What Do Freud and Smith Mean by Psychic Bisexuality - Essay Example

Final 275303 Full Department and Number The that the paper is given to the . What doFreud and Smith mean by Psychic bisexuality The idea of Bisexuality has always lived and most religions have one or another notion of it. But Freud was the pioneer of psychoanalysis theory, which introduced the concept of bisexuality, according to which all human beings at the same time own both masculine and feminine sexual characters. The importance of bisexuality in mental phenomena was accentuated by Freud, throughout his career, although it was based on anatomical and embryological data. He wrote "a certain degree of anatomical hermaphroditism occurs normally in every normal male or female individual, traces are found of the apparatus of the opposite sex" (1905 141). He insisted that nothing about sex could be understood without taking an account of " universal bisexuality of human beings" (1950 179). Psychoneuroses analysis gave him the confirmation of the "postulated existence of an innate bisexual disposition in man" (1908 165-166). For Freud the concept of bisexuality "embarrasses all our enquiries into the subject and makes them harder to describe" (1940a 188). The concept of bisexuality by Freud were based on the understanding that "all human beings are capable of making a homosexual object-choice" (Freud, 1905,) fn p. 56), "Bisexuality is a possibility" (Smith) in many cases due to varies reasons. Biological sources gave birth to Freud's theory of bisexuality. Freud explains the boy's wish to be with father as mother during oedipal complex and the untimely sense of phallic activity during pre-oedipal stage, which is a part of their biological disposition. What is the cause of Masochism The basic of psychoanalysis is masochism, refined by Freud. He introduced three kinds of masochism, and feminine masochism, "an expression of the feminine being nature" (p. 161) is required here. It is when an individual inflicts and receives pain during sex and situations like, "being castrated, or copulated with, or giving birth to a baby" (p. 162) are crucial to masochism. Women's beating fantasies also urged Freud to produce the theory of "feminine masochism." Freud was very complicated when it came to gender discussions. He also linked this theory with passivity and called it a "biological fact." He continued that, "Passivity is not a whole of masochism." But it is a major part of it. Men are considered active and passivity is a women's thing. He initiated "feminine" and "moral" factors as secondary masochism. Basically what I gather from his thinking is that passivity is owned by women and that is why her capability of masochism gives her the power to love selflessly as a women and mother. He also considered it as a part of the sexual pleasure which is intense. According to Freud a crucial point he insisted on is that mutation during development may also result in masochism. What is feminine maturity and why is it more complicated then masculine maturity Similar yet so different tasks are taken by boys and girls on the way to maturity. This path to maturity constitute of the pre-oedipal, oedipal and post oedipal period. Freud said that "variations in the chronological order and in the linking up of these [pre to post oedipal] events are bound to have a very important bearing on the development of the individual". (Freud 1931 p.79). Freud clarifies the focus of Psychoanalysis in his essay feminity by Freud, "sets about inquiring how she comes into being, how a woman develops out of a child with a bisexual disposition." And he further says, "Undoubtedly, the material is different to start with in boys and girls: the difference in the structure of the genitals is accompanied by other bodily differences". Freud insisted that the sexual development of a girl into a woman is far more complicated than that of a boy. And "it includes two extra tasks to which there is nothing corresponding in the development of a man." He explains, "she must find a way to give up her leading genital organ, her clitoris, and she must give up her first love-object - her mother." (Freud 225). According to Freud girls have "greater need to have shown affection that accounts to be more dependent and plaint." During the task of maturity girls undergo complicated steps and one of the crucial one is "With the change of feminity, the clitoris should wholly or in parts hand over its sensitivity, and at the same time its importance to vagina." Basically, the whole process gets complicated because the sexual development of a girl undergoes two processes, first the masculine experience and then the feminine. In other words, "to the change in her own sex they must correspond a change in the sex of her object". (Freud 228) Out of discontent with her small clitoris the girl will surrender