In the western countries more and more men and women find the sexual act a source of concern instead of pleasure: The exercise of an instinctual function has progressively become a serious and lacerating existential problem for a growing number of individuals.
The situation is absolutely worrying if we refer to the post-adolescent and juvenile population.
The use of "love pharmaceuticals", which are always more widely spread even within young males, is an evident indication.
A primary vital function is being transformed, especially in the West, into a source of neurosis. Man, as if he were Dr. Strangelove, has begun to interfere with the delicate reproductive mechanisms. In the last 40 years, following the patent and the sale of the first contraceptive pill, patented by Pincus in 1960, women have introduced into their psychobiological structure a profound variant: the (temporary) abolition of their reproductive capability.
It is obvious that contraceptive methods have been used since the ancient times, but it is only the pill (as well as, obviously, radical surgical methods) which manages to determine a psycho-endocrine alteration of the female reproductive system.
In the United States, a contraceptive which determines only four menstruations a year, has even been approved!
It is opportune, for a propaedeutic reason, to reassume Freud's opinions regarding the organisation of the sexuality.
Then, I will expose those which I consider to be the principal psychodynamic causes which determine the onset of impotence and frigidity.
First and foremost I would like to put into evidence a point of view, I would say, against the tide with regard to the contemporary psychoanalytic literature .
The idea comes from a sharp phrase of Freud that he places at the beginning of his Third Essay On The Theory Of Sexuality: "Only the exact convergence of the two urges directed towards the sexual object and the sexual aim, or in other terms, the affectionate drive and the sensual one, assures a normal sexual life". 1
Freud specifies that in males, upon reaching the puberal maturation, the new sexual aim becomes the emission of sexual products. The previous aim, in other words, the attainment of pleasure, which has accompanied all the previous phases of the development of the libido organisation, is not to him unknown; on the contrary, the climax of pleasure is connected to this final act of the sexual process. Only that now "... the sexual instinct is subordinated to the reproductive function becoming, so to speak, altruistic''.2
These are affirmations to which I would like to call the attention of my colleagues as, far too often, the emphasis has been placed on the absolute autonomy of the sexual drive from the sentiment.
Regarding this, Freud, with the efficient metaphors which he often uses, clarifies: "It is like drilling through a tunnel from both ends" intending that the fusion of sentiment and sexual drive facilitate the act and strengthen it in synergy.
As my colleague Gioia Marzi has underlined many times during precious scientific discussions, "the fundamental problem of the human gender is the onset of the menstruation in place of the oestrus cycle".
Doctor Marzi reminds us how the discovery of the uterine war and the description that Fanti, Peluffo and other micropsychoanalysts, as well as many other sources of information about foetal life 3, today allows us to anticipate, at this stage, a sort of Proto-Oedipus which each individual lives in the uterus as a direct participation towards the affective-representational life of the organism as host-mother-itself.
The foetus's condition of particular vulnerability implies that the hard law of the Oedipus (also through the Images that the host organism preserves and transmits of it) constitutes a very important condition of imprinting, the same as other homeostatic variations of the mother can, the traumas and the illnesses (metabolic, immune or pre-eclampsia, etc.) 4
But, G. Marzi underlines again, our species also has the characteristic of availability for mating during pregnancy since the sexual desire is not strictly correlated to the fertile phases.
"With the loss of the oestrus cycle, in fact, when the females of our species mate, the complex of physiological variations during the mating is registered by the foetus: rhythmicity of the movements, increase of cardiac frequency, increase of arterial pressure and muscular hypertone of the uterus". 5
On the other hand, I would like to underline the fact that human beings do not know if the sexual act , which takes place, is fecundating or not and this fact determines two fundamental consequences: the presence of a sexual activity free from the project of eternalising the genome, in other terms, a sexuality which has as its aim the pleasure deriving from the discharge of the libido congestion; and above all, an urge towards an eternalisation lacking in certainties, a factor that makes, especially in the Male, the drive for mastery of the object, dramatically powerful.
Sexual Dissatisfaction: the Common Psychodynamic Roots
A basilar concept from which we need to start is that impotence is a defence mechanism deployed against sexual activity which is perceived as dangerous. The part of the Ego, which exercises this inhibiting action of the function, is certainly unconscious: it is the part in which the castration anguish dominates in males, while in women, it is the penis envy and the desire of castration of the male phallus. In the male, the danger fantastically feared is castration: the vagina is lived as a weapon which can damage the integrity of the phallus (vagina dentata).
We must remember that the nuclear complex of the infantile sexuality is the Oedipus complex: defined by myself as the "royal catalyst" of the vital processes of organisation 6 : Oedipus is our saving drama, a container of lacerating pains and exalting joys, excitements from empyrean and ancestral terrors, it is the catalyst of the vital attempts of the psychism. It is the Archimedes's lever of the life drive, which surges from the stasis of death and subjects human beings to the vital project of the eternalisation of the genome. However, Oedipus is an incestuous attachment: in a way that no other sexual attachment will ever be so desirable as that of the mother (or the father), in a more profound level, every sexual attachment must be prohibited. Because every subject represents the mother (or the father). Therefore, the primary root of every form of sexual impotence or anorgasmic is the incestuous fixation. We will understand, thus, how the stigmas of resemblance of the actual object (partner) with the primary one, play a fundamental role.
• Male Impotence
Many men are impotent with a woman or with a particular type of woman and not with others: often such subjects manage to isolate the sexuality from the sentiment and they are paradoxically impotent only with the women they love (the mother). These are the cases in which some men, in order to have an erection, are compelled to introduce the ritual of payment for the sexual performance (often disguised as a game): "This woman is a professional prostitute, therefore, there is no possibility that she can be my mother!".
