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Freud and Sexual Development (Philosophy and Intimacy 6) — Transcript

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0:00hi guys we're going to continue our
0:02study of the philosophy of sex and love
0:04and friendship today
0:06by turning to the 20th century
0:09in particular turning to freud freud is
0:12surely the author who has written about
0:14sex most
0:15rigorously and comprehensively and we're
0:17going to read
0:18some selections from one of his most
0:20important works
0:22the three essays on the theory of
0:24sexuality
0:25which was initially published in 1905.
0:29um but before we talk about the book i
0:31want to just get us back into
0:33thinking and talking about sexuality a
0:35bit in general
0:37and uh i want you to start by just
0:40thinking about what
0:42you know what's the first thing that
0:45comes to mind when you think about sex
0:46and when you think about what sex is
0:48like what do you think that word means
0:50um uh i think that
0:53most people think of sex as
0:57something that adults do and it's
0:59something that
1:01and most people think of it as something
1:03that a man
1:04and a woman do and
1:08and it's something that you know mostly
1:10revolves around genital intercourse
1:12those three things um adult
1:16uh heterosexual
1:19genital intercourse i think those are
1:21the three things that most people
1:23associate with that word um
1:26and if uh if you want to check up on
1:27that like just go to google and
1:29look up the word sex and then look at
1:30images and see what comes up
1:32i suspect the way you'll see just as i
1:34did is that you know
1:36the images are all a man and a woman
1:39both
1:40adults uh more you know more or less
1:43naked in bed
1:44clearly getting ready for general
1:45intercourse
1:47um and let me go on about that point a
1:50bit more
1:50uh that that idea that that's what sex
1:55is is so powerful
1:58in our culture it seems to me that
2:00people who deviate from that
2:01norm uh getting a lot of trouble right
2:04so
2:06if you uh imagine sex to be something
2:10that doesn't happen between a man and
2:11woman right if you're a man who wants to
2:12have sex with another man
2:14or a woman who wants to have sex with
2:15another woman
2:17even though that's much more culturally
2:19acceptable
2:20now than it was you know some decades
2:22ago
2:23that's still a sight of an awful lot of
2:25tension and indeed an awful lot of
2:27violence
2:28uh take it a step farther if you have
2:31uh if you have people who don't
2:34straightforwardly identify
2:36with either the role of man or the role
2:39of
2:40woman uh in a kind of sexual way or
2:43uh or identify with you know what
2:45society takes to be the wrong one
2:47um you don't if you don't identify in
2:49the way that people expect
2:51that's an even more um uh
2:54that's perceived as an even more intense
2:56violation of of cultural norms and again
2:59it's often met with uh violence and you
3:02know all kinds of other oppression
3:04so i say those things just to underline
3:08how powerful
3:11the the phenomenon is of the
3:14popular view that sex is
3:18a general intercourse between
3:20heterosexual adults
3:22and continuing on that theme of you know
3:24just this as a as a
3:25strong cultural expectation strong
3:28cultural value strong cultural view
3:30about what sex is
3:31think about movies and advertising i
3:33mean that's that is
3:34how sex is portrayed in movies and
3:38that's what story lines revolve around
3:40and that's how sex is portrayed in
3:42advertising and that's what you know
3:43that's what sells
3:44so advertising and films
3:48again reflect uh this uh
3:52strong cultural view that that's what
3:54sex is
3:56we're going to come back in a little
3:57while to talk about that issue of
4:00uh heteronormativity right that let's
4:02say the presumption that
4:04sex is supposed to be heterosexual and
4:05so on uh we're going to come back to
4:07that
4:07um a little bit later but first i want
4:09to just focus on this issue of
4:10adulthood right you know even if even if
4:14um you're you know more open-minded
4:16about who can pair with who and how we
4:19identify ourselves as sexual beings and
4:20so on
4:21um it remains the case that most people
4:24think of sexuality as an adult thing
4:26and you know i think what happens well
4:28that puberty you know your body changes
4:30a bit and that's when you know sex
4:32becomes a thing
4:33well what we're going to do now as we
4:35turn to freud is investigate that
4:37question basically
4:38investigate that issue and basically
4:40challenge that view
4:42um so let me begin by reading uh from
4:45this book
4:45the first paragraph of chapter two when
4:47freud really gets into his study
4:49um and this is on page 39 of this book
4:52freud says
4:53one feature of the popular view of the
4:55sexual instinct
4:57is that it is absent in childhood and
4:59only awakens in the period of life
5:01described as puberty
5:04seems right it's pretty common view
5:05right but this however here's freud's
5:07view this however is not merely a simple
5:09error
5:11but one that has had grave consequences
5:14for it is mainly to
5:15this idea that we owe our present
5:18ignorance of the fundamental conditions
5:20of sexual life
5:24so what freud is going to do it's take
5:27that phenomenon of adult sexual
5:31experience
5:32and uh investigate it in particular he's
5:35going to
5:35investigate where it comes from so the
5:38point he wants to make
5:39is that the the way you experience
5:42sexuality as an adult is actually the
5:46result
5:47of a long process of development process
5:50of development that's been going on your
5:52whole life
5:53and that that sexuality is not just a
5:56thing that suddenly
5:57pops on the scene at whatever
6:0016 or something like that but rather
6:04that thing that's happening then is
6:07uh the latest stage of a
6:10development a development that's both
6:12psychological and physiological
6:14that's basically been going on since you
6:16were born since you were
6:17since you were an infant and this book
6:21is is really the the outlines of the
6:24study
6:24of that process of development so what
6:26he wants to say is that sexuality is not
6:29just this
6:30uh single kind of monolithic thing you
6:32know adults desiring
6:34genital intercourse with members of the
