of that person.
2. Theory of Psychosexual development
Tong quotes Freud’s theory that says “children go through distinct psychosexual development stages, and their gender identity as adults is the result
of how well or badly they have weathered this process” 2008:129. Sexual maturation is derived from childhood experience which is the main cause that
shapes and determines sexual orientation, identity and behavior when they grow up. In her book, Feminist Thought: A More Comoprehensive Introduction, Tong
represents Freud’s theory on the psychosexual stage development encountered by
children. Psychosexual theory examines the progress of someone’s libido
development. It proposes to see whether or not someone has a healthy psychology. Psychosexual stage is started at very early age since the child has just born. Each
stage focuses on one of the body parts to be a pleasure zone. During the first year, the pleasure zone of a child is found around her mouth.
It is defined as an oral stage. “As we suck our mother’s breast in order to be fed,
our sexuality libido is activated Bressler, 1999:151. Not only when a child is sucking her mother breast but also when she is sucking her thumb and kissing. It
stimulates the ability of a child to swallow, chew and bite. The first person who intertwines the attachment with the child is the mother because she is the one who
breast feeds the child. For the first year, the child can only make an attachment with the primary care taker. In that time, the child portrays their mother as their first love
object. It happens in both girls and boys development. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
Clara Thompson completes the previous theory in her book titled Psychoanalysis: Evolution and Development that
“Thus the oral stage is organically determined but not primarily because of its pleasure” 2003: 35. She does agree
with Freud’s statement that the infants contact the world through her mother in terms of mouth. But there is another supporting factor that could affect the child’s
personality. The experience of being breast fed is depending on cultures variations. The frequency of time is one of the factors that gives certain pleasure for the child.
Some mothers feed their children customarily and some feed theirs only when they cry. So it can be concluded that the focus in oral stage is when the child is having
her first pleasure and also the basis of their nursing habits. “Thus although there is
an organic base for the oral stage, its effect on the personality of the child is undoubtedly greatly influenced by the cultural attitude towards it.
According to Carducci, in each stage of psychosexual development, it is very possible for regression and fixation to happen.
“Fixation is believed to occur on account of two reasons: over gratification and under
gratification” Carducci, 2009:92. This is a barrier of a child when she is too much enjoying the phase or
the other way around. They cannot completely pass the stage. If they are over gratified, they will remain in the stage and enjoys her pleasure zone. While if they
are under gratified, they will spend their energy trying to find their pleasure zone. So every stage has to be successfully passed in the right amount of time and quality.
In oral stage, if the child could perfectly passes the stage, she’d have her satisfaction
from the primary place of pleasure which is mouth. The child is also able to create a strong attachment with her mother because she is the one who gives the pleasure
in this stage. If her needs are fulfilled adequately, as the result, the feeling of trust, comfortableness will be occurred in
the child’s personality. Oppositely, in the condition that she fails in the stage, the oedipal fixation will occur.
“Fixating at this later part of the oral stage produces what is known as an oral aggressive or oral
sadistic personality” Carducci, 1999:93. The habits that are possibly occurred is when the child copes with problems associated with oral area like yelling or
screaming. It includes over eating disorder, biting nails and other incorporative manners.
The next stage is called anal stage. “The primary erogenous zone begins to
shift from the oral region to the anal region” Carducci, 1999: 93. It signifies the pleasure zone of a child moves from the area of mouth to the area of sexual organs.
An example that stimulates child’s personality in this stage is when the mother trains her toilet training. Her muscles around genital are trained to urinate and
defecate. The moves that stimulate the anal region can get the child satisfied. The satisfaction she gets here means she is satisfied that she finds her pleasure. Carducci
quotes Freud’s theory that “the principal source of pleasure associated with the anal stage is the reduction of tension that accompanies reducing bodily tension by
urinating and defecating” 1999:93. The act of urinating and defecating are likely similar to remove the discomfort in child’s body and giving the feeling of relieve.
According to Thompson, this stage also discusses the wish of the child. The act of urination and defecation are daily routine that one must do. In anal stage, a child
has already considered what they wish to do. They wish to urinate and defecate like normal people. And the parents compromise the same wish for the child to do. So
the struggle of the parents to make it true is also constructing the child’s psychology. Not only the form of training itself but the method used by the parents.
The ways the parents teach the child affect her personality traits when she grows up.
During this stage, the anus becomes an erotogenic zone, for children become sadistic, expelling and destroying through defecation as a means of
expressing both their anger and their excitement upon discovering their independence from their mothers Bressler, 1999: 151.
