Part I: The Sexual Aberrations
It seems to be that Freud has absolutely no idea how to account for or explain bisexuality. What is the object and aim of bisexuals? Freud's argument seems unable to account for this sort of attraction separate from genitals. His use of the word "object" seems to focus more on the sexual organs, which are parts of a body as opposed to the entirety of the human form.
Part II: Infantile Sexuality
Freud claims that infantile sexual manifestations have three characteristics: they are attached to some vital somatic function, they do not have a sexual object (auto-erotic), their aim is dominated by an erogenous zone. So is infantile sexuality the first instance of the individual objectifying parts of the self? Do humans develop first by understanding pieces of themselves and then the whole? I'm trying not to delve into Lacan.
Part III: The Transformations of Puberty
Does viewing the mother as the first sexual object, according to Freud, lead to greater cases of inversion in females? In general, I'm wary of theories that suggest that parents are responsible for exposing their children to sexual and non-sexual love. It doesn't follow that puberty itself is responsible for fueling the transformations necessary to turn libidinal energy from the self/the mother to another individual of the opposite sex. Also, the bit about women changing their leading erogenous zones after puberty is false.
"Splitting of the Ego in the Process of Defense"
If repression is the inevitable result of the ego splitting, how is this an effective defense mechanism employed by the mind? Seems to me that repression, more times than not, leads to worse consequences than acting on that desire.
--Nupur
Monday, November 10, 2008
Questions
Freud Questions:
Essay 1:
In a footnote added in 1924 to the bit about sadomasochism, Freud notes that he decided to assign sadomasochism to "a peculiar position" among the "'perversions'". Could this peculiar position, at least for the sadistic aspect (which I know, he says is inseparable in many from the masochistic, but bear with me) come from the unique need of sadism for an object that can feel pain? In other words, is sadism the only "perversion" that can't be moved over into a fetish in any way, since it so entirely depends on the idea of a conscious victim? Are we skilled enough commodity fetishists that we've given objects a strong enough theory of mind to really enjoy hurting them, sexually?
(See: office space?)
Essay 2:
This is a fact-based question: In the section, "characteristics of erotogenic zones", Freud says, "A child who is indulging in sensual sucking searches about his body and chooses some part of it to suck - a part which is afterwards preferred by him from force of habit; if he happens to hit upon one of the predestined regions (such as the nipples or genitals) no doubt it retains the preference."
Do babies suck their own nipples/genitals, and if so, does that persist? It seems like those are zones usually reserves for the mucous membranes of others to suck, whereas we get our own fingers and toes. Mechanically, it just seems difficult, and Freud saying that seems to take any significance away from the hands/feet as sole (ugh, bad pun) self-suck recipients.
Essay 3:
Is an analogue of sexual tension the driving force behind capitalism? I think it works especially in the idea of startups hoping to get big, court investors, then sell out when their brand is strongest. Is an ostensible democracy, like ours, then like the feminine quality freud describes, being forced to change its masculine monarchic character through repression at the puberty of revolution while the markets get to keep on forging ahead. Sorry, a little stretched, just stick to the first part, maybe.
Handout, #2:
I really don't understand the a-ha moment that Freud seems to be chuckling at with the "Glanz auf der Naze" thing. The idea of the change in language re-interpreting the fetish seems to cast it as a kind of mantra the kid would mutter to himself for a while before thinking it was something sexy, and during that muttering phase, he moved to Germany, and things got all wacky.
By the same token, if I was a baby, growing up in France, and fetishized grapefruits - pamplemousse - then went to northern Maine during the start of a strange environmentalist initiative, would I suddenly lust after pampered moose? Is language, and therefore its puns, what governs our sexuality?
-Sam
Essay 1:
In a footnote added in 1924 to the bit about sadomasochism, Freud notes that he decided to assign sadomasochism to "a peculiar position" among the "'perversions'". Could this peculiar position, at least for the sadistic aspect (which I know, he says is inseparable in many from the masochistic, but bear with me) come from the unique need of sadism for an object that can feel pain? In other words, is sadism the only "perversion" that can't be moved over into a fetish in any way, since it so entirely depends on the idea of a conscious victim? Are we skilled enough commodity fetishists that we've given objects a strong enough theory of mind to really enjoy hurting them, sexually?
(See: office space?)
Essay 2:
This is a fact-based question: In the section, "characteristics of erotogenic zones", Freud says, "A child who is indulging in sensual sucking searches about his body and chooses some part of it to suck - a part which is afterwards preferred by him from force of habit; if he happens to hit upon one of the predestined regions (such as the nipples or genitals) no doubt it retains the preference."
