Rob Weisskirch wrote: > A student asked about Freud's interpretation of oral sex. I know that > Freud commented on homosexuality (mostly male) as was reviewed here not > long ago. However, I do not know specifically if he said anything about > oral sex. Do anyone know what Freud said about non genital-genital sex?
A perusal of The Standard Edition General Subject Index reveals few entries on this subject. Freud mentions oral sex in passing in �Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality� (1905), noting that those who condemn such practices as perversions are overlooking the fact that �the limits of such disgust are�often purely conventional.� (SE 7, p. 151) In his case history of �Dora�, published the same year, there is a far-fetched interpretation of Dora�s recurrent cough as a symbolic manifestation of an unconscious fantasy of �a scene of sexual gratification *per os*� between her father and his mistress (SE 7, pp. 47-48, 51-52). Freud traces the development of the practice of fellatio to a baby�s sucking at the maternal breast, the �sexual object of the moment (the penis)� being substituted for �the original object (the nipple)�, �so we see that this excessively repulsive and perverted phantasy [unconscious fantasy] of sucking at the penis has the most innocent origin. It is a new version of what may be described as a prehistoric impression of sucking at a mother�s or nurse�s breast�In most instances a cow�s udder has aptly played the part of an image intermediate between a nipple and a penis� (p. 52). Freud expands on this last sentence when he alludes to fellatio in the Little Hans case history: �I once put forward the view [ref. Dora case history] that there was no need to be too much horrified at finding in a woman the idea of sucking at a male organ. This repulsive impulse, I argued, had a most innocent origin, since it was derived from sucking at the mother�s breast; and in this connection, I went on, a cow�s udder plays an apt part as an intermediate image, being in its nature a *mamma* and in its shape and position a penis.� (1909, SE 10, p. 7) Freud returns to this subject once more in the �Leonardo� paper, where he writes of �the inclination to take a man�s sexual organ into the mouth and suck at it�: �Women, it seems, find no difficulty in producing this kind of wishful phantasy [unconscious fantasy] spontaneously�Further investigation informs us that this situation�may be traced to an origin of the most innocent kind. It only repeats in a different form a situation [when] we took our mother�s (or wet-nurse�s) nipple into our mouth and sucked at it�and when at a later date the child becomes familiar with the cow�s udder whose function is that of a nipple, but whose shape and position under the belly make it resemble a penis, the preliminary stage has been reached which will later enable [her] to form the repellent sexual phantasy.� (1910, SE 11, p. 86-87) Make of that what you will! Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.human-nature.com/esterson/index.html http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=10 --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