In the condition when the child is trained in the proper time, it creates the independence and tidiness in child’s personality. While the child could have
difficulty in this stage when she holds the fesses. It obtains some implications for the
child’s future. The child may challenge the training with anger and develop her aggression personality.
“The anal sadistic personality is characterized by the tendency to deal with stress in an explosive and unexpected manner, such as getting
angry over th e slightest disturbance” Carducci, 1999:94.
Robert Bocock says that “in the oral and anal phases, up to two or three years of age, children experience similar pleasures and pain whether they are boys
or girls” 2002:47. Starting when both boys and girls feel the pleasure and pain from being breastfed, taken care of by mother and trained to release the emotion
through urinate and defecate. They also experience about the social control in the first two stages. They have a glimpse of environment that is contrary with their
natural desire. After successfully passing the anal stage, the child moves to the next stage
called the phallic stage. This stage happens when the children discover their genitals PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
as a source of pleasure. Boys become more concern to their penises and girls are interested in the erotic pleasure from clitoris.
According to Carducci, “during phallic stage, the child expresses the intense emotional affection for the opposite
sex parent while viewing the same sex parent as a source of comp etition” 1999:95.
In the previous stage, mother has the role to maximize the children’s pleasure but in this phase, both parents hold the same important role for children to distribute
their affection. They are awakened by the difference they have when they look at their different sex parents and notice the genital difference between them both.
As they grow up, they compare their bodies with the parents and start to touch their genitals to search what they have enough and lack of. The act of touching
the genital in anal stage may lead to the fantasy and the appearance of Oedipus complex.
Oedipus complex is “a sexual desire that a child feels toward the parent of the opposite sex along with jealous feelings toward the parent of the same sex”
www.Merriam-Webster.com. The first love of both girls and boys are the same which is the mother, but in this stage, they have to shift their love to the different
sex parent to complete their sexual development. Boys could move his love to his father because of his anxiety of being castrated. At the first time he invests a hatred
feeling towards his father. He hates him because when he see his mother does not have penis, he speculates that his father has cut the mother’s penis. But then the
feeling of hatred turns into identification because he is afraid of having their penis cut too. As a result, the boys shift his love to his father and adopts the masculine
identity. It is the identity that is associated with masculinity. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
However, this complexity of shifting love also has to be done in a sexual development for girls. In this stage, libidinal or sexual development is always
associated with the opposite sex parent. Meanwhile, the relationship with the same sex parents is relatively argumentative. In the earlier stages, the libidinal or sexual
for boys and girls are the same. As it has been said before, their first love is placed in the mother. But after this stage, girls have a task to move their love to the different
sex parent. It purposes to make them aware and able to identify the different sex partner. It has to be done properly so the sexual development will be constructed
normally. Normal in this term means heterosexual. But the most important thing is the process of shifting itself. Shifting from clitoris to vagina and from mother to
father. Based on Robert Bocock, the term for the girls is not Oedipus complex but called feminine Oedipus complex instead.
Freud rejected the use of the term Electra complex, introduced by Jung, for these feelings of love towards the father and hatred towards the mother
figure by the feminine part of both sons and daughters. Freud thought the notion of the ‘feminine Oedipus complex’ was sufficient” Bocock, 2002:
51.
Feminine Oedipus complex has the same definition with the Oedipus complex that happens to the boys. But the process of shifting the love from her
mom to the father is rather complicated. The transition of love appears at the time when they realize that they do not have penis. When the girls see the penis, they do
not have the same feeling as boys’. They are not afraid to be castrated because they do not have penis to be cut. Instead of feeling afraid, they see the penis as a source
of power for the male figure. They feel jealous when they see what penis can give to the boys. In the society. Penis is seen as a symbol of power that means boys can
have more priority in their life. They get more prerogative rights than the girls do. For example boys are allowed and not seen to be breaking the rules when they are
wild, aggressive, playing with mud and dirty. While girls are expected to be clean, domestic and unaggressive. A metaphor example is made by Sacco to picture the
prerogative rights for the boys. “Boys possessed a penis and could stand when they
had to pee. They could do their business quickly and be done with it. Unfairly, girls had to squat or sit. They had to invest more time and effort. 2012:7. That feeling
in girls arises her yearning for having a penis. Freud names this enviousness toward the boys’ genital as penis envy. Basically, penis is just the symbolic expression
from girls to have the same rights and priorities as boys do. Normally, as a result of penis envy, the girls feel the lack of power against
the boys. She does not satisfy with her clitoris and tries to find another gratification. According to Freud, in the female love-shifting complexity, they will move their
loves to the male figure or father in order to fulfill her lack and her infe riority. “In
Freud’s view, then, the girl turns away from her mother in order to acquire a penis; and by turning to the father enters the positive Oedipus phase Burke, 1998:126.
