Reckoning with sexuality

ABSTRACT

A review of Freud’s ideas about the sexual drive and sexuality reveals reoccurring questions: What is the relation between the sexual drive and its somatic underpinnings? Can we integrate formulations couched in terms of meaning with those couched in terms of energy? What is the relation of the sexual drive to other drives, psychic structures and affects? The author focuses on two further questions: what can we understand about the experience of sexual passion, and why is there so much anxiety, regulation, and opposition in regard to sexuality, both individually and generally, even within psychoanalysis itself? The author argues that the discomfort with and repudiation of sexuality are related to the nature of the sexual drive itself and to its origins in early childhood and are tied to many of the issues that have marked its history in psychoanalysis. The author discusses a clinical case of a man who tried to isolate and eradicate his sexual drive. His felt absence of sexual drive is an individual instance of the larger discomfort and unease with the truths about human sexuality around which Freud built his theories of development and mind.

Un examen des idées de Freud sur la pulsion sexuelle et la sexualité révèle des questions récurrentes. Quelle est la relation entre la pulsion sexuelle et ses fondements somatiques? Pouvons-nous intégrer des formulations exprimées en termes de sens avec d’autres exprimées en termes d’énergie? Quelle est la relation de la pulsion sexuelle aux autres pulsions, structures psychiques et affects? L'auteur aborde deux autres questions. Comment pouvons-nous comprendre l'expérience de la passion sexuelle et pourquoi existe-t-il tant d'anxiété, de contrôle d'opposition, à la fois individuelle et générale, en ce qui concerne la sexualité - même au sein de la psychanalyse? L'auteur affirme que le mal à l’aise envers la sexualité et sa répudiation sont liés à la nature de la pulsion sexuelle elle-même, et à ses origines dans la toute première enfance, ainsi qu’à de nombreux autres problèmes ayant marqué sa trajectoire à travers la psychanalyse. L'auteur évoque le cas clinique d'un homme qui a tenté d'isoler et d'éliminer ses pulsions sexuelles. Son sentiment de manque de pulsion sexuelle est exemple à la fois du mal à l’aise individuel et du malaise social face aux vérités de la sexualité humaine, autour desquelles Freud a construit ses théories de développement et du psychisme.

Überdenkt man Freuds Gedankenwelt zum Sexualtrieb und zur Sexualität, tauchen bestimmte Fragen immer wieder auf: In welcher Beziehung steht der Sexualtrieb zu seinen somatischen Grundlagen? Können wir Formulierungen, die auf Bedeutung bezogen ausgedrückt werden, auf solche abstimmen, die auf Energie bezogen formuliert sind? In welcher Beziehung steht der Sexualtrieb zu anderen Trieben, psychischen Strukturen und Affekten? Die Autorin rückt noch zwei weitere Fragen ins Blickfeld: Was können wir vom Erleben sexueller Leidenschaft verstehen und warum gibt es so viele Ängste, Vorschriften und so viel Widerstand im Zusammenhang mit Sexualität – sowohl individuell als auch im Allgemeinen, sogar innerhalb der Psychoanalyse? Die Autorin folgert, dass das Unbehagen mit der Sexualität und deren Zurückweisung mit dem Wesen des Sexualtriebs selbst und seinen Ursprüngen in der frühen Kindheit zusammenhängt und an viele der Probleme gekoppelt ist, die seine Geschichte innerhalb der Psychoanalyse gekennzeichnet haben. Die Autorin erörtert ein klinisches Fallbeispiel eines Mannes, der seinen Sexualtrieb isolieren und ausmerzen wollte. Die von ihm empfundene Abwesenheit des Sexualtriebs ist ein einzelnes Beispiel für das weiter reichende Unbehagen und die Unruhe angesichts der Wahrheiten über die menschliche Sexualität, die das Gerüst für Freuds Theorien der Entwicklung und des Geistes bilden.

