Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality

Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality Analysis

Freud wrote these essays about divergent sexualities, specifically those modes of sexuality that would be deemed socially unacceptable by any reasonable society, such as bestiality and pedophilia. But, ironically, the reader might end up coming away with something altogether different than those. If we analyze the categories where Freud begins to say, "This is perverted," the reader can begin to construct a sense for what a healthy, normal sexuality might be.

By normal, Freud does not mean that one only has sexual experiences one is proud of. In fact, Freud argues that it is perfectly ordinary and normal to experience sexual attraction to a child, since children are people, and people are typically available for sexual purposes, so each person might potentially deal with curiosity about these things, because their body needs to discern whether a child could be an effective "object" or "fetish" to use as a vessel of one's "sexual intention," which is typically constructed during one's own childhood, leading sometimes to a sense of kinship with the childhood state of innocence. But Freud says that most people can easily figure out that children are not ready or capable of adult sexuality, and that it would be heinous and disastrous, as well as hateful and violent, to use a child for one's own sexual purposes. When a pedophile decides to harm a child, they are making a horrifying, tragic mistake in their psyche and in their perception of reality.

So there is a model for sexual health, hiding in the details of Freud's argument. Notice that the person must make their own decisions about what is healthy and unhealthy. In other words, a person will be successful in their sexuality if they can manage to take responsibility for their point of view, because if a person wants something sexually that they don't give themselves permission to want, either for shame or self-judgment, then that person can begin to break down sexually, and in states of panic and desperation, they will use objects for sexual purposes which are not designed by nature for those intents. At least, this is Freud's estimation.

Update this section!

You can help us out by revising, improving and updating this section.

Update this section

After you claim a section you’ll have 24 hours to send in a draft. An editor will review the submission and either publish your submission or provide feedback.