M. MITSCHERLICH-NIELSEN
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only in a society that accepts unquestionably the rule of the "strong"
man as a natural law tha t the idea of the conquest and subjugation of
unwilling women could acquire a sexually stimulating effect, and
appear also in women's fantasies-for exampl e in the pleasurable
violation fantasi es well known to every psychoanalyst-and in maso–
chistic character traits and many aspects of behavior regarded as
typically feminin e.
Recent research has also clearly disproved the embryological
theory that the clitoris is a vestigial male organ. The inductor theory of
primary sexual differentiation has been corroborated by embryo tests,
which even showed that the embryo in the first few weeks is neither
undifferentiated nor bisexual but phenotypically femal e. In order to
make the originally female organs of generation mal e, the genetically
male embryo needs the hormone androgen. The development of
femininity, on the other hand , represents an autonomous continued
maturation of the hered itary pre-disposition. In their first embryonic
stages of development, th erefore, both sexes are phenotypically female;
the clitoris is part of the femal e genitals from the very beginning. It is
important that there be no misunderstanding here: our intention is not
to overemphasize the rol e biology plays in psychosexual development,
but to define that role clearly so that erroneous ideas of Freud's,
deriving from incorrect biologi cal theories of his time, can be clearly
recognized. To repeat: since the clitoris is not a vestigial male organ,
but rather, the penis is an enlarged clitoris, there is no biological basis
for claims regarding the girl's phallic phase. Thus it can not be seen as
a sign of biologica l maturity when the woman gives up clitoral for
vaginal arousal in the course of her development. Clitoral arousal is a
physiological part of complete sexual satisfaction for a woman. The
exclusively vaginal orgasm is a myth-although that does not mean , as
is often falsely maintained nowadays, that there is no vaginal orgasm:
many women experience it. And just as this claim must be rej ected, so
too must the claim made by many feminists that coitus is itself
unnatural. (That is hardly to deny, of course, that it can be performed
so brutally and insensitively as to become something else entirely.)
Freud 's statement that children scarcely notice sexual differences
in the first years of their lives seems va lid
to
most child-observers and
psychoanalysts, although the first occurrence of such perceptions is
now considered to be ea rli er than Freud had thought-as early as the
end of the second year of life. But it still has not been proved that both
sexes experi ence themselves primari ly as " little men. " And it is less the
primary femininity of the embryo that provokes hypotheses to the