6:36opposite sex though that's the view we
6:38all got lodged in our heads
6:41on the contrary sexuality is at the core
6:45of our very development as persons
6:48and indeed in that way what freud is
6:50going to say is quite similar to the
6:51sorts of things that diatema
6:53was saying in the symposium in this
6:55sense that there is a
6:58there's a deeper kind of driving force
6:59in human life
7:01and the thing we normally think of as
7:03sex is one of its manifestations right
7:05and she called that
7:06eroths well freud's going to talk about
7:09something similar he's going to talk
7:10about libido
7:11which is kind of life energy or you know
7:13sex drive something like that
7:16but as just as diotina said about eros
7:18that it takes different forms so
7:20freud is saying that our libido takes
7:23different forms and that thing we
7:26typically
7:27call sex is a particular form of that
7:30there are other forms of it and that
7:34drive that energy has been developing
7:36through childhood and so in that sense
7:38there is a kind of childhood sexuality
7:40as well
7:41so the particular thing that freud wants
7:43to do then is show
7:45how our adult sexuality
7:48is a development of the childhood
7:51processes of sexual development
7:54uh and in that sense so show that
7:56there's a kind of sexuality
7:58present in childhood life but also very
8:01importantly
8:02not to confuse that childhood sexuality
8:05with adult sexuality
8:07so it's both the case that that
8:08sexuality is not isolated up here in
8:10adulthood but goes all the way back
8:13but it's also the case that the forms it
8:15has back here are not the same as this
8:17so what is sexuality in children then if
8:20it's
8:20if it's not that as it surely isn't what
8:22what is sexuality in children
8:24well that's the first question then that
8:25he tries to answer in that second essay
8:28which is called infantile sexuality
8:30uh he poses this question on page 46 he
8:34says okay what are we going to look for
8:36so he says you know people have often
8:38made the mistake of confusing the sexual
8:40and the genital and we're not going to
8:42do that that's we we want to get away
8:44from thinking that sex is just about
8:46what happens with your genitals as you
8:48will see
8:50but he says that leads us to a question
8:52he says and the question is this this is
8:54on
8:54page 46 we're going to ask what is the
8:57general characteristic
8:59that enables us to recognize the sexual
9:01manifestations of children so
9:03he's asking like what are the
9:04distinctive characteristics of childhood
9:06sexuality
9:07and he answers that question over the
9:09next few pages but he says it explicitly
9:11on pages 48 to 49
9:13the bottom of 40 in uh 80 says we've now
9:16found
9:17the three essential characteristics of
9:20an infantile sexual magnification
9:22so at its origin it attaches itself to
9:26one of the vital somatic functions
9:28somatic means bodily
9:30so its origin is that it is attached to
9:32a
9:33vital bodily function it is yet has no
9:36sexual object that means it's not
9:38directed at something else
9:40and it's thus autoerotic it's a way of
9:43of having a sexual relationship with
9:44yourself basically
9:46and it's sexual aim what it's trying to
9:49do
9:49is dominated by an erotogenic zone
9:52which means basically a part of your
9:56body that generates pleasurable
9:58feelings when stimulated so the three
10:01essential features then
10:02have to do with an an origin an object
10:04and an aim
10:06the origin is that it's a somatic bodily
10:09function it's a
10:10that's where it originates it's attached
10:11to that the
10:13object is yourself it's directed at
10:15yourself as the thing that's
10:17that you're working with not something
10:18else it's autoerotic and it's aim is to
10:21get pleasure from a stimulation of an
10:22erotogenic zone those are the three
10:24features
10:25of an infantile sexual manifestation he
10:28says
10:29and now he's going to go through and
10:30talk about the particular
10:33forms that these childhood sexual
10:34manifestations take
10:36and as you've no doubt heard of this
10:38before we're going to talk about the
10:39famous oral stage anal stage and phallic
10:41stage
10:43but anyway so he says this
10:46let's go back to that first point about
10:48origin right in a child
10:51this developing libido this thing that
10:54by
10:54adulthood is going to take this desire
10:57for genital intercourse and whatever
10:58else
11:00that that thing that in its developed
11:02form
11:03is over there in its initial form
11:07comes up in relationship to different
11:09kinds of bodily experiences
11:12so basically on pages 64 to 66
11:15uh he gives you an outline of the stages
11:19through which we develop
11:20and uh
11:23basically up to from the time a child is
11:27born up until
11:28the time it's about one year old it goes
11:30through what he calls the oral stage and
11:32that means
11:33the child's life kind of largely
11:36revolves around a thing that's happening
11:37with its mouth and the particular thing
11:39the child is doing an awful lot
11:41typically at that age
11:43is nursing sucks
11:46getting milk from the mother's breast
11:49and
11:49so freud is saying you know that
11:51experience there is
11:53the core of the child's
11:56developing psychological life that's
11:59that's sort of
12:00where where things are happening for the
12:02child
12:03um so it's a bodily activity and i mean
12:06it's a vital somatic function that's
12:08getting nutrition it's getting milk from
12:09the mother's breast
12:11it happens by a particular way it
12:12happens by the child
12:15sucking using its mouth on the breast to
12:18get this
12:20he says so the child has an experience
12:23of a particular kind of pleasure
12:25uh in in that experience you know from
12:28the point of view of the organism it's
12:29getting nutrition but the child isn't a
12:31nutritional scientist it doesn't know it
12:33needs
12:34to um get food the child
12:37is oriented towards what it's desiring
12:39and so it's hungry i guess so it's you
12:40know that's part of his desire
12:42but it it desires this activity it
12:44pursues this activity
12:45so that that activity of sucking at the
12:48breast
12:49is this the the the most
12:53sort of engaging and important and and
12:55sort of intense experience the child has
12:58and uh uh that's
13:02that's the core basically of the