Do babies suck their own nipples/genitals, and if so, does that persist? It seems like those are zones usually reserves for the mucous membranes of others to suck, whereas we get our own fingers and toes. Mechanically, it just seems difficult, and Freud saying that seems to take any significance away from the hands/feet as sole (ugh, bad pun) self-suck recipients.
Essay 3:
Is an analogue of sexual tension the driving force behind capitalism? I think it works especially in the idea of startups hoping to get big, court investors, then sell out when their brand is strongest. Is an ostensible democracy, like ours, then like the feminine quality freud describes, being forced to change its masculine monarchic character through repression at the puberty of revolution while the markets get to keep on forging ahead. Sorry, a little stretched, just stick to the first part, maybe.
Handout, #2:
I really don't understand the a-ha moment that Freud seems to be chuckling at with the "Glanz auf der Naze" thing. The idea of the change in language re-interpreting the fetish seems to cast it as a kind of mantra the kid would mutter to himself for a while before thinking it was something sexy, and during that muttering phase, he moved to Germany, and things got all wacky.
By the same token, if I was a baby, growing up in France, and fetishized grapefruits - pamplemousse - then went to northern Maine during the start of a strange environmentalist initiative, would I suddenly lust after pampered moose? Is language, and therefore its puns, what governs our sexuality?
-Sam
¿questions?
1. I was wondering what people thought about the implications of Freud's theory of overvaluation of the sexual object. What does the over-investment of desire towards the sexual object and what Freud calls the "intellectual infatuation" with the object at hand create in terms of the subject's own perception of his relation to the object? Is the appreciations an obscuring? Does overvaluation have to exist at a primary level for people to exist with one another on a continual basis?
2. Freud's mentioning of scopophilia among children (p.58) and his earlier mentioning of sight as subsidiary to touch made me wonder how the relation between possession and viewing in modern media forms can be seen as a sort of pseudo-possession. Does this imply that looking can become a sort of power relation in terms of soothing the subject who cannot actually access the object of desire?
3. I am confused by Freud's claim under the 'The Barrier Against Incest' that states that children's sexual impulses towards their parents "are as a rule already differentiated owing to the attraction of the opposite sex"(p.93) in contrast to his claim later on that inversion is prohibited mostly by " authoritative prohibition by society." It seems as though he waivers as to whether object choice is meaningful or whether it is arbitrary. I guess the question is, can you clear this up for me?
4. The creation of a fetish as a masking of the lack of a penis acts as a means to obscure reality and accept reality at the same time. If this duel process is the case in terms of investing oneself in an object of desire, are all sexual object choices in some ways an acknowledgment of a personal lack on one hand, and a desire to obscure the personal lack, as if by association with the other one becomes it, on the other hand?
- george w.
2. Freud's mentioning of scopophilia among children (p.58) and his earlier mentioning of sight as subsidiary to touch made me wonder how the relation between possession and viewing in modern media forms can be seen as a sort of pseudo-possession. Does this imply that looking can become a sort of power relation in terms of soothing the subject who cannot actually access the object of desire?
3. I am confused by Freud's claim under the 'The Barrier Against Incest' that states that children's sexual impulses towards their parents "are as a rule already differentiated owing to the attraction of the opposite sex"(p.93) in contrast to his claim later on that inversion is prohibited mostly by " authoritative prohibition by society." It seems as though he waivers as to whether object choice is meaningful or whether it is arbitrary. I guess the question is, can you clear this up for me?
4. The creation of a fetish as a masking of the lack of a penis acts as a means to obscure reality and accept reality at the same time. If this duel process is the case in terms of investing oneself in an object of desire, are all sexual object choices in some ways an acknowledgment of a personal lack on one hand, and a desire to obscure the personal lack, as if by association with the other one becomes it, on the other hand?
- george w.
Questions on (for) Freud
1. Do the two xeroxed essays offer competing definitions of the fetish or complementary ones? Is there a relationship between trauma and the displacement of value?
2. I want to look at a footnote at the end of section 1 of "The Sexual Aberrations" on pg. 15. Are there any wider implications for Freud's belief that moderns are distinguished from ancients in believing that the sexual object must be a good object rather than the sexual object being good because it is a sexual object? How did this change occur? Why would Freud put it in a footnote instead of the body of the text?
3. What are the two "sources" of the infant sexual aim? Does Freud think pleasure works from the inside out or the outside in during infancy? Does this change as the individual ages?
