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|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.