13:05where the child's development is
13:08happening at that age and we'll i'm
13:09going to say a bit more about that in a
13:10second
13:10i just want to quickly go through the
13:12stages um but that issue of sucking at
13:14the breast uh
13:16stops being the thing that children and
13:19parents
13:20are most sort of grappling with by about
13:24the age of one
13:24you know it varies with different
13:25children but you know you know if you
13:28raise a child you see that like
13:29different issues are on the table at
13:30different ages
13:32and and after the age of one uh there's
13:36a very good chance the child is not
13:38sucking at the breast any longer it
13:39might be some children do it longer some
13:40some less but
13:41after the age of one that's not so much
13:44the big thing that's happening that
13:46usually starting at a from age one to
13:48about age three the issue becomes much
13:51more
13:51dealing with uh peeing and pooping
13:54and the thing that's really gonna have
13:56to happen is the child is gonna have to
13:58learn to control that in various ways
14:00and and pee and poop on the pot
14:02not just whenever it feels like it is
14:04diapers and so on
14:06and that's a big issue that children and
14:08parents deal with for a couple of years
14:11and so that's and so freud says that's
14:12actually the second
14:14big stage of this kind of development in
14:17children he calls it the anal stage
14:19and that's when the child is dealing
14:21with
14:23controlling that ability to
14:26excrete a feces
14:30uh but young children get past that too
14:32and
14:33after a certain age that's not the big
14:34issue that children are dealing with
14:36either and so
14:37then freud identifies the third stage
14:39which he calls the phallic stage
14:41uh and he says that you know that's
14:43somewhere in the range of you know
14:44ages three to six somewhere in there and
14:47and what's happened is
14:49um you know the issue of sucking at the
14:51breast has been gone through is a big
14:52deal but it's
14:53it's been done the issue of learning how
14:56to control pooping
14:57has happened and it was a big deal and
14:59it's been done both of those
15:01sites both of those activities when they
15:03were happening
15:05were i guess three things at the same
15:07time they were
15:09a big part of like learning for the
15:11child learning what
15:12his or her their body is learning how to
15:14deal with it
15:16it was an issue of dealing with
15:21matters sort of in the world where you
15:23have to learn how to handle stuff
15:24right like your parents are telling you
15:26poop on the pot or whatever or your mom
15:28is saying oh you can't suck at the
15:29breast anymore and so on like you you're
15:31navigating relationships with your
15:32parents and
15:33issues are alive there and also there
15:36are feelings of pleasure right there's
15:37there's a powerful kind of pleasure that
15:39comes from nursing and there's a
15:40powerful kind of pleasure that comes
15:41from
15:42uh excreting from releasing the stool
15:45and so on
15:47um so freud says yeah they're you're
15:49dealing with all the little kid
15:51is dealing with all those things and for
15:53those ages
15:55like that's kind of where it's at that's
15:57the thing the kid is really dealing with
15:59other stuff is going on too but that's
16:02that's its sort of job as a developing
16:04person
16:05but children get over that and they move
16:07on to something else and
16:08in the phallic stage he says a new issue
16:11really comes up for children that was
16:12not an issue in those earlier years
16:14and that they start to a different
16:18site starts to be a place that's
16:20pleasurable they take pleasure in
16:21touching their
16:22their genitals they get pleasurable
16:26feelings there and that's different from
16:27the pleasurable feelings
16:29that come from pooping or
16:32nursing but especially what becomes an
16:34issue for children at this
16:35age is noticing sexual differentiation
16:40right noticing you know what the
16:41biologist would say
16:43some members of the human species
16:46produce eggs and some produce
16:48sperm right and so what the biologist
16:51calls the male and the female have to do
16:53with different roles
16:54in reproduction
16:59so the child doesn't know about that but
17:01the child does
17:03notice those difference in genitals
17:07presumably by seeing its parents naked
17:08possibly by seeing other children naked
17:11and and freud says you know that surely
17:13that happened in the years before there
17:14too but it's really
17:16in this later period of child
17:19development that that tends to become a
17:20psychological issue
17:21the child is sort of working on
17:23something you know as you're raising
17:25your child you you can see different
17:26things are going on with children at
17:28different stages and he says at this
17:29stage
17:30you'll see that that's one of the things
17:31children are working with like what does
17:33it mean
17:34that i have these kinds of genitals and
17:36somebody else has other ones
17:38and so here again there's a there's a
17:41new kind of
17:42anatomical issue that's become
17:47that's come to the child's attention
17:49it's associated with different feelings
17:51of pleasure
17:52than either pooping or nursing and it's
17:55associated with
17:56new issues sort of in grappling with the
17:58world and i'm going to
18:00to say that when i'm going to go back
18:02and say something about the other ones
18:03too to lead up to it
18:04so back at nursing like what was the
18:06real issue you're dealing with in the
18:08world
18:08well it's really dependency right the
18:10child as a
18:12as a young young child the child gets
18:13really hungry
18:15and it really needs mom there or
18:17whatever has been substituted for mom if
18:19it's a bottle for nursing whatever but
18:21but the child really needs the relevant
18:24adult
18:24to give it that thing that's gonna let
18:27it deal with this
18:28huge problem it's now facing of real
18:30intense hunger
18:32so the part of the issue of nursing is
18:35that
18:35the child freud says the child there is
18:38grappling with
18:40a pretty profound fact of dependency
18:43and and uh and you know the
18:46the nursing is about dealing with the
18:48hunger it's about dealing with the
18:50pleasurable
18:51uh sensations of sucking and so on but
