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suffers less freq uentl y than she does from d iffi culty in a LLa ining
orgasm. In ou r own ti me, whi ch p laces g rea t stress on max imum
perfo rmance, in clud in g sexua l performance, thi s def iciency LOuches an
especia ll y vuln erable spot in women 's self-esteem .
Psychoana lyti c theory begin s by focusing on the exi stence of
primary libidin al zones, by mean s of whi ch it is poss ibl e to demon–
stra te th e respecti ve stages of deve lopment and the o bj ect-rel ati on ships
and needs connected with them . Cling ing to certa in forms of g ra tifi ca–
ti on belonging to a lready a bandoned stages of devel opment has been
understood as fixati on of regress ion . We usua ll y ass ume the causes of
thi s to be infantil e confli cts tha t a re repressed - i.e. , become un con–
scio us, mi sunderstandin gs between ad ult and child , pa renta l va lue–
judgments tha t call into ques ti on the child 's self-es tcem , etc.
In la ter phases -fo r examp le, the Oedi pa l phase - o f ma tu rati on,
ana l or o ral forms of sexua l g ra tifi ca ti on are rejected w ith di sgust or
shame. And in a simil a r way, Freud o bserved in an l897 leLLer to Fliess,
during puberty the youn g girl turns aga inst her clito ra l sexua lity,
whi ch Freud supposed to be a re li c of her masculin e-ph a lli c ph ase.
It
is
amazing tha t such a criti ca l thinker as Freud did no t recogni ze the
pubertal g irl 's shame, her repress ion of sexua l impul ses, as the result of
socia l demands and va lues, but beli eved in stead tha t he was seeing a
psychobi ological process of ma tu rati on . The ado lescent g irl 's un con–
scio us comprehension tha t she is "second-cl ass" is identifi ed with
"ma turity." In the "Three Essays on th e T heory of Sex ua lit y" Freud
expl a ined the need fo r fema le sexua l rep ress ion in pubert y as an
essenti a l stimulus fo r th e ma le libido.
In view of Freud 's recogniti on of the effect of soc iety'S aLLitude
to
sexua lity and hi s awa reness o f how much the do ubl e mo ra l standard
stood in the way of free deve lopment of woman 's po tenti a lity, it is all
the mo re as toni shing tha t a t th e same time he coul d assert that
woman 's inhibited sexu a lity was the preconditi on fo r man 's develop–
ing a full sexual and emo ti ona l des ire fo r her. Since Freud 's own time,
we have gained considerabl e ev idence tha t there is no bi o log ical
founda ti on fo r such a law of sexua l interac ti o n , tha t is, man 's capacity
for sexua l arousal does no t depend on woman 's a ltitude of deni al.
Experiments by the Engli sh scienti st Mi chael o n Rh es us mo nkeys have
demonstra ted tha t the sexua l acti vity o f ma les is dependent on the
fema les' needs and ho rmonal sta te. Even if human sexua l rel a ti on ships
are mo re compli ca ted and mo re subj ect to di sturbance, we know tha t in
the course of sexua l relati onshi ps o f some dura ti o n male potency often
becomes dependent on the woman 's sexua l des ires. In my opini on it is
