Sigmund Freud: Position on Sexes and Homosexuality

This paper discusses Sigmund Freud's position on the factor that divides the sexes in references to Lacan’s texts and schema along with psychogenesis in regard to the case of homosexuality.

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Explain Freud’s position on what it is that divides the sexes, elaborating on ideas by
referencing some of Lacan’s texts and schemata
Introduction:
Sigmund Freud have presented extraordinary theories to the field of psychology that have
helped understanding crucial concepts of society. Many of his theories were controversial due to
its subject and the relation of the subject with the time period (Sullivan, 2013). Sigmund Freud’s
perspective on women have certainly done the same, stirring controversy during his own lifetime
as well as considerable debate even today. Freud has revolutionized modern thinking with his
thinking and perception. One of the most popular theory of Freud was the development of the
process psychoanalysis, the conscious, careful analysis performed piece by piece of neurotic
behavior in an individual with the view to break down the complex. It is certainly one of the
method today, that psychologist use I order to understand the complex behavior of human. Freud
like many other thinkers have detailed his opinion on sex, sexuality, gender and queer. The paper
aims to discuss Freud’s position on the factor that divides the sexes in references to Lacan’s texts
and schema along with psychogenesis in regard to the case of homosexuality.
Sigmund Freud:
Born into a Jewish family in Freiburgin the year 1856, Moravia Sigmund Freud was an
Austrian neurologist who is widely known as the father of psychoanalysis. He was not only a
neurologist but also a physiologist, medical doctor, psychologist and an influential thinker of the
early twentieth century (Engler, 2013). His famous psychoanalysis is a method that is used
treating mental illness and also a theory that provides explanation of human behavior. According
to Freud, a great influence occurs on human’s the adult lives by their events of childhood. For an

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example, a person may have anxiety if that person is exposed to traumatic experience in
childhood. Freud’s perception was highly prone to controversies and one such controversy is his
perception on women that he presented in his papers (Gardiner, 2018).
Significant concepts:
The term gender, sex, sexuality, gender-role and queer are inter-related terms that have
link to each other terms can be defined distinctively and it is important to understand the term in
order to understand the concept of sexuality and gender that has been presented by Sigmund
Freud. Sex can be defined as the person’s biological sex, the anatomy of an individual’s
reproductive system which often determine the social roles based on the sex of the person. While
sex refers to the biological characteristics and features, gender can be defined as the set of
characteristics or traits that are associated with the biological sex. Sexuality can be defined as the
entire way a person expresses self as a sexual being (American Psychological Association,
2015). A person’s sexuality can be about who they are attracted to romantically and sexually.
People attracted to people of different sex are called heterosexual while people who are attracted
to people of same sex are called homosexual. The term queer is a complicated term that has been
going through alteration in its meaning from past few years. However, queer can be defined as
people that rejects normative definitions of appropriate feminine and masculine. It is often a term
that is used to denote, within a particular community, sexual identity.
According to Sigmund Freud, “women oppose change, receive passively, and add
nothing of their own”. This specific perception was presented by Freud in his 1925 paper entitled
as “The Psychical Consequences of the Anatomic Distinction between the sexes”. Freud had his
own views on the psychological development of women which he finished by August 1925 and
showed it to Ferenczi (Awasthi, 2017). It was read by Anna Freud on is behalf at the Homburg

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International Psycho-Analytical Congress on September 3. Later in autumn the paper was
published in the Zeitschrift. Freud made complaints from the very early days of the obscurity that
evolves the sexual life of women. Therefore, during the beginning of his paper on Three essays
on the theory of sexuality, he wrote on men’s sexual life mentions while men’s sexual life is
accessible, women’s remain veiled. Also, while writing on his paper on children, he mentions
that there is much known about sexual lives of the boys than it is known about girls. Again, in
his pamphlet on lay analysis he mentions about knowing less about the sexual life of girls and
women than boys and he calls the sexual life of adult women “dark content” for psychology. The
“three Essays on the theory of sexuality” of Freud published in the year 1905 mentioning that
women are envious of male penis that is “anatomically superior” giving a hype to the phrase
“penis envy”. The penis envy is the female counterpart that belongs to Freud’s concept of
castration anxiety. According to his psychosexual development, during the Phallic stage, Freud
suggest young girls isolates themselves from their mother and get devoted towards their fathers
with affections. It is due to the realization that girls realize that she does not have penis. Girls
hold their mother accountable for not having penis and thus fail to forgive her for putting her at
the disadvantage (Freud, 2017).
Freud's “The Psychogenesis of a Case of Homosexuality in a Woman”: A Young Woman's
Homosexuality Reconsidered
The article “The Psychogenesis of a Case of Homosexuality in a Woman” is based on
Sigmund’s case of a young girl who was nineteen years old during that time. According to the
young girl, she was not ill and she had agreed to start an analysis of her biological father’s
insistence. The young girls’ father was concerned regarding her daughter’s homosexuality, very
specifically regarding her recent suicidal behavior and a suicide attempt. He had encountered her

