The genital stage, as a final layer of sexual development of the human child, is presented in Freudianframeworkas an independent stage, whicharound puberty the little human reaches, and when the pleasure mechanisms concerning the eating and excretal functions are naturally redirected towards the genitalia "A systemmust have its utopia. For psychoanalysis the utopia is 'genitality'7".
Some of Freud's patients(and to this day of his followers) are
humans which have not succeeded in makingthe transition fromthe first
two stages to the genital one in the manner demanded by social norms. From aperspective
which does not fuse the conceptsof 'social normality' and 'health/natural state', the genital
stage describedby Freud is not so mucha natural occurrence, but rather a social
construct, which makes use of forces from the 'oral', 'toilet training'
stages. Then and there all the impulses were socially redirected
to the classical Christian sexual act/position, today-
to a much lesser extent.
A prepuberty stage reached after
the earlychildhood oral and anal ones is
called 'phallic' -both the male and female offsprings reach a point in their
development when their sexual strivingsare 'active', 'masculine',
both want to posses the motheror mother figure,
the boy fantasizing while masturbating with his penis, the girl -
withher clitoris.
But the structure ofpatriarchycanpermit only the
boytobe active, the girl must bepassive,
therefore standard male sexuality remains active, but is redirected
awayfrom the mother to other females, while the female is pressured to renounce its
'phallism', and accept passivity.
The sociopolitical implications of the 'normal' male 'resolution'
of the Oedipus complex are
shown inan interpretation of Nancy Chodorow by Chilla Bulbeck, concerningthe
maintenance of the existingpatriarchal structures:
"...theprimary importance of the mother as the first figure of socializationmeant that the boys became
men throughseparatingfromtheir mothers, J.A.C. Brown, 'Freud and the PostFreudians' p24, Penguin Books,1972
Erik H. Erikson, 'Childhood and Society', p92, W.W. Norton & CompanyInc., 1963
and women more generally. In the process of separation the boys learned individualityand selfsufficiency,
but also contempt for women, hatredofthe mother whorejected them (in order for them
tolearn tobecome men)8. Since the theoretical original mammalian sexualityhasat no
point been allowed to emerge,both male and female children have to construct their 'normal' as in
'socially endorsed' sexuality by unconsciouslychannelingthe impulsesfrom the oral and anal
stage.
Thisis most visible withgirls, whichare forced
to adopt a 'passive' mix of the oral and anal
impulses to construct a convincing 'vagina' centered
sexual system. Whatever sexuality an adult human has within the patriarchy, it is always 'unnatural' - 'secondary' -
anartificial construct whichusesthe energy of impulsesand associations from
their previous stages of social programming, to give form to the
behavior and experienced inner reality, which are expected
of them. Not everyone adaptswell to the prevailing conditions - some humans get
lost in the maze of hints and halflies and develop 'mental problems'.
Once certain human conflicts operating below the level of consciousness
have been uncovered, their representations in the visible forms of culturebecomes
striking.