Erotogenic Zone

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Any part of the body susceptible of becoming excited, of being a seat of pleasure, is an erotogenic zone. Freud nevertheless used the term to refer primarily to a number of specific areas, notably, the genitals, mouth, and anus. These zones he saw as locations of particular instincts known as "component instincts." In neurosis, on his account, nongenital erotogenic zones come to function as substitutes for the genitals. The idea of erotogenic zones was inseparable from the theory of libidinal stages, each of which, at a certain age, is fixed...