18:53it's also being close to mom right so
18:55dependency
18:56or you know whichever parent it is
18:57whoever it is the nurse
18:59nurse who's taking care of the child
19:03the dependency is the dependency on that
19:06person to take care of your hunger but
19:08again the child isn't a nutritional
19:09scientist the child doesn't know
19:10anything about the
19:11exactly the need for food the child
19:14really deals with mama's the person who
19:16comes or whoever who deals with the
19:19with the problem it solves it right and
19:21so there's something similar that
19:22happens you know with just having mom
19:24hold you
19:25and having mom there right there
19:28that's he's so friend says really that
19:30the oral stage
19:32the first year of the child's life is
19:34really about
19:35grappling with that issue of dependency
19:38and that
19:40the need for it and ideally finding you
19:42can depend on someone your mom take care
19:44of you or your parents whatever
19:46and that goes hand in hand with the
19:48child learning about its body and
19:50learning about orality as a
19:54route to satisfaction
19:57the anal stage when the child is dealing
19:59with pooping
20:01is really comes up again the body has
20:04changed the child
20:06the child's ability to control its
20:09bowels and so on is it is a new thing
20:10and that's
20:11that's why you train the child at this
20:14stage
20:15uh but also so physiologically there are
20:17changes but also psychologically there
20:19there are changes too you know typically
20:22at this stage those issues
20:24of dependency will have been worked
20:27through enough
20:28ideally they've been worked through well
20:30and the child feels reasonably secure in
20:32that and so on
20:33and the new thing that starts happening
20:34here is
20:36something much more like will and
20:39obedience
20:40and independence right if that first
20:41stage is really about dependency
20:43and learning about that
20:46here it's about the child starting to
20:48learn about its independence from its
20:50parents
20:52you know your parents obviously want you
20:55to poop in the toilet and not on the
20:56floor or on the bed or whatever
20:59and they can't make you do it it's up to
21:02you
21:03as you learn to control your body it
21:05turns out it's up to you
21:06whether or not you're going to poop in
21:07the toilet right so
21:10here the child starts to experience
21:13its independence and indeed in a certain
21:15way the dependence of its parents on it
21:17like people have to
21:18ask or try to order but whatever they
21:20have to get
21:21they have to ask the child to do this
21:23thing or tell it they wanted to do it
21:25and
21:25the child actually has the power here to
21:28obey or disobey to cooperate or not to
21:30cooperate
21:31so a new set of issues come up here
21:35which are issues of
21:39self-reliance and then the issue of how
21:42you're going to deal with
21:45other people's reliance upon you so
21:48so with these physiological developments
21:50a new set of psychological and
21:52interpersonal
21:53issues are coming up here as well
21:57and then in the third stage the phallic
21:59stage
22:00there you know i said this is when the
22:02child is starting to focus on issues of
22:05uh uh genitals and genital difference
22:08and so on
22:09and this is a and and in that sense uh
22:12you know what it is to be a
22:14girl or a boy right here a psychological
22:18issue that comes up
22:19also is oh mom and dad
22:22men and women and so on um
22:26how do i work out my identity
22:29in relationship to the kinds of
22:31identities they have
22:32so here is also where the child is
22:35really going to be grappling with those
22:37issues of
22:38you know am i a boy
22:41am i like dad am i a girl am i like mom
22:44um and if you know you grow up in a
22:48in a heterosexual uh
22:52family where you're where you know mom
22:54and dad are
22:55are the couple and they're sort of a a
22:57pair and you know they're a pair so the
22:59question is
23:00like am i going to be grow up like dad
23:02and like women like mom you know or
23:05the relevant the corresponding question
23:07for the girl would be am i going to grow
23:08up
23:09like mom and like men like dad you know
23:13um and so the the the child is dealing
23:17here with really what it means
23:21to be a boy or a girl and that is an
23:23issue of
23:24how it's going to identify with
23:27sort of models it has for what a person
23:31what a
23:32man or a woman or a boy or girl or
23:34something like that could be
23:36uh so so so that's a quick sketch
23:39of what happens in these stages and
23:41that's that's basically
23:43the the the broad map
23:47of the development of a child from birth
23:49to about the age of six
23:51where uh there's a this pairing of
23:56psychological and sort of interpersonal
23:58issues that are being
23:59navigated that where those issues sort
24:03of emerge
24:04in tandem with changes physiological
24:08changes that especially have to do with
24:10new things happening in the child's body
24:12but especially the child
24:14um learning to deal with its body in new
24:17ways
24:18and these as i said these are the issues
24:19that take place up until about the age
24:21of six
24:22and and then somewhere around the age of
24:23six a kind of interesting thing happens
24:24and again i think it's the sort of thing
24:26that many parents would identify with
24:28you know prior to around the age of five
24:31or six
24:32which again is typically when children
24:33start going out into the public school
24:35in kindergarten and so on
24:37before that it really feels like this is
24:39a little kid you have at home that
24:40you've got to be taken care of
24:42and and there's an awful lot of like
24:45this person becoming a sort of fully
24:48functional person but somewhere around
24:50that age of five or six
24:52it really feels like oh no you got the
24:53full person this person is going to grow
24:55and develop
24:56but you got the thing there right and
24:58that's more or less what freud says he
24:59says
25:00it's really in these ages up until uh
25:03somewhere around five or six you know
25:04through the oral anal and phallic stage
25:07that that the basic thing that it is to
25:10have a personality is developing
25:12and that's that's the core stage where
25:17you kind of become a more or less a
25:20fully formed person
