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quishes a part of its function : " When at last the sexual act is permitted
and the clitoris itself becomes excited , it still retains a function: the
task namely, of transmitting the excitation to the adjacent female
sexual parts, just as-to use a simile-pine shavings can be kindled to
set a log of harder wood on fire . " In view of the tragi-comedy that so
much subsequent discussion offemale sexuality has turned out to be, it
is appropriate to bring forward this early and largely neglected remark ,
including the homely and half-inappropriate metaphor that Freud
enlists to illustrate it . The clitoris does not altogether give up its excita–
bility; what it does is to transfer "susceptibility to stimulation" to
, 'the vaginal orifice . " (Freud is in this text undecided about the degree
to which the clitoris has to "abandon its excitability, " and the passage
is ambiguous on this score .)
It
ceases to be the exclusive or leading zone
for female sexual activity. For 1905 that is rtot an altogether condemn–
able formulation .
Yet we cannot let the matter rest there . In the first essay there is an
important theoretical subsection on the "overvaluation of the sexual
object," which contains the following passage:
The significance of the factor of sexual overvaluation can be best
studied in men, for their erotic life alone has become accessible to
research. That of women- partly owing to the stunting effect of
civilized conditions and partly owing to their conventional secre–
tiveness and insincerity- is still veiled in an impenetrable
obscurity .
Ifwe juxtapose these remarks with those taken from the third essay , we
are left with a series ofquestions . Where did Freud get the informatio'n
that he construes into the theoretical construction of the third essay ,
information which, in addition, he denies having access to in the first?
It
is quite impossible to say, and the matter remains veiled in impene–
trable obscurity.
Nevertheless, along with the establishment of genital primacy at
puberty, there takes place as well the completion of the process which
permits the organism to seek and find a sexual object. Here, too ,
psychical preparations have been made from a very early date :
At atime at which the first beginnings ofsexual satisfaction are still
linked with the taking of nourishment, the sexual instinct has a
sexual object outside the infant's body in the shape of his mother's
