Changes

According to [[Freud]], the [[Oedipus ]] [[complex ]] is contemporaneous with the '[[Phallic ]] [[Phase]]' of [[infantile ]] [[sexuality]]. Prior to this phase Freud [[thought ]] of all [[children ]] as essentially bisexual beings who attained [[sexual ]] [[satisfaction ]] through auto-[[eroticism]]. By this he means that very young infants gain sexual stimulation through their own bodies. There is no sexual [[object ]] as such, but they achieve satisfaction through the manipulation of [[erotogenic ]] zones. An erotogenic zone is any area or [[organ ]] of the [[body ]] that is assigned sexual [[significance ]] by the [[infant]], such as the [[oral ]] and [[anal ]] orifices as well as the sexual organs. For example, thumb-sucking is an auto-[[erotic ]] [[activity ]] in the [[sense ]] that it involves the stimulation of a [[particular ]] area of the body and the infant derives [[pleasure ]] from it. What changes through the [[phallic phase ]] is that the genitals become the focus of sexual stimulation. There is a crucial [[difference]], however, between [[adult ]] and [[infantile sexuality ]] in that during infancy, for both [[sexes]], 'only one [[genital]], namely the [[male ]] one, comes into account. What is [[present]], therefore, is not the primacy of the genitals, but the primacy of the [[phallus]]' (Freud 1991e [1923]: 308). It is the [[sight ]] of the [[presence ]] or [[absence ]] of the [[penis ]] that forces the [[child ]] to recognise that boys and girls are different. To begin with, Freud postulated that both sexes [[disavow ]] the absence of the [[woman]]'s penis and believe they have seen it, even if it is not there. Eventually, however, they are [[forced ]] to admit its absence and they account for this absence through the [[idea ]] of [[castration]]. The boy sees the woman as a [[castrated ]] man and the [[girl ]] has to accept that she has not got and never will have a penis. Freud did not distinguish between the penis as an actual [[bodily ]] organ and the 'phallus' as a [[signifier ]] of [[sexual difference]]. The phallus within Freud's [[work ]] always maintained its reference to the male sexual organ.