25:22and then after that of course you're
25:23going to continue to grow
25:25but the issues start changing and so
25:26around the ages of sick around the age
25:28of six
25:29freud says a new thing develops which he
25:31calls the latency period
25:33and in that period these issues of
25:37uh pleasure associated with the body and
25:40so on that he's been talking about
25:41those that we've been calling them
25:42manifestations of childhood sexuality
25:45those things seem to disappear into the
25:47background
25:48um so whereas in those earlier stages a
25:52big issue for the child was dealing with
25:54its pleasures
25:55and pursuing them and that was happening
25:59simultaneously with the development of a
26:02basic sort of sense of who that person
26:04is that develops developing the person's
26:05sort of ego
26:07here at around the age of six that
26:10stuff's kind of settled
26:12and it drops into the background and now
26:14as the child develops
26:16uh it just starts doing all kinds of
26:17stuff you learn how to ride a bike you
26:19learn how to swim
26:20you go to school you start learning math
26:22you start learning reading right the
26:23child
26:24becomes oriented towards much more of
26:27the things that we would think of as
26:28you know the regular things that people
26:30do right it's not so much focused on
26:32itself as on the world and also at that
26:35time
26:36uh its sense of uh what you know sort of
26:39right and wrong is what's really being
26:40cultivated of course again
26:42that's that's been an issue in those
26:43earlier stages of childhood life too
26:47but now that really becomes an issue the
26:49child developing
26:50on its own a sense of how it should
26:54behave and
26:54that's what freud calls superego
26:58but he says that goes on now from you
26:59know somewhere around the age of five or
27:01six
27:01up until the times of the time of
27:03puberty because then again somewhere in
27:05those early
27:06teenage years it's another kind of
27:07bodily change that happens which is your
27:09body becomes capable of sexual
27:11reproduction
27:13and he says at that point uh
27:16typically a whole new set of
27:19psychological and interpersonal issues
27:21emerge too and as
27:22as as your body changes again new kind
27:26of pleasure
27:26starts to uh emerge
27:30and that's again you know the in the
27:32phallic stage back as a little
27:34three or four year old we were talking
27:35about pleasure with your genitals and so
27:37on
27:38but it wasn't uh it wasn't the kind of
27:40genital pleasure that you deal with
27:41uh as a after puberty
27:45because when you have now become in in
27:48the biological sense sexually mature
27:50uh your sexual organs function in new
27:53ways and the
27:54new kind of bodily a new kind of bodily
27:57pleasure becomes possible
27:59uh and relating to that
28:03your body changes new pleasure becomes
28:05it becomes possible and relating to that
28:07goes hand in hand
28:08with relating to a new set of
28:12issues in the world and in particular
28:14here
28:15this is when we start doing those things
28:19that
28:20in our popular views we call sex right
28:23this is the stage now
28:25where where we do those things like seek
28:28out
28:29a new individual partner of our own
28:31outside of the family
28:33and seek our pleasure not remember the
28:36childhood sexual manifestations were
28:38autoerotic they were ways you find
28:39pleasure in your own body well now we
28:41seek pleasure
28:42in and through somebody else's body we
28:43want to touch somebody else and we want
28:45them to touch us
28:48and pleasure associated with the sexual
28:50organs
28:52becomes the big thing on our mind and so
28:56genital intercourse becomes an issue
28:59uh and that goes hand in hand then if if
29:02seeking
29:03an object that we're going to have
29:05general intercourse with
29:07um uh becomes an issue for us that also
29:10means
29:10in a significant way leaving the family
29:12becomes an issue for us right we start
29:14developing an independent life as
29:17a separate individual with someone else
29:20who we've chosen as our object of desire
29:22apart from those familial attachments
29:27so that's the new the new kind of thing
29:29that happens
29:30um so so i've i've talked about the
29:32basic stages that we
29:34go through but again remember that these
29:36are
29:37both uh psychological and physiological
29:40developments
29:41and the reason i emphasize the
29:43psychological there
29:45is to emphasize that it's not it's not
29:47automatic what's going to happen
29:49right these are these are issues where
29:53you as a developing person are having to
29:56grapple with things that you
29:58face and so these are what what what
30:01freud is identifying here
30:03is sort of it's almost like it's almost
30:06like the steps of the stages a person
30:08has to go through to complete their
30:09development as a person
30:12but it's not guaranteed how that
30:14development is going to go that's going
30:15to depend on
30:17uh how you get through that is going to
30:19depend an awful lot on the kinds of
30:21circumstances you're presented with
30:23and how you then are able to navigate
30:26these issues that are that are sort of
30:28thrown at you
30:29by your body but also by the people
30:32around you in the surrounding world and
30:33so on
30:34so you know in the uh in the rest of the
30:37natural world you know you think more or
30:38less that
30:39you know beavers and rabbits are just
30:41going to develop on their own to be
30:42fully formed beavers and rabbits and
30:44everything's going to go
30:45you know naturally and
30:48you know we would like it probably that
30:51we would just develop naturally too but
30:52we don't we're we don't
30:54we don't just turn into
30:57fully formed humans by nature in that
31:00same way
31:02uh and um so
31:05so there is something that that kind of
31:07comes to us by nature like the
31:09the in that you know we need to eat
31:12and it's convenient that we've been
31:15shaped such that we take pleasure in
31:17eating as a little kid right
31:19we need to poop and it turns out we take
31:21pleasure in that you know we need to
31:22reproduce
31:23it turns out we take pleasure in the
31:25bodily activities necessary to bring
31:26that about right so
31:28you know it it is the case that
31:31our organism is such that
31:34we have psychological motivations