Riesaminando le idee di Freud sull’istinto sessuale e sulla sessualità, ci troviamo di fronte a una serie di domande ricorrenti: qual è il rapporto tra l’istinto sessuale e il suo sostrato somatico? È possibile integrare i nostri asserti formulati in termini di significato con quelli formulati in termini di energia? E in che modo l’istinto sessuale si relaziona agli altri istinti, alle strutture psichiche e agli affetti? L’Autrice si concentra anche su due altre domande: che cosa ci è possibile comprendere dell’esperienza della passione sessuale, e perché la sfera della sessualità (a livello sia individuale sia generale, e persino all’interno della psicoanalisi) genera tali livelli di ansia, necessità di regolamentazione e resistenze? Dopo aver sostenuto che il senso di inquietudine relativo alla sessualità, come pure il suo rifiuto, sono connessi alla natura stessa dell’istinto sessuale e alle sue origini nella prima infanzia – e sono altresì legati a molti dei temi che hanno segnato la sua storia all’interno della psicoanalisi – l’Autrice passa poi a discutere il caso clinico di un uomo che aveva tentato di isolare e sradicare il suo istinto sessuale. Alla luce di quanto argomentato nell’articolo, l’assenza di istinto sessuale che questi percepiva è compresa come esempio di un più generale senso di disagio e inquietudine rispetto alle verità della sessualità umana, ovvero rispetto a quei fatti della vita attorno ai quali Freud costruì le sue teorie dello sviluppo e del funzionamento mentale.

Una revisión de las ideas de Freud acerca de la pulsión sexual y la sexualidad revela preguntas recurrentes: ¿cuál es la relación entre la pulsión sexual y sus bases somáticas?, ¿podemos integrar los planteamientos formulados en términos de significado con aquellos formulados en términos de energía?, ¿cuál es la relación de la pulsión sexual con las demás pulsiones, estructuras psíquicas y afectos? La autora se centra en otras dos preguntas: ¿qué podemos entender sobre la experiencia de la pasión sexual, y por qué hay tanta ansiedad, regulación y oposición respecto a la sexualidad, tanto individual como general, aun dentro del propio psicoanálisis? La autora sostiene que la incomodidad frente a la sexualidad y el repudio a esta están relacionados con la naturaleza de la pulsión sexual en sí y con su origen en la temprana infancia, y están vinculados con muchas de las cuestiones que han marcado su historia en el psicoanálisis. Se analiza un caso clínico de un hombre que intentó aislar y erradicar su pulsión sexual. El sentimiento de ausencia de pulsión sexual en este es una instancia particular de una incomodidad y un malestar más amplios frente a las verdades sobre la sexualidad humana en torno a las cuales Freud construyó sus teorías del desarrollo y de la mente.

Notes

1 For neuroscientists, affects, originating in anatomically identifiable neural circuits and not a hypothesized psychic energy, are the prime movers of human motivation (Schwartz 1987; Solms 2012). Neuroscientists also caution us that there is no evidence for a special kind of mental energy (Hadley 1992).

2 Some would hold on to Freud’s original self-preservative or ego drive (Novey 1957; Schmidt-Hellerau 2005).

3 Many psychoanalysts, as for example loampl-De-Groot (1956) have never accepted the concept of the death drive. etc.

4 Currently neuroscientists prefer the term “motivational system” to “drive” (Pansepp and Biven 2012; Migone and Liotti 1998).

5 Solms (2012) adds to the argument by stating that the erogenous zones are objects not sources for the sexual drive.

6 Kohut (1959) muses about a more experiential approach to sexuality and sexual drive: “The concept of sexuality has led to much confusion and argument. The sexual quality of an experience is neither adequately defined by the content of the experience nor by the body zone … Analysts have not emphasized enough that the sexual quality of an experience is one that cannot be further defined. True, it is understood by analysts that we mean by sexual something much wider than genital sexuality and the pregenital sexual experience includes sexual processes, sexual locomotion and the like. Yet, it is instructive to pregenital sexual experience of childhood and adult sexual experience (whether in foreplay, in perversions, or in intercourse) have thus a not further definable quality in common that we know to be sexual, either by direct experience or after prolonged and persistent introspection and removal of internal obstacles to introspection (resistance analysis). And we may, therefore, say that for the infant and child a large number of experiences have that quality that adults are most familiar with in their sex life; our sex life thus provides us with a remnant of an experience that was, early in our psychological development, much more widespread” (476–477). He then goes on to talk about “drive” which gets at the inner experience of a sexual impulse—the experience of wanting, wishing: “A drive, then is an abstraction from innumerable inner experiences” (477).

7 This comes close to Lacan’s object of desire (1986).

8 This recalls a well-known case (Blum 1978; Freedman 1978) in which a man’s fetish about being shaved by a barber represented fears of castration and death, and was reminiscent of Blum’s famous case of the man who had a similar-sounding fetish about being shaved (Blum 1978; Freedman 1978). Blum suggested that the patient’s fears of castration and sadomasochistic preoccupations reflected a history of childhood traumata during World War II.

9 Here is the darker side of sexuality, equated with the death drive by Laplanche (2015) and pictured as excessive, perverse, and “demonic.”