Infantile sexuality

“ The result was the recognition that all inclinations to perversion have their origin in childhood, that children have tendencies toward them all and practice them in a measure corresponding to their immaturity. Perverse sexuality, in brief, is nothing more than magnified infantile sexuality divided into its separate tendencies. ”

“ With the discovery of the significance in relation to hysteria of these varied experiences and forgotten memories which always led into the erotic realm and usually were carried far back into early childhood, the theory of an infantile sexual trauma as a cause of this neurosis developed. Contrary to the usual belief that children have no sexuality and that only at puberty does it suddenly arise, it was definitely shown that there was a very marked kind of sexuality among children of the most tender years, entirely instinctive and capable of producing a grave effect on the entire later life. ”

“ One will not gain any correct understanding of the activities of the infantile sexuality and probably will consider these communications unworthy of belief, as long as one does not relinquish the attitude of our cultural depreciation of the genitals and of the sexual functions in general. To understand the infantile psychic life one has to look to analogies from primitive times. ”

“ A portion of the sexual manifestation which has withdrawn from sublimation occasionally breaks through, or a sexual activity remains throughout the whole duration of the latency period until the reinforced breaking through of the sexual impulse in puberty. In so far as they have paid any attention to infantile sexuality the educators behave as if they shared our views concerning the formation of the moral forces of defence at the cost of sexuality, and as if they knew that sexual activity makes the child uneducable ”

“ There are also cases of perverse sexuality that have much more similarity with the infantile, where, independently of one another, numerous partial instincts have forced their way, insisted on their aims, or rather perpetuated them. In these cases it is more correct to speak of infantilism of sexual life than of perversions. ”

“ He described the sexuality of the infantile period as being purely autoerotic in character, the sexual interests of the child being centered in its own body. From this stage the object of interest is gradually transferred to other individuals of the same sex, the normal attraction to the opposite sex being a final development of later years. ”

“ It must, however, be admitted that these emotional manifestations of childhood by no means make the impression of being in miniature; their intensity can rival that of an affect among adults. Nor must it be forgotten that experience has shown that perverse manifestations of sexuality in childhood are often more glaring, and indeed seem to have a greater development, than in adults. ”

“ If a child finds that no one will speak to it about sexual matters, it must ultimately become secretive about its own sexual life. The child sees very clearly that every word it utters about such things is repressed as improper, and soon learns that the whole field of sexuality is regarded as something unclean, about which not a word must be uttered. ”

“ Thus we are moved to study the development of sex-life in the child also, and we discover the following from a number of sources: In the first place, it is a mistake to deny that the child has a sexual life, and to take it for granted that sexuality commences with the ripening of the genitals at the time of puberty. ”

“ A girl who, for lack of companions of her own sex, was accustomed to join in her brother's sports, comes to believe, when subsequently she has developed into a homosexual woman, that her conduct in childhood resulted from congenital perversion, whereas in reality this conduct was the purely accidental result of her childish environment. ”

“ A boy is tortured by its pangs when he sees his much-loved friend conversing with another. A girl of ten may suffer from sleepless nights when the governess she loves has spoken affectionately to another girl. A child may wait for hours before the door or in the neighbourhood of the beloved person, simply to snatch a glance in passing. Speaking generally, it appears to me that children are jealous of adults to a less extent than they are jealous of children of their own age.
Very frequently even in childhood sexuality gives rise to enduring imaginative sexual activity. ”

“ This explains why it is that the most careful education often fails to prevent the premature commencement of the amatory life; and it explains also, on the other hand, why it is that even in the most unfavourable circumstances, sexual phenomena do not always make their appearance during childhood. I know of persons who have passed the years of childhood in a brothel, amid surroundings obviously calculated to turn their attention to sexuality, but in whom nevertheless during childhood no development of the sexual life appeared to have occurred. ”

“ Then it may easily happen that the games of the children become "naughty," that is, they assume a sexual character; they play "father and mother," watch each other in the performance of intimate performances and mutually stimulate their genitals. The janitor's daughter, who, in spite of her five or six years of age, has had occasion to make observations on the sexuality of adults, probably played the part of the seducer. ”

“ The presence of the loved one may, in fact, powerfully stimulate ambition and the desire to work. A little girl who has fallen in love with her schoolmistress or governess, will strive to please the latter by hard work and attention; and, similarly, a boy who loves a boy or a girl classmate, very often attempts to make an impression on the feelings of the loved one by his performances at school. Whilst we recognise the dangers attendant on the development of sexuality in the child, we must not overlook the fact that this development may have its good side. ”

“ Yet, in many cases, boys avoid those of their own sex, and seek the companionship of girls, not for the reason just alleged, but solely because these boys thus early experience erotic stimulation when associating with girls. In any case, we must carefully avoid over-estimating the importance of what may appear to be contrary sexual phenomena during childhood, and we must not be too ready to accept the occurrence of such phenomena as a proof that sexual perversion had manifested itself already during childhood. ”

“ The chief danger does not arise from the fact that the child is occasionally utilised for a homosexual act, but from the circumstance that in the period of the undifferentiated sexual impulse, the child's sexual interest, and especially its contrectation impulse, is directed towards one of its own sex, and that thereby a permanent perversion may be induced. ”