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daughter accompanied by the woman she was in love in the street after which she threw herself
over a parapet wall on to a suburban railway line. The young girl was the second child and the
only daughter of the family along with three other siblings. She belonged from the Jewish
bourgeoisie in Vienna. She was confirmed by baptism and had fallen deeply in love with a
“cocotte” who was elder to her by ten years. The family decided to appeal to Freud in
desperation regardless of the fact that it was described psychoanalysis as the low esteem, which
was considered during that period in Vienna.
It is only female homosexuality case that Freud reported. During the period when his
daughter was twenty-four the analysis of the case was performed along with her presence and
involvement with Freud (Nurka, 2019). The specific piece of text could be assumed as the
inception of a growth in Fred’s study of femininity which later was elaborated by him in his
work, “Some Physical Consequences of the Anatomical Distinction between the Sexes” in the
year 1925, “female sexuality” in the year 1931 and “New introductory lecture on Psycho-
Analysis” (Creed, 2015).
Freud addresses the question of homosexuality in his several texts from the outset of his
work. He stresses in his study here that it is not that is responsible for solving the problem of
homosexuality. According to him, it is a variant of the sexual organization that is in common
with the concept of homosexuality that represses the other part of the original bisexuality. The
analytic attitude that consisted of re-creating the full bisexual function, for him is in a way
something that left open the subsequent choice (Bell, 2018).
The relation between the object choice and identification is complex in nature that can be
demonstrated with the object is as followed: Firstly, it is a disappointment that a new brother is
born in her oedipal love during the time she is in the throes of her pubertal regency of the

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Oedipal complex. It was during this stage, she takes herself away from her father as well as other
men. Also, she recognizes with her brother who is newly born and hence considers her mother in
the first place followed by other women as the love object in her father’s place (Freud, 2017).
In this part, the negative result of the ‘libidinal withdrawal’ is focused by Freud rather
than the oedipal competition as a convenient position that tend to avoid the conflicts. In this
place, his analysis of the source of the compulsion for falling in love with female or women is
resumed and continued Freud that are of ill repute that requires to be saved.
Something that has been analyzed before, suicide is emphasized in this place in its
primary murderous and other nature directed. Later, the subject herself by identification turned
back on. Certainly, it was something highly astonishing, however, the young girl’s journey to the
act that explained by her as her misery in love. The love followed by the woman who was
unwilling to take any trouble with family. Here onwards the discussion was not taken any further
by Sigmund Freud. Mostly in its twofold destructive character including her mother and father.
The mother, signified by the loved and refusing woman, and the father against whom the act is
focused as a supreme act of disobedience (Thornton, 2017).
This requires to be understood that the entire aspect has to be considered involving the
patient’s negative transference as well as resistance. When Freud realized that it was to him that
the patient was transferred “The sweeping repudiation of men which had dominated her ever
since the disappointment she had suffered from her father". After this Freud discontinued the
treatment along with advice as he thought she should resume it with a woman analyses.
According to Freud’s perception, the young girl had provided incapable criteria of
successfully completing the analysis’second phase that was followed by the duration in which

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information is obtained, and they ought to be lead the patient herself to hold the point and hold of
the material placed at her clearance. In some other form, this technical observation had begun
appearing in the concept of working through (Arlow, 2018).
Lastly, the inquiry of homosexuality indicated Freud to isolate himself from the received
clue of congenital homosexuality. Also, in order to stress, along with the type of object-choice
and the somatic sexual characteristics, the significance of the psychic sexual characteristics—that
is, the "masculine and feminine positions"—leaving the rest to the department of biological
research (Freud, 2014).
Therefore this article is an significant technical, clinical as well as epistemological work.
Psychoanalysis does not attempt to describe women however it sets about enquiring the ways
women come into being and the ways women develop a child in her womb with bisexual
disposition. Many women were instrumental in the growth and advancement of psychoanalysis,
while Freud labeled women as inferior to men. The first woman to join Freud’s Vienna
Psychoanalytic Society in 1918 was Helene Deutsch. The first psychoanalytic book on women’s
sexuality by her wrote broadly on topics such as the psychology of women, female adolescence,
and motherhood (Deutsch, 2018).
The study and development of the ideas and theories presented by Jacques Lacan, a
dissident French psychoanalytic is called Lacanianism. The work began as a commentary on the
writings of Freud which later developed into a new psychoanalytic theory of humankind. It
theory spawned a movement worldwide of its own. Often the work of Lacan is argued to be read
as a piece associated with classical Freudianism without which it is merely another philosophy or
intellectual system. Lacanianism began as an interpretation of Freud’s original teaching more of
a philosophical and linguistic re-interpretation. However, it slowly becomes an individual and

