panacea rooted in rigid regimentation.” (G&M 132-133)’
Thus bulimia is related to the process of individuation and separation and is a form of disavowal of separation. This flaw becomes activated when the child’s narcissistic self-image is challenged, often with contradictory messages to be a success and to remain feminine and passive. Unable to deal with the demands placed on her in adolescence the person regresses and displacing the oral drive for nutrition, uses food as a transitional object.
Sexual fetishism presumes that sexual organism is achieved from an object which becomes the sole focus of the sexual aim. Gamman and Makinen argue that like sexual fetishism, bulimia also allows the experience of direct, unmediated and unsublimated sexual pleasure by their eating/purging. The gratification is oral, in the case of the food fetishist and genital in the case of the sexual fetishist. Thus bulimics use food in re-directing sexual energy. Unlike sublimation where the urge is denied and moved onto the metaphorical plane, in bingeing the pleasure is experienced in the plane of the real. Similarly the authors argue that bulimic consumption is fetishistic they focus on precisely those soft, sloppy foods that recall regression to infantile orality.
Gamman and Makkinen finally suggest that there is a need to enquire into the cultural factors that lead men to be sexual fetishists and women food fetishists. As part of this endeavour they conducted a survey that sought to determine the extent to which women engage in bingeing behaviours. They found that the women in their study saw food as a vehicle for them to pleasure themselves, that food carries messages of being alluring and forbidden. Chocolate topped the list of guilty pleasures – 73%. Only potato crisps (chips), nuts, cream and salad dressing came anywhere near! (1994: 337).
Case study: marketing within the sex industry
According to the Economist (1998), the sex industry is worth at least US$20bn (£11bn) a year and probably many times that figure. There are different categories of what may be called services, e.g. prostitution, striptease and telephone sex. There are also products which include pornography and sex aids. Currently, the international sex business is being transformed from a largely amateurish approach associated with small business to more professional and imaginative offerings which offer products such as upmarket escort agencies through the Internet or which exploit niches in the market. Globalisation is a major factor with hundreds and thousands of women from poor countries imported to wealthy countries where they will work for longer hours, for less money and less concern for safety than their Western counterparts. A second trend is commoditisation, with prices being ratcheted downwards in a buyers' market. The same trend is happening with products, where sex videos feature more and more Central and Eastern European (CEE) actors who ‘cost less and do more’. The article discusses various options for the sex entrepreneur; for the ruthless, workers are treated abominably, smuggled and sold as sex slaves. However, in the long term the prospects for this form of cut-price prostitution look bleak.
One response (the more intelligent one) to global competition and price pressure is to go upmarket. Prostitutes in hotel bars and nightclubs charge 5 or 6 times as much as their sisters on the street. Upscale prostitution is safer; customers may be nicer, hotels offer more protection than a pimp. The same applies to pornography where the bottom end of the market is hopelessly oversupplied and most videos are boring, ‘barely distinguishable with feeble plots and dialogue’. It is argued that what really makes money is building a brand or finding a familiar face like Tina Orlowske, the Hanover based porn star who now runs one of Germany's largest sex-video businesses. Differentiation by offering customers something new or different works too, catering to fetishes. In the US the San Fernando Valley on the north side of Los Angeles's Santa Monica mountains has become home to the US adult film business. This is beginning to imitate the mainstream Hollywood industry, with its own Oscar ceremonies and studio system. Another fast growing part of the US porn business is the home-video industry which has even lower costs. However, it is the Internet which offers the greatest prospects for growth.
Source : Adapted from the Economist (1998) ‘The sex industry: giving the customer what he wants’, February 14, pp. 23–5.
Question 1
Try to answer the following question. Is it morally right that marketing principles and techniques should be applied to the ‘sex industry’? Views are listed at the end of this chapter.
References
Bowlby, R. (2007). Freudian mythologies. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Cixious, H. (1981). "Castration or decapitation?" Signs 7(1): 41-55.
Coward, R. (1984). Female desire: women's sexuality today. London, Palidan.
Freud, S. (1991 [1905]). Three essays on the theory of sexuality. On sexuality. A. Richards. London, Penguin. 7: 33-155.
Kristeva, J. (1980). Desire in language. Oxford, Blackwell.
Lear, J. (2005). Freud. New York and London, Routledge.
Schwartz, D. (1999). "The temptations of normality: Reappraising psychoanalytic theories of sexual development." Psychoanalytic Psychology 16(4): 554-564.
Lawrence (1967: ‘Tortoise Shout’, Complete Poems, i. 363-7
Tuesday 12 th June, 2007, World News section, page 23.
Freud, [1905], (1977: 194). In footnote 2, Freud says that Little Hans made an almost identical remark to this.
Freud can be relatively non-specific. He offers up different reasons in other texts (c.f. Dollimore,
11 Dollimore (1999: 188-190).
Freud, [1905], (1977: 212/213)
Scotland on Sunday, Dec. 7th 2003: 25, International News.
Adapted from: Rand, Erica (2002) LGBT website.
See Dan Baker for the reference on advertising to gays; Danae Clarke, for the article on gay window advertising and Branchik, 2007 #90} for more information on the relation between LGBTQ and advertising.