Joaquín Díaz Atienza
Introduction
Both sexual identity and sexual orientation have been addressed by S. Freud, although their theoretical development has been carried out in greater depth by his followers.
This post will outline some aspects of Freud's thinking on this matter, without taking into account the theoretical evolution that these two concepts have undergone over time within the field of psychoanalysis itself.
What does Sigmund Freud contribute to the psychosexual concept of identity?
From a biological standpoint, provided there are no endocrine-metabolic abnormalities, a man is characterized by having two XY chromosomes, which will determine his genital development, in the sense we call male. If the chromosomes present are XX, his genital development will be oriented as female. However, the biological development of primary and secondary sexual characteristics is one thing, and psychosexual development is quite another.
With psychosexual development, we end up identifying as male or female, regardless of whether our sex organs are male or female. In fact, Freud maintains that the child initially presents a biologically developed psychic bisexuality (which he also called psychic hermaphroditism). He proposes the need to accept this original bisexuality as a necessary element for understanding why one is male or female through early interactions. Indeed, in his essay Beyond the pleasure principle, To explain this fundamental bisexuality, he refers to Plato's myth of androgyny: "Ultimately, we would originally be men and women. It would be the search for lack, for what we miss, that would lead us to homo or heterosexual orientation."
However, the concept of imago, the unconscious prototype of how each person identifies themselves (man or woman), owes more to K. Jung than to Freud.
Sexual identity would be the result of the child's early interactions with primordial images, their ability to discriminate between partial and whole male and female figures, as well as the resolution of the passivity/activity dynamic of the anal phase and the Oedipus complex. For Freud, in a situation of "developmental normality," the child completes the process of defining their male or female identity during adolescence; in the sense that a boy identifies as a boy, and a girl identifies as a girl.
This is important, especially today, since, although we start from a biological, primordial bisexuality, the definitive resolution of identity is not fully constructed until puberty/adolescence.
. Genesis of homosexuality, according to S. Freud
Therefore, as we have previously stated regarding identity, homosexuality is a characteristic that human beings will be confronted with naturally and physiologically until practically adolescence, although only a minority will end up choosing the homosexual object.
Why does Freud call homosexuality a perversion? Simply because, for him, any procedure for obtaining sexual pleasure (orgasm) that is not limited to intercourse between a man and a woman through penetration would be an "unnatural" procedure. From this perspective, he distinguishes different perversions: fetishism, bestiality, homosexuality, transvestism, voyeurism, etc.
Finally, he distinguishes between male and female homosexuality.
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Male homosexuality
Freud distinguishes a series of general characteristics: 1) a massive fixation on the maternal figure that makes cathexis with another woman very difficult; 2) a relationship with the paternal figure dominated by anxiety and fear of castration; and 3) a narcissistic choice of sexual object that cannot tolerate the absence of a penis. He will exhibit feelings of inadequacy, even rejection, toward the female figure.
In short, the homosexual would present an inverted Oedipus complex that prevents the processes of identification with the same sex figure.
Some psychoanalysts distinguish between a pregenital homosexuality that would be basically narcissistic, a homosexuality as a defense mechanism against the Oedipus complex, and another homosexuality in response to fraternal rivalry.
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Female homosexuality
As Freud describes it, in homosexual women there exists an Oedipal relationship with the father, although she undergoes a regression to an earlier stage dominated psychosexually by what Freud calls the "man complex," which is ultimately experienced as penis envy. The identification processes are directed toward a phallic mother.
They exhibit a desire to be like the father to the mother, with a clear devaluation of the father. This would be a sadistic-oral type of relationship. Ultimately, it would reflect a pre-Oedipal fixation on the maternal figure.
In conclusion, we start from the fact that we are essentially bisexual and that the processes of identification, as well as the resolution of our object relations, will ultimately decide both our identity and our sexual orientation.
We will always be left with the question of why the majority follows a trend consistent with their biological makeup. Although gender ideology finds a globalizing and exclusionary explanation in heteropatriarchal culture and in the denial of biology in its presentation, it overlooks something very important that carries significant weight in the development of human psychosexuality: genetic endowment. The dilemma continues regarding the weight given to each part of the culture/nature dichotomy.
Next: Defense Mechanisms