4. If the fetish is the wrong sexual object, what is the wrong sexual aim? Why don't we have a word for the "dangerous" fore-pleasure that undoes end-pleasure? Can you imagine any implications of Freud's fore-pleasure in economic exchange?
---Andrew
2. I want to look at a footnote at the end of section 1 of "The Sexual Aberrations" on pg. 15. Are there any wider implications for Freud's belief that moderns are distinguished from ancients in believing that the sexual object must be a good object rather than the sexual object being good because it is a sexual object? How did this change occur? Why would Freud put it in a footnote instead of the body of the text?
3. What are the two "sources" of the infant sexual aim? Does Freud think pleasure works from the inside out or the outside in during infancy? Does this change as the individual ages?
4. If the fetish is the wrong sexual object, what is the wrong sexual aim? Why don't we have a word for the "dangerous" fore-pleasure that undoes end-pleasure? Can you imagine any implications of Freud's fore-pleasure in economic exchange?
---Andrew
Jordan's Questions
Freud’s Three Essays On the Theory of Sexuality
In Essay #1 of Freud’s Three Essays on Sexuality, Freud implements numerous edits to the concept of the “sexual object.” He states that overvaluation of the sexual object that is the primary genitalia leads to perversion, which can be “positive” or “negative.” The positive perversion is characteristic of viewing a mate’s entire body as a sexual entity, which is widely socially acceptable. Conversely, negative perversion deviates from the norm by substituting the drive for the primary genitalia for that of a solitary part of the body. Thus it appears a normative sexual view is that in which the whole body becomes object – the “whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” What’s wrong with this idea of a spectrum of perversion/sexual fetishism? In other words, why is it more acceptable to fetishize the entire body than a single component of it?
In essay #2, Freud touches on the childish idea of “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” as a sort of precursor to voyeurism. Moreover, he states that voyeurism, in the perverse sense, beckons reciprocity as well, as the voyeur is too an exhibitionist at all times. Are these innate forms of reciprocity in anyway analogous to that of capitalist and/or gift exchange? Could this inherent existence of sexual reciprocity be the subconscious root of these more modern forms of exchange?
In essay #3 Freud implies that our parents provide the model for our future mates/objects of desire. Then to what extent is dating/the search for a mate simply a matching game, consisting of finding identical parts?
“Splitting of the Ego in the Process of Defence”
I was particularly intrigued by the author's use of the word "artful" to describe the mechanisms of disavowal of reality and fetishism as "displacement" of value. In what ways are these mechanisms analogous to the craft of artwork? And if similar, is it the subconscious process or the manifestations themselves?
~Jordan Carter~
In Essay #1 of Freud’s Three Essays on Sexuality, Freud implements numerous edits to the concept of the “sexual object.” He states that overvaluation of the sexual object that is the primary genitalia leads to perversion, which can be “positive” or “negative.” The positive perversion is characteristic of viewing a mate’s entire body as a sexual entity, which is widely socially acceptable. Conversely, negative perversion deviates from the norm by substituting the drive for the primary genitalia for that of a solitary part of the body. Thus it appears a normative sexual view is that in which the whole body becomes object – the “whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” What’s wrong with this idea of a spectrum of perversion/sexual fetishism? In other words, why is it more acceptable to fetishize the entire body than a single component of it?
In essay #2, Freud touches on the childish idea of “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” as a sort of precursor to voyeurism. Moreover, he states that voyeurism, in the perverse sense, beckons reciprocity as well, as the voyeur is too an exhibitionist at all times. Are these innate forms of reciprocity in anyway analogous to that of capitalist and/or gift exchange? Could this inherent existence of sexual reciprocity be the subconscious root of these more modern forms of exchange?
In essay #3 Freud implies that our parents provide the model for our future mates/objects of desire. Then to what extent is dating/the search for a mate simply a matching game, consisting of finding identical parts?
“Splitting of the Ego in the Process of Defence”
I was particularly intrigued by the author's use of the word "artful" to describe the mechanisms of disavowal of reality and fetishism as "displacement" of value. In what ways are these mechanisms analogous to the craft of artwork? And if similar, is it the subconscious process or the manifestations themselves?
~Jordan Carter~
Freud Questions from Crow
1.) At the top of page 14, Freud derails a set of assumptions that had been operating in his analysis of inversion in order to allow for the many varied instances of "frequent" yet not "normal" occurrences, showing a disconnect between sexual instinct and sexual object. He has not yet established the idea that these sexual instincts appear to be influenced by sexual stimulation and parental affection in the infantile state, and after the period of latency during puberty in a further repression, and only then bringing about the possibility of fetishization. Even further, he goes on to reflect that the infantile stage is characterized by autoeroticism, which would seem to set up the self as the sexual object (if not the mothers breast etc.), which makes me wonder: What would Freud say about the fetishization of the self? Does that at all fit in with the ideas he is proposing?