“ Moreover, his sexual precocity may deliver the boy to the embraces of homosexual men, an outcome which is rendered the more likely by the commonly undifferentiated character of the childish sexual impulse. There are certain homosexual adult males whose impulse is especially directed towards boys still possessing the milk-white face of the child, and his encounter with such a pervert may make all the difference to a sexually premature boy. ”

“ Such a course is desirable, if merely for the reason that when a child is sexually enlightened by other children, this is usually effected in so coarse a manner as very readily to undermine the bases of respect for the sexual life of humanity. ”

“ An innate tendency is practically indispensable. Early experiences along innate lines merely strengthen a congenital bias, just as the author became an intensive adult fairie as a result—I am inclined to believe—of my intense fairieship from three to six.
While I believe sexual relations of children under twelve when not often repeated will not render them particularly lustful as adults, an intensive sex life of a small child—as in my own case—is likely to render him or her extremely intemperate sexually after puberty. ”

“ In view of this significance of the infantile relation to the parents for the later selection of the sexual object, it is easy to understand that every disturbance of this infantile relation brings to a head the most serious results for the sexual life after puberty. Jealousy of the lover, too, never lacks the infantile sources or at least the infantile reinforcement. Quarrels between parents and unhappy marital relations between the same determine the severest predispositions for disturbed sexual development or neurotic diseases in the children. ”

“ Processes which in childhood were entirely devoid of any sexual tinge, but which later became associated with sex-feelings, very readily acquire false sexual associations also when they are revived in memory. Consider, for instance, the case of a homosexual man. ”

“ My own adult career had its prototype in my intense fairie-ism from two until seven. Sexual impressions of early childhood have often a powerful influence down through middle life. In large measure they determine the course to be taken by the adult sexual life. Parents can not be too watchful of the secret practices of small children, and of the influence of servants. Androgynes, during childhood, are particularly prone to fall into bad habits (fellatio; or pathicism in prædicatio) because always confined with their sexual opposites. ”

“ Here also seduction has to be considered, especially during the second period of childhood, in which danger may arise from playmates or school-fellows. This applies equally to children of either sex. Danger may also arise from adults, not only through systematic seduction on the part of grown persons who deliberately debase the mind of youth, but also in other ways. The conversations of adults often lead to sexual acts on the part of children, who understand far more of what is said in their presence than grownups commonly believe. ”

“ Homosexual adults often tell us that even in boyhood they shunned the company of other boys, and sought girl companions, to join in the games of these latter—and they endeavour to explain this conduct on their part as determined by contrary sexual inclinations in early childhood. ”

“ It is a fact that the psychosexual processes of the child are less sharply differentiated from other psychical processes than is the case in the adult; and it is therefore possible that the specific sexual perversions, and the specific sexual sensibility, develop out of a corresponding sensibility in the child which is not yet of a sexual character. ”

“ The embrace of children must be natural but not too ardent. In fact, the lover must diffuse his love and romp with children as a class rather than allow himself to appear emotional over one individual.
Many unthinking people will at once regard this temperament as impure when they have been convinced that scientifically it is sexual. But this is only because they cannot understand that sex is a clean thing and that the physical side of it is an occasional and by no means an inevitable incident. The cult of child-love is in fact one of the purest and noblest of sex-expressions. ”

“ But it is necessary here to repeat my previous warning against over-ready generalisation; for we find that there is quite a number of boys and girls who exhibit during childhood such contrary sexual qualities and inclinations, and yet subsequently undergo a perfectly normal, or at any rate a non-homosexual, development of the sexual life. During the period of the puberal development, the normal heterosexual characteristics come to predominate. ”

“ It is believed that an over-attachment by the male for the mother, or other female—the fixation which has already been discussed—is one of the principal determining causes. In this way the boy unconsciously patterns his psycho-erotic reactions and conduct after those of his mother, and as her sexual interest normally is in men, the boy's, too, gravitates in that direction, so that in adulthood he has sexual feeling only for persons of his own sex. The over-attachment of the girl for the father may result in the homosexual woman. ”

“ Adult sexual perverts frequently declare that their first experience of perverse sexual sensibility dates from the eighth year, or even earlier. Thus, by homosexuals we are told that the homosexual inclination was felt in very early childhood, in one case directed towards a schoolfellow, in another towards some near relative, or towards a resident tutor--or in the case of female homosexuals, towards a girl-companion or a governess. ”

“ A very real and serious danger to children is to be found in my opinion in the risk of the progressive cultivation of homosexuality, if they become victims of a paedophile. The adult homosexual will sometimes conceal a perverse inclination directed towards children under the cloak of friendship or of an educational interest. I have previously referred to the danger that the child, at a time of life when its own sexual impulse is still undifferentiated, may sometimes reciprocate such a feeling. ”

“ Thus we find that many offenders against sexual morality show children obscene pictures, in order to excite them sexually, and render them compliant. Such sexual excitement is per se bad for the child's health; but the moral dangers are even more important. Children who have become familiar with such obscene objects may perhaps suffer in consequence from an inadequate development or even from a complete inhibition of the higher psychical elements of the sexual life. ”

“ Those who believe that the adolescent mind is merely bent on sensual indulgence are not less false and mischievous in their influence than are those who think it possible and desirable for adolescents to be preserved in sheer sexual ignorance. However concealed, suppressed, or deformed—usually by the misplaced and premature zeal of foolish parents and teachers—there arise at puberty ideal impulses which, even though they may be rooted in sex, yet in their scope transcend sex. ”