31:38namely feelings of pleasure
31:39psychological motivations
31:41for pursuing those very activities
31:44that we as a natural organism need to
31:48to continue and flourish and so on but
31:52nonetheless carrying out those things
31:54doesn't happen just naturally we have to
31:56do it
31:56and how we end up dealing with those
32:00things
32:01is is the matter of our psychological
32:04development and we don't all go through
32:05that the same way
32:06and indeed one of the things that freud
32:08is most oriented towards studying
32:10where his investigations all come from
32:12is from
32:14noticing how unhappy people are and how
32:15many problems we have
32:17and trying to understand where
32:20the problems in human life come from and
32:23and this is really
32:24you know freud's uh contribution is to
32:27try to show
32:28that the the psychological problems we
32:31have
32:32uh can be understood when we trace them
32:35back
32:36to the issues we face in dealing
32:39with these stages of our
32:42uh healthy sexual development where
32:45sexual means this
32:47development of libido or life energy
32:50through these psychological and
32:52physiological changes
32:54so you know go back to what i said about
32:56the stages right in in the oral stage
32:58you're dealing with dependency
33:00in the um anal stage you're dealing with
33:03uh independence and these things
33:05clearly are interpersonal as well right
33:07they're they're about how you deal with
33:09yourself
33:10in this relational sense dependency is
33:12something you're working on in
33:13relationship to mom and dad
33:15independence is something you're working
33:17on in relationship to mom and dad so
33:19these things are always
33:20paired the personal and the
33:22interpersonal in our development
33:24uh in the phallic stage we're dealing
33:28with identification like how we're going
33:30to identify ourselves
33:34in in the terms of the models for who a
33:36person could be that are presented
33:38to us right and so we're going through
33:41these things that
33:42are the formation of a human personality
33:44and freud says you know in each of these
33:46stages you know there are various
33:47i mean they are all basically forms of
33:49conflict or
33:51implicit in all of them is the is the
33:54possibility of conflict and the question
33:57is how we're going to get through that
34:00and basically we develop a healthy
34:04character
34:05by learning how to deal with those
34:08issues of
34:08dependency and independence and so on
34:11learning how to deal with the issues of
34:12identification and so on right we
34:13develop a healthy character
34:15by getting through those stages and and
34:19being being brought you know with the
34:22help of our parents being brought
34:23through the process of navigating
34:26those challenges the where do our
34:29psychological problems come from they
34:31come from getting hung up on those
34:33challenges not
34:35getting through the conflicts of those
34:37stages
34:38uh well enough and if we want to know
34:41you know
34:42where the responsibility for that lies
34:44well largely it's going to be with
34:46what what we've been presented with by
34:48our parents right did
34:50and so and so in a way this thing tells
34:52it gives you a kind of model for
34:53parenting what you're dealing with with
34:54a one-year-old is that
34:56child's uh need experience of dependency
35:00and need to
35:01for security and so you know do do the
35:04parents of a one-year-old
35:05give it that adequately what's the the
35:08one to three year old dealing with
35:10well the need to have an experience of
35:12themselves
35:13as a kind of independent will
35:16uh there again do parents allow the
35:19child sufficient experiences of autonomy
35:21and so on
35:22uh and so on so in in that these are the
35:26challenges that are being dealt with by
35:27the child in those stages
35:29and a healthy personality comes from
35:30getting through those stages well
35:32problems come when we don't get to
35:34navigate them well
35:36um the third the third one the phallic
35:38stages i said is about identification
35:40and there you know one of the big
35:41tensions is what that's that's where
35:43freud came to
35:44identify this thing he called the
35:45oedipus complex there one of the big
35:48challenges is um the desire
35:52that you have for your parents like you
35:54want to be the important one for that
35:55person
35:56and um and so this is the thing you know
35:59parents
36:00surely deal parents will surely
36:03recognize this from their own experience
36:04with children at that age that
36:07uh you know children will sort of play
36:10favorites
36:11they'll pair off one parent against the
36:13other they'll
36:14they'll try to win the affection of one
36:16parent and so on and
36:18you know there's a real uh sense of
36:20who's on whose side that can develop
36:23in those circumstances and so once again
36:25the child is dealing with really big
36:27issues that are going to be
36:29crucially formative for that child's
36:32sense of
36:33i mean basically sexual identity
36:36and and that can be
36:41supported or hindered right that can be
36:44uh
36:45uh something that parents make a good
36:47circumstance for the child such that it
36:49gets through it or
36:50or can be a place where hang-ups develop
36:53so by the time you get to the puberty
36:55stage
36:57where you're pursuing new
37:01partners right and you're going to you
37:04know
37:05presumably engage in general intercourse
37:07and so on
37:08uh that's not a thing that just suddenly
37:10showed up on the map out of nowhere
37:12that's now something that you're
37:17entering into on the basis of all of
37:19these things that happened before you
37:21and so
37:22the way you take up that new set of
37:24issues that are
37:25starts to arise at 13 or 15 or whenever
37:28those things come up for
37:30different for different people whenever
37:31those things come up there that's going
37:33to be the caring forward of a torch
37:35right something has already been going
37:36on and it's not just like
37:38everything gets washed away and reset
37:40it's that person
37:42who went through the oral anal and
37:44phallic stages and then the
37:46latency period that's the person who's
37:48now going to
37:49get handed a new set of issues at
37:51puberty and how you deal with that is