Therefore, if they have moved their loves to the father they are able to identify the different sex partner. If they could identify the different sex partner then they could
also move their primary pleasure area from clitoris to vagina. It means from the area of masculine to the feminine. They leave their masculine side and keep the
feminine side. They become the girl expected by the society. For girls’ development, masculine is characterized by the separation of the
daughter from her mother and the feminine is characterized by the attachment of the daughter to her mother.
“Feminine experience is presented as characterized by weakness, confusion, self-
doubt, uncertain judgments” Madsen, 2000: 101. On the opposite, masculine is associated with men’s role behavior and attributes. For
examples are strong, assertive, independent, ambition and etc. In this stage, if the child can successfully pass it, she will be a heterosexual
person because she can identify the different sex partner. And then, she can move to the next stage which is latent stage. Otherwise, if she grows up differently or
unable to move the love, there will be fixation called sexual dysfunction that affects her sexual identity. It is the time when sexual desire disorder occurred in herself.
The fixation is specifically explained in the next part of the theory. The theory is called as female sexuality theory by Freud.
Nevertheless, the explanation above is related with Chodorow’s testimonial.
There is still possibility when a child has certain condition that cannot successfully transfers the love.
Whether a girl develops into a heterosexual woman or not, she will probably find her strongest emotional connections with other women. Thus, the pre
oedipal mother-daugther relationship provides a reference point for female friendship and lesbian relationship Tong, 2000:144.
She grows an attachment with another female figure that she is close to. It can give a result whether she can balance her feeling in her attachment or not. If she could,
she will be heterosexual and if she cannot she will have homosexual tendency grown in her identity.
According to Ruitenbeek, the development in girls is much more complicated compare to the boys. The erotogenic zone or the sensitive part of the
body for boys remain in the area of penis. On the other side, girls renounces from clitoris to the area of vagina. “The sexual life of the women is regularly split up into
two phases. The first of which is of masculine character while only the second one is specifically feminine” Ruitenbeek, 1996:91. It recounts the clitoris with its
masculine character because it actives like a penis. While vagina is associated with feminine characteristics because of its passiveness and its need of the help of the
penis. And for the matter of child’s love, boys incline to put his love to his mother until he can replace it with the girl he marries to. But for girls, her first love to the
mother is exchanged to the father. Ruitenbeek analyzes two observations from Freud in seeing Female
sexuality. “First, analysis has shown that where the attachment to the father was peculiarly strong it had been preceded by a phase of equally strong and passionate
attachment exclusively to the mother” Ruitenbeek, 1996:89. It means that in the condition when a girl could shift her love to her father it signs that there is a strong
love before that she has for her mother. Therefore her love to both parents, father and mother are equally the same. And the second is “the duration of this attachment
to the mother had been greatly underestimated. In a number of cases it persisted well into the fourth and, in one, into the fifth year, so that it comprised by far the
longer period of the early sexual efflorescence. Indeed, one had to give due weight to the possibility that many a woman may remain arrested at the original mother-
attachment and never properly achieve the changing-over to men Ruitenbeek, PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
1996:89. The second possibility implies that sometimes the long period of time when a child put her love to her mother is being ignored and forgotten. While there
is supposed to be a time when their attachment has to be ended and shifted. The consequence if it is underestimated, the girls is stuck in the zone of mother-love
attachment and cannot intertwine her attachment to the different sex partner. As it has been explained before, if a daughter gives up her masculinity and
prefer to lay on her femininity, then it means she completely passes the phallic stage. After passing the phallic stage she can move to the next one. She is coming
the next stage called latent stage. It is called as latent because there are not many changes in this stage. This is the
time when child’s ego and superego is developed. The child starts to learn reading, drawing and etc. in school. Her sexual
development is not disappear but postponed for certain time. She experiences it until finally she reaches puberty. In the puberty time she transfers into genital stage.
This is the top of human development. It continuous until the end of someone’s life.
Psychoanalytic believes that the problems around gender is rooted from their infantile experience. The reason is because from that moment, a psyche of
someone starts to be determined, remembered and practiced until they grow up. Those infantile experience has to be observed. The observation could help in
showing the transformation of that person, how they deal and deny with the stage passed and the reciprocity with others. However, to know whether or not the child
approach the end of the journey of sexual identity is signed when they meet these criteria: “masculinity and femininity are represented in the narrative in terms of the
experience of and attitudes towards, solitude, isolation and death” Madsen, 2000: PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
116.
3. Theory of Female Sexuality
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