Anatomical Distinction Between The Sexes Summary

Up until 1925, Freud admitted to focusing mainly on the sexuality of boys due to the uncertainty of the female sexuality. The paper ‘Some Psychical Consequences of the Anatomical Distinction between the Sexes’ (Freud, 1925) is important because in this Freud attempts to explain the Psychical (mental) and the anatomical division between the sexes and what causes it. He highlights the notion that for girls, the leading sexual organ is the clitoris at first which is masculine in character and a ‘’wave of repression at puberty is required before the clitoris gives way to the vagina’’ (Freud, 1925) which means during the latency phase (6 to puberty) the girls sexuality will go from masculine (clitoris) to feminine (vagina). Freud talks about how

For girls, Freud says castration occurs before the Oedipus complex. The girls primary erotogenic zone being her clitoris, she believes is the same as boys penis but it has ‘’come off badly’’ (short). Also the clitoral masturbation is masculine, thus aiding to the notion that all girls are masculine at first (biasexuality comes to the fore more clearly in women than men). But when the girl sees boys penis, ‘’She has seen it, and knows that she is without it and wants to have it’’ (Freud, S. 1925, p. 252). She assumes that she has been punishes already, therefore struggles with her femininity, leading to masculinity complex and penis envy, which can give rise to homosexuality if she identifies with the male by sharing the contempt felt by men towards women thus behaving like a man. But mostly due to the Oedipus complex, the girl abandons her desire for a penis and gives rise to desire for a child, a child from her father, so takes on her father as her love-object and identifying with her mother, leading to ‘’normal’’ sexuality for girls (Freud, S.

This type of incident can be seen from the case history ‘The Psychogenesis of a Case of Homosexuality in a Woman’ (Freud, S. 1920). A young homosexual girl was in an analysis with Freud as a request from her father to ‘get her back to normal’, similar in every way to the case of Dora (1905). One of the explanation by Freud states that her homosexuality arose from the fact that she realised her father gave a baby to her mother instead of her. Also realising her father’s dislike of the fact that she is homosexual, her homosexuality was reinforced as a type of revenge against him for not giving her a baby. Another explanation of her homosexuality was said to be due the rivalry between the girl and her mother, the mother being relatively young women herself, and a one who was not very fond of her daughter. This caused her to give way to her mother by ‘’surrendering’’ to her by choosing to be masculine. For a girl to arrive at ‘’normal’’ sexuality, she must first change her love object from mother to father and change her primary erotogenic zone from clitoris (masculine) to vagina (feminine). By doing these, the girl is accepting castration instead of fighting against it and keeps on accepting it throughout her life (Freud, S.