37:53going to be
37:53carrying on how you're dealing with
37:55these other things
37:58and so you know there are there are
37:59things you know if you if you imagine
38:01that model of
38:02you know what you think is going to
38:03happen this sort of adult sexuality
38:06um uh what that model sort of
38:10calls for is kind of the bringing
38:13together of all
38:14all that stuff you've been working in
38:16working on as a child
38:18bringing it together and putting it on a
38:20new person like you you're going to say
38:21this is my love object
38:24so all those ways you've learned to love
38:28through the oral and anal and phallic
38:29stages should now
38:32be like okay this is what it was for
38:35right and so freud says you know this
38:36the the the
38:38cultivating or the development of adult
38:40sexuality has to do with the channeling
38:42of these different things
38:43uh bringing them all together towards a
38:46single object
38:47but it also means bringing together
38:50a couple of different things right in in
38:52those earlier
38:53developments like he says there's kind
38:55of an um
38:56an affectionate side and a sensual side
38:58like you're dealing with bodily
38:59pleasures
39:00and you're also dealing with your
39:02feelings of attachment to these
39:04people your parents and so on and the
39:06both of those things also have to come
39:08together such that
39:09your affection for a particular person
39:12who becomes your sexual
39:13object comes together with your
39:16um interest in fulfilling your sexual
39:19aims there right so all
39:20uh the all of those things are are
39:23coming together here
39:25uh and and i guess the point i'm trying
39:27to
39:28bring out here is i'm trying to get you
39:30to see how
39:31that having of a sexual desire for
39:34another person
39:37there's an awful lot packed into it
39:39right what's
39:40what's going on in there has it got all
39:43this
39:43stuff feeding into it with all its
39:46uh good development or bad development
39:49right and so
39:50the thing that ends up being your
39:52experience of sexuality as an adult a
39:54young a young adult
39:58isn't just a thing that happened to you
39:59by nature like that oh i was just born
40:01this way or i'm just made this way or
40:03anything like that
40:04it is the product of this massive
40:07process of development
40:09that and let me add one more important
40:11thing this is not just about some
40:13side issue sex isn't just this sort of
40:15entertaining thing you do on the side
40:17and then the rest of your life goes on
40:18over here
40:19what you're seeing there is the
40:21reflection of those
40:22core developments of your personality
40:26right and so that's the other thing that
40:28freud is saying like our sexuality isn't
40:30isn't a diverting adult entertainment
40:34it's at the very core of how we become
40:37persons
40:39and again you might go back and think
40:40about aristotle for a minute right so
40:41you know aristotle was saying you know
40:43we have these things
40:44in us the the the path he called them
40:47right
40:48like whatever like our um those
40:51non-logos parts of ourselves the
40:53non-rational parts of ourselves that are
40:55nonetheless
40:56obedient to reason and so on and the
40:57point the point was you know
40:59have you developed your relationship to
41:03those aspects of yourself such that they
41:05now align with the demands of your logos
41:08or the demands of your reason
41:10well that's just a quick reminder of
41:11what we said about aristotle before
41:13i just want to say as freud is saying
41:14something similar here right that
41:16there are all these things that are
41:19going on in you sort of under the
41:21surface that are
41:22your psychological development
41:27and the question really is
41:30how have those things developed have the
41:32have you been did you become habituated
41:35to
41:35dealing with the issues that were raised
41:38for you
41:39from zero to six from the from birth
41:41until about the ages of six
41:44those issues that were raised with you
41:45by your
41:47developing body the developing issues it
41:50raised for you
41:51and those in the context of the issues
41:53of dealing with your family
41:55did you develop through all those things
41:57in a healthy way such that they're now
41:59ready to such that they lay a foundation
42:03for like a healthy
42:04happy adult sexuality and so on or on
42:07the contrary
42:08uh in your adult sexuality do we see
42:11played out
42:13uh ways in which those things didn't
42:14work out so smoothly
42:16and then again because of this very way
42:20we're seeing sexuality to be much more
42:23than just your pursuit of genital
42:25intercourse right
42:26we're also seeing then that your adult
42:28sexuality is not just
42:31reflected in what you do in your pursuit
42:34of genital intercourse
42:36but it's also reflected in the hang-ups
42:39of your personality right as i said
42:40that's one of the things that freud is
42:42really trying to
42:43understand like where our psychological
42:45problems come from
42:46right and so sexuality is not just this
42:50thing that happens with adults where
42:51they pursue
42:52genital intercourse with other adults
42:54and so on sexuality is the whole
42:57process of your psychological
42:58development and that thing you do
43:01with other adults in the in bed
43:04is uh sort of the tip of an iceberg it's
43:08the
43:08it's the obvious thing that's that
43:10stands up over the surface
43:12that is itself part of this much bigger
43:14thing which is your
43:15whole psycho psychological world with
43:18all its
43:19uh hang-ups and troubles and so on
43:22um and i want to just add a couple other
43:24things to that too so that that's the
43:26basic story about the development but i
43:27want to just pick up on a couple of
43:28other things freud says in this
43:29in this last um in this in the final
43:32chapter chapter three on the
43:33transformations of puberty
43:35um you know i said that one of the
43:38things that's happening in the phallic
43:39stages
43:40is this thing he calls the oedipus
43:41complex right that's where you're
43:43navigating with you know um
43:47your desire to to to be the one who
43:49matters to your mom or to your dad or
43:51something like that
43:52um that so that he doesn't actually talk
43:54directly about the oedipus complex in
