Among the most revolutionary aspects of Freud’s conceptualization of sexual development was one that he himself did not fully appreciate nor effectively work into his theoretical constructions. This was his almost casual observation that the object of the sexual drives was not an extension of those drives, not their natural mode of expression, but that […]

It may be something of an irony that human sexuality, frequently viewed as constant across the human record, is actually among the forms of behavior most dependent upon contextualizing contingencies. Modern societies represent an unprecedented point in social evolution where sexual desire and cultural expectations increasingly cease to mirror one another closely (Simon and Gagnon […]

The future of perversion INTRODUCTION The task of understanding sexual deviance, and those forms of it referred to as “perversion”, is twofold. First, we must attempt to understand why and under what conditions certain behaviors are proscribed. Second, there must be an understanding of the motivation that encourages individuals to engage in or identify with […]

Some comment upon the entirely male perspective of this essay is necessary. In part this derives from one of the major research tools of the author, empathic introspection. Another, more compelling reason for this narrowing of perspectives is the feminist commitment of the author. Understandably, the major focus of feminist criticism has been the representation […]

Movies, men and myths The very idea of myth, a story exemplifying aspects of the belief system of a time and place, commonly evokes a sense of the past, most often a dead and alien past; it is often accompanied by a sense of the primitive. Myths are offered us as part of the archeology […]

The “centering” of desire, especially the desire for meaning, within the organism is essential to the view of the human as active participant in even its earliest phases of development. This may be among Freud’s most generative contributions. My quarrel is not with this concept. Rather it is the taking for granted of the specific […]

In traditional psychoanalytic theory, a form of sadism is one of the earliest of instinctive drives to make an appearance, becoming manifest as the second phase of the oral stage (Laplanche and Pontalis 1973). Its appearance is associated with “instinctual ambivalence”, suggesting its inextricable connection to dialectic, to conflict, to choice. (Is it Ernst Kris […]

For many males, entry into adolescence occasions conflicts over varied behaviors and relationships experienced during masturbation as well as over the possibility of failed or embarrassing sexual encounters. Both tend to encourage an objectification of the penis. The projection of hostility towards one’s own penis must be a common response. The most common of these […]

Adolescence is a period of mandated reassessment of the body, with a particular emphasis upon those parts of the body and body contacts that the larger society defines as having erotic significance. The cultural certification of sexual significance is especially true for the genitalia and other parts of the body that are described as having […]

Gender, a complex of anticipations and instructions, is an essential hermeneutic of virtually all social experience and all responses to experience. To the degree that a polarized gender system provides a major framework within which clues to identity are sorted, and within which individual erotic interests are elaborated, a complexity of responses should be an […]