2.) I find it hard to reconcile Freud's insistence that infantile sex instincts are autoerotic while he is incessantly (if not explicitly) pointing to the external factors for which bodily stimulation merely acts as emulation in the case of non-genital erotogenic zones (such as parental influence, the manipulation of seduction, the substitution of the thumb for the breast, etc.) Also, (how) can autoeroticism exist in notably penisless females? (bringing in ideas established in the other essays.)
3.) To what extent is it significant that the sexual object as fetish resulting from - among other factors in the two waves of sexual object preference - repression is necessarily unobtainable, in that the sexual appetite can be temporarily quenched, presenting periods during which sexual objects do not have desirability for normative instances of genital stimulation in the fashion of reproductive activity.
4.) Is this rift in the ego what might be considered depravity, neurosis, or perversion according to Freud's earlier works? Would these be abnormal tendencies, or do they find a parallel in fine line walked by the loving parent who stands to lose by faulting to either side of perfect balance of display of affection? Does the boy need to continue to hallucinate a penis, continue to masturbate, and simultaneously fear and deny the possibility of castration?
2.) I find it hard to reconcile Freud's insistence that infantile sex instincts are autoerotic while he is incessantly (if not explicitly) pointing to the external factors for which bodily stimulation merely acts as emulation in the case of non-genital erotogenic zones (such as parental influence, the manipulation of seduction, the substitution of the thumb for the breast, etc.) Also, (how) can autoeroticism exist in notably penisless females? (bringing in ideas established in the other essays.)
3.) To what extent is it significant that the sexual object as fetish resulting from - among other factors in the two waves of sexual object preference - repression is necessarily unobtainable, in that the sexual appetite can be temporarily quenched, presenting periods during which sexual objects do not have desirability for normative instances of genital stimulation in the fashion of reproductive activity.
4.) Is this rift in the ego what might be considered depravity, neurosis, or perversion according to Freud's earlier works? Would these be abnormal tendencies, or do they find a parallel in fine line walked by the loving parent who stands to lose by faulting to either side of perfect balance of display of affection? Does the boy need to continue to hallucinate a penis, continue to masturbate, and simultaneously fear and deny the possibility of castration?
QQQQQQQQQQQQQ
In Freud's description of shit as the child's "gift," feces become a peculiar possession. Since it is of the body, it aligns in some sense with Locke's sense of the body as one's own possession. Yet shit is constantly disavowed, expelled, controlled. Is the fuss over potty training, over creating the division between 'clean' and 'dirty' for the child, really just the beginning of property management? Is a tutorial in loss (of physical mass, of power, of emotion)? How does this relate to Freud's description of 'toxic substances' in the third essay (81-82)? How does the formlessness of shit in Freud relate to the formlessness of spit in My Cocaine Museum's poporo? Given the emotional significance of both processes, it seems that formless human discharge becomes twice a site of inscription.
How does Freud's description of the male child's train obsession and the significance of mechanical rhythm in bodily sensation locate the human body among machines?
Freud qualifies the acts of touching and looking by putting them on a trajectory that culminates in genital intercourse; they're perverse if not consummated ["So that lingering over the stage of touching can scarcely be counted a perversion, provided that in the long run the sexual act is carried further" (22)]. When considering the fetishization of objects, could one set up a similar system, where the concept of 'proper use' is aligned with Freud's telos of intercourse, and anything that falls short is considered perverse? Is the book collector who surveys his goods, marvels at the colors, strokes the spines, but never reads a word a pervert? A scopophiliac? It seems that many could consider him greedy or philistine or plain wrong in the way he considers his objects.
- Emily
How does Freud's description of the male child's train obsession and the significance of mechanical rhythm in bodily sensation locate the human body among machines?
Freud qualifies the acts of touching and looking by putting them on a trajectory that culminates in genital intercourse; they're perverse if not consummated ["So that lingering over the stage of touching can scarcely be counted a perversion, provided that in the long run the sexual act is carried further" (22)]. When considering the fetishization of objects, could one set up a similar system, where the concept of 'proper use' is aligned with Freud's telos of intercourse, and anything that falls short is considered perverse? Is the book collector who surveys his goods, marvels at the colors, strokes the spines, but never reads a word a pervert? A scopophiliac? It seems that many could consider him greedy or philistine or plain wrong in the way he considers his objects.
- Emily
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