her lively masculine sexuality, quit phallic clitoral activity and with it parts of her masculinity in other areas as well. (Freud, 1931. p. 229) Or, if she hangs on to a desire for a penis and sustain the phantasy of being a man she will return to a masculine complex and the product can be homosexuality. (Freud,1931 p. 230) Under what conditions does the male relinquish his original love objects Obviously both the girl and boy relinquish their parents as sexual objects, as put by Freud. I suppose that Freud was suggesting "choice of an object independently of its sex [the] freedom to range equally over male and female objects is the original basis from which, as a result of a restriction in one direction or the other, both the normal and the inverted types develop". (Freud 57). It is indicated in Freud's theory that boy brought up by a woman identifies with father but take his mother as a love object. But the difference occurs when the boy decided what he wants to do, "He may want to take his mother's place as the love object of the father, or he may want to take the father's place and love the mothers as father does." (Freud, 250) What would you do if your child was born with a perfectly formed penis and XX chromosomes Why The birth of inter-sexed children is an old and rare episode. But if this happens to me as a parent, I would discuss it with the physicians to its depth and will try to find out what is the best for the child. Every step will be taken for the betterment of the child. I would try to manage the inter-sexed baby the way it is suppose to be handled. Gender assignment to such a child is not an easy task; it is time and money consuming. I will spend my ambiguity period with patience and let the tests decide that what the best is for the child. I will make sure that the gender decision is solely based on biological factors and will not let the social factors influence my decision. And last but not the least I will give it the amount of time it requires which is till my child reaches adolescence and then discuss it with him about his future. The best scenario will be to raise the child in an environment where he/she can decide freely what she/he wants to be. I would not mind taking help from the medical sciences and the way they are making advancement. I would do this way because I think this is an appropriate way of handling it. Lot of help from the experts and psychiatrist will be crucial in managing the child. Should there be five sexes What does Fausto Sterling mean by cultural genitals Should genital surgery and the decision for final gender category be delayed until the child reaches adoloscence Sterling in 1993 introduced three more sexes besides male and female and named them as herms, merms and ferms to "encompass the full spectrum of human sexuality." But I don't think there should be five sexes. I would have agreed to it, if the theory was useful for transsexual people. Rather, it is confusing for many and me, to understand it. I firmly disagree with it as it created confusion. They idea of "cultural genitals" (Kessler and McKenna 1978) focuses on some one who is suppose to have certain kind of genitals, based not on bilogical factor, but on cultural believe.Basically she highlighted the way social construction requires our body to look like and how politics and culture influence it. As Jean quotes Anne Fausto-Sterling who describes this situation as "physical genitals form a poor basis for deciding the rights and privileges of citizenship rather it is social gender that we see and read." . Yes, I would wait till my child reaches adolescence and try to cope with the social pressures myself and help him/her cope as well. Freud says that a person's "final sexual attitude is not decided until after puberty and is the result of a number of factors, not all of which are yet known; some are of a constitutional nature and some are accidental the multiplicity of determining factors is reflected in the variety of manifest sexual attitudes" actually present in human kind. (Freud 57) Bibliography Freud, Sigmund. Femininity. London: Hogarth Press, 1953. Freud, Sigmund. Three essays on the theory of sexuality. 1905. Freud, Sigmund. Hysterical phantasies and their relation to bisexuality. 1908. 156-166 Freud, Sigmund. New introductory lectures on psycho-analysis. 1932. 1-182. Freud, Sigmund. An outline of psycho-analysis. 1940. 139-207 Freud, S. Female sexuality (1931). In Standard edition. 1953.London: Hogarth Press. Kessler, Suzanne, Mc Kenna,Wendy. Gender:An Ethnomethodological Approach. Chicago University Press, 1978. Smith,Henry. Human biology and history. Malcolm: 2002. Michael C. Finke, Carl Niekerk One hundred years of Masochism. 2000. Robinson, Jean (n.d.). Cultural Genitals - Goodbye Seventies. From http://engenderedspeciesart.com/documents/JeanRobisonPerformance.doc Read More