The prevailing view is that the sexual instinct does not exist during childhood, and it is not until adolescence that the sexual instinct begins to awaken. But this view is not a simple mistake, but one with serious consequences; because of this view, we are now completely unable to understand the basic conditions of sexual life. A thorough study of sexual performance in childhood may help us understand the basic characteristics of sexual instincts, the developmental processes, and the various sources.
We note that in explaining the characteristics and responses of adults, scholars pay more attention to the primitive stages of their ancestors, overemphasizing the importance of heredity and relatively ignoring the importance of individual development in childhood. They would think that the effects of childhood were easier to understand and had thought about it before considering heredity.
Indeed, in the literature on sexual activity, we can occasionally see records of precocious puberty in children, such as erections, masturbation, and activities similar to sexual intercourse. But these are all examples of early depravity that are seen as accidents, anomalies, or appalling depravities.
To the best of my knowledge, no scholar has yet explicitly acknowledged that sexual instincts are ubiquitous in childhood. In numerous books on the individual development of children, there is a lack of a chapter on "sexual development".
In my opinion, there are two reasons for this neglect of children's sexual activity: first, scholars are susceptible to traditional ways of thinking, and second, it is very difficult to explain this psychological phenomenon. For most people (not all) the sexual aspects before the age of six or eight are strangely forgotten.
This was a confusing phenomenon, but until now, people have taken it for granted. In fact, although nothing is left in later memories, only some incomprehensible fragments, in those years we have been able to react vividly to impressions, to express pain and pleasure like adults, with love, jealousy, and other feelings, and to speak words that even adults feel that we have the ability to understand and judge.
But once we're grown up, we don't know anything about it all! Why does our memory lag far behind other mental activities? On the contrary, we have every reason to believe that only childhood is the period when the ability to acquire and preserve impressions is strongest.
On the other hand, through the psychological study of others, we can assume that it is precisely those impressions that have been forgotten that leave the deepest traces in our mental life and play a decisive role in our later development.
Therefore, this forgetting does not completely abandon childhood impressions, but like the neurotic patient's forgetting of recent events, these impressions are excluded from consciousness due to repression. But what causes this repression of childhood impressions? If we can solve this mystery, we can explain hysteria amnesia.
The gene for sexual impulse already exists in newborns, which can continue to develop for a period of time and then gradually suppress it. It is during this incubation period that a psychological force such as disgust, shame, ethical and moral requirements, etc., is formed, which is like a that prevents the development of sexual instincts.
From these civilized children, we feel that education has built these. Education clearly plays a role, but in reality this process of development is genetically determined, sometimes without parenting.
This process of improving individual civilization may come at the expense of young children's sexual impulses. Therefore, we can say that during the incubation period, these sexual impulses have not stopped, but their energy has left the sexual purpose in whole or in part and turned to other uses.
Historians who study civilization seem to believe that the achievement of any civilization requires the power of the sexual instinct to leave the sexual purpose and turn to a new goal, which is the so-called sublimation process. What we need to add here is that the sublimation process also plays a role in the development of the individual, and this process begins with the incubation period of childhood.
Educators who notice sexual activity in young children have to agree with us that moral defensive forces are built on the premise of sacrificial sexual activity. They even argue that sexual activity renders a child hopeless: he cannot overcome his sexual desires, and all sexual manifestations are seen as bad and evil.
Our attitude is the opposite, and we have every reason to focus on these phenomena that scare educators, and look forward to understanding, with their help, the original situation of the sexual instinct.
- The Three Theories of Sexual Desire
[This article is excerpted from the book "Freud's Self-Description" (compiled by Huang Zhongjing et al., Tianjin People's Publishing House, 2010 edition)]