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independent body of thoughts that have been a matter of debate over the years. The philosophers
declared himself to Freudian his followers and giving them the choice of becoming Lacanians if
they wanted. According to Lacan, the human psyche is framed within the order of three, The
imaginary, The Symbolic and The Real. In their varying emphases, the three division emphases
also correspond roughly to the development of Lacan's thought. It was said by him that he first
began with the imaginary and then the symbolic while ending by putting out the famous Real.
The “imaginary”, “symbolic” and “real” are concepts that are familiar to people on an everyday
basis. These terms hold general meaning to it relating to something significant in the daily sense
of the world. These terms evoke meanings and references that are independent of one another.
Humans seek out or try avoiding the real world. Humans also have imaginary friends, and
humans experience symbolic moments. Jacques Lacan's three psychoanalytic orders were
developed during 195s in a series of lectures that was presented by him. In the arena of Lacan,
the symbolic-real-imaginary forms a trio of intrapsychic realms that are inclusive of the
numerous levels of psychic phenomena. The job of these is to serve in situating subjectivity
within a system of perception as well as a dialogue in accordance with the external world. The
Lancia's picture of the symbolic-real-imaginary is deeply enrooted in the notions of Freud in
regard of the oedipal phase, infantile sexuality and the theory that uncovers the unconscious
process through association and language. According to Lacan, the infant becomes surprised
when it is faced with a mirror image. The mirror gives the infant a whole picture of herself as she
was only faced with the experience of a fragmented entity with libidinal needs. It is the image in
the mirror that reflects the ideal I. This specific ideal provides an image of the wholeness which
constitutes the ego. For Freud, this is formed by the method of an external force such as

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involving the sudden realization of a complete image of self that appears in the mirror in order to
counteract an infant’s primordial sense of her fragmented body.
As discussed above, many of his theories were controversial due to its subject and the
relation of the subject with the time period. Sigmund Freud’s perspective on women has
certainly done the same, stirring controversy during his own lifetime as well as considerable
debate even today. His theories have been very challenging to understand however it helps
building other theories on the basis of these researches and his thoughts. The relation that is
complex in nature existing between identification with the object and the object choice. Freud
emphasizes in this place the negative consequences of the case.

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References:
American Psychological Association. (2015). Guidelines for psychological practice with
transgender and gender nonconforming people. American Psychologist, 70(9), 832-864.
Arlow, J. A. (2018). Fantasy, memory, and reality testing. The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 87(1),
127-148.
Awasthi, S. (2017). Tracing Women through the Ages: Past Trends and Future Challenges. St.
Theresa Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 3(1).
Bell, L. C. (2018). Psychoanalytic theories of gender. Gender, Sex, and Sexualities:
Psychological Perspectives, 195.
Creed, B. (2015). The monstrous-feminine: Film, feminism, psychoanalysis. Routledge.
Deutsch, H. (2018). The Psychoanalysis of Sexual Functions of Women. Routledge.
Engler, B. (2013). Personality theories. Nelson Education.
Freud, S. (2014). On the sexual theories of children. Read Books Ltd.
Freud, S. (2017). Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality: The 1905 Edition. Verso Books.
Freud, S. (2017). Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality: The 1905 Edition. Verso Books.
Gardiner, M. (2018). The wolf-man and Sigmund Freud. Routledge.
Khan, M. (2018). Alienation in perversions. Routledge.
Nurka, C. (2019). Deviant Desires. In Female Genital Cosmetic Surgery (pp. 159-197). Palgrave
Macmillan, Cham.

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Sullivan, H. S. (2013). The interpersonal theory of psychiatry. Routledge.
Thornton, H. (2017). An enquiry into the nature and effects of the paper credit of Great Britain.
Routledge.