43:56the chapter he has in a footnote that i
43:58think he had
43:58later but this is really what he's
44:00getting at in that chapter on incest
44:02um this part of me the section on incest
44:05uh he talks about um
44:07uh first of all infantile anxiety right
44:09before that he says you know the thing
44:11that really matters to the child is that
44:12you
44:13you need your parents to love and care
44:15for you and so
44:16you have experiences of anxiety when you
44:18feel like maybe they've abandoned you or
44:19maybe you're apart from them
44:21right well then that sort of gets
44:22magnified or transformed
44:24in the later stages i guess in the
44:26phallic stage with
44:28grappling with the kind of struggle over
44:30that over
44:32you know who your parents are going to
44:34pick and your competition with one
44:36parent
44:38for the affection of another and so on
44:40so that section on infantile anxiety and
44:42their barrier against incest
44:43is basically about that way that in
44:46those early years the child is really
44:48grappling
44:49with uh its place in the
44:53loving eyes of its parents and so on uh
44:57but then uh and so he talks about the
44:58big effects those things have
45:00well so so there you know what's really
45:03going to be
45:04shaped for you is
45:07how you develop a sense of your identity
45:11as a
45:11kind of a sexual being like both in the
45:14sense of like
45:15am i a boy or a girl or what or what
45:19and also what other kind of thing am i
45:21attracted to am i
45:23do i find am i attracted to other boys
45:25or other girls or whatever
45:26right and so there all freud is doing is
45:28identifying the processes by which those
45:31things come to be formed
45:32but then as he says you know our society
45:34this is in the next section now and what
45:36he calls the prevention of inversion
45:37now our society has these really
45:40powerful values that i spoke about at
45:42the beginning that say
45:44men need to have genital intercourse
45:45with women and women need to have
45:47genital intercourse with men
45:49and other stuff is a problem right
45:50that's a very strong societal picture
45:53and that's what freud says here and he
45:55talks about uh
45:58that idea that there is this intense
46:00massive
46:02intense and massive social pressure to
46:04conform to those values
46:06and basically you know what he says is
46:08you know uh
46:09for a lot of people that's going to be
46:11fine like you're going to go through
46:12this development and
46:14society is going to lay out a path for
46:16you and it's not going to be that big a
46:17deal for a lot of people to fit into it
46:19but it's going to be a big deal for a
46:20lot of other people
46:22who don't fit into it so well right and
46:24so he says
46:26so what what happens here and he says um
46:29how how is inversion which is the the
46:32word he uses for homosexuality
46:34he says how how does that how do they
46:36how does society get rid of that and he
46:37says
46:38chief among these is the authoritative
46:41prohibition
46:42by society right that's one of the
46:43biggest factors
46:45at enforcing a kind of heterosexual
46:49value
46:50and i want you to read this next
46:51sentence he says where inversion is not
46:54regarded as a crime
46:56it will be found that it answers fully
47:00to the sexual inclinations of no small
47:02number of people
47:03so in other words he's saying if you
47:06just uh
47:07let people go through these developments
47:10lots of people are going to develop in
47:11such a way that they think
47:13i'm a man i want to have sex with men or
47:14i'm a woman i want to have sex with
47:15women women or something like that
47:17that's just going to be how people
47:18develop and and it's going to be fully
47:20sexually satisfying for them
47:22but there is this massive uh social
47:26force um pushing against that
47:30so i wanted you to see this and this
47:32idea that that
47:34so so i started off by by giving us that
47:36picture of society and the first thing i
47:37want to talk about was
47:38his initial theme that it's a mistake to
47:42identify
47:42sexuality just with adulthood but then i
47:45want to pick up on this other theme that
47:46we have this massive sense that normalcy
47:48is
47:49heterosexuality and so on and the point
47:51freud is making here is
47:53uh that's not going to be the case or or
47:57that's not going to be the automatic
47:59result that's going to come about by
48:00people's development
48:02many people sexual development is going
48:03to lead them in other directions and so
48:05that cultural vision turns out to be
48:08this very powerful
48:09force that really works against
48:12the sexual desires and sexual
48:15development of all kinds of people
48:18and he says something else they're kind
48:19of interesting about women too he says
48:20um
48:22you know another big thing that's been
48:23going on in in
48:25all of this is uh it's about learning
48:28how to be independent and that's that's
48:30a theme that has
48:30um uh come come through these
48:34these chapters that you know you you do
48:37have to navigate these conflicts but
48:39that's
48:39that's good you should get you should be
48:41going through these things because
48:42you're basically learning how to be an
48:43independent person
48:45and that's that's sort of what we're
48:46after so the family
48:48should be the place where you're
48:50learning how to go on and be someone
48:52separate who leaves the family behind
48:54and so on
48:55but he says that that also doesn't
48:57happen for anybody that there's a
48:59you know real disparity in how men and
49:01women are treated
49:02and he talks here a little bit about how
49:04women are characteristically brought up
49:06in such a way that
49:08they don't get to have the same kinds of
49:11experience of
49:12experiences of autonomy and independence
49:15that men have
49:16with the result that they don't get they
49:19don't fully get to
49:20enter into autonomous adult sexual
49:23identities
49:23so there's just a few things he says you
49:25might find very worthy of
49:26of further exploration we're going to go
49:28on and talk a little bit about
49:29civilization as discontents
49:32and there we'll understand more about
49:35our development and how that fits into
49:37broader issues of social life and so on

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