A particular form of impotence is that known as ejaculatio praecox. There are several grades of seriousness of the problem: from a very brief duration of the act up to the systematic ejaculation ante portas, which is much more serious. Regarding this, there can be three typical psychodynamic determinants:
1 - the predominance of an orientation of the female type that evidences itself, above all, in the serious cases of erection problems: the peak of the voluptuous sensations is felt by the subject at the root of the penis or at the perineum (or, even more precisely, in the "feminine" zone of the prostatic urethra tract - a probable anatomic-functional prefiguration that makes the resolution of the case extremely difficult) more than in the glans penis or in the global perception of the penis.
It would be useful to establish in similar cases, with an accurate differential diagnosis, if it is the case of a bisexuality constitutionally prefigured (with few or no possibilities of intervention) or of a regressive reaction of a psychogenic inhibition of the phallic sexual activity.
2 - A sadistic character structure, sometimes camouflaged by an ostentatious passiveness of the compulsive kind, whose real unconscious aim is that to profane, hurt and harm the woman (mother).
3 - A notable urethral fixation, the reason for which the semen is lived as urine (liquid that is unconsciously perceived as dangerously ulcerating) and the sexual act as a substitute to the urination.
Another form of male impotence is that of the retarded ejaculation often passed off by the subjects as a form of marked virility (!).
It would be worth remembering that the aim of the sexual act is the orgasm which takes place in the vagina: it is the lack of this which determines the impotence and not the level or the duration of the erection.
In these cases the dynamic in act is maintained by notable nuclei of anal fixation: the sperm is treated as the anal-retentive child treated his faeces. A dynamic that expresses notable amounts of retained aggressiveness and a profound affective ambivalence for the Object.
• Frigidity and Anorgasmia in the Female
Venus Frigida
Peter Paul Rubens
Oil on canvas 142 x 184 cm
We must remember, above all, how the psychosexual development of the female is more winding and complex than that of the male. Regarding this I have coined a simple formula: "The male goes back to where he was, the female faces the unknown": being as, normally, the neonatal care is the mother's prerogative, every human being reactivates his or her initial sexuality with a female object. The voluptuous sensations that are experienced during breastfeeding and which will remain as a repetition in the adult kiss are, for both sexes, lived with a female. Even in the case of bottle feeding, in the majority of cases, the baby is covered by the maternal body and "breathes" her pheromones.
While the male with heterosexual orientation remains where he was, in other words, he does not have to detach himself from the gender of the object but simply substitutes the mother with the woman, the female has to manage to detach herself from the primary object, identifying herself with her mother, to orientate her sexual interest towards a man. Not only. The development of the female sexuality is complicated furthermore by the necessity of giving up the genital zone, which was originally invested, the clitoris, for a new zone, the vagina, previously invested with phantasies of mutilation and emasculation.
The strong psychological and affective dependency of females on their father is only the heritage of an attachment, just as strong, towards the mother. Also for the female, the mother was the first love object but, at the end of the psycho-sexual development, I would like to underline, while the male remains where he was, the female must detach herself from the mother and go, first towards the father and then towards other males.
In males the terrible anguish of the castration complex also leaves a certain deep despise for the female who is perceived as an emasculated being in the unconscious (this is the true reason for the objective discrimination towards women, then more or less variously rationalised and systemised into political and religious ideologies).
The female child, on her part, recognises as a fact her emasculation-mutilation (the discovery that the vagina is an organ is, I would say, a liberating and elating analytic experience) and this structures a very deep experience of inferiority in respect to males and contemporarily she fights against this phantasmatic reality which is so painful. From this conflict three possibilities of evolution can derive:
1 - The complete abandoning of the sexuality which leads to the forms of total frigidity.
2 - The obstinate self-affirmation of the threatened masculinity which leads to a clitoral hyper-investment and to the total ignorance of the existence of the vagina (this position often pushes towards an homosexual position).
3 - The accomplishment of the normal and definitive structuring of the sexuality, where the father is chosen as Object, the vagina is discovered as a receptive organ which allows, during the sexual act, (but even more so during pregnancy) a re-appropriation of the Phallus of which the child has been unjustly deprived. Various motivations combine, on a phantasmatic level, in the detachment from the mother: the mother is to blame for not giving the only real genital to the daughter, she did not breastfeed her sufficiently, she forced her to share the maternal love with others and finally, she excited her sexual activity at first and then she prohibited it.
In females the penis envy and the pre-Oedipus attachment to the mother offer more occasions for the development of libido fixations and problems.
Many women, for instance, are anorgasmic for the fear of losing control. In reality, since they have suffered important amounts of fixations at the pre-genital stages, above all the anal fixations, the true fear is that of losing control of the sphincters.
In vaginism, not only is the sexual excitation inhibited, but the woman unconsciously does something active to protect this inhibition and make the sexual act physically impossible.
When symptoms of conversion are associated the vaginism expresses the attempt of the woman to emasculate the male and to keep the penis: in other words, she shows a kind of revenge of the female castration complex.
To conclude, I would like to show the reader how psychoanalysis, especially if conducted in an intensive manner with long sessions, can be decisive by demonstrating the material of a young woman (above all some passages which illustrate the penis envy) who, even if forced into an intensive analysis by a serious form of anorexia (now completely resolved), contemporaneously took back into her hands her own sexual development which was blocked and marked by an extremely deep dissatisfaction up to the point of coming to a completely unblaming and satisfying sexuality.
The material shown has been taken from several sessions, at different periods of the psychoanalytic research. "The first time that I thought about touching a penis I thought I was touching something viscid. I like holding it in my hand: it is like being a man, at this point.
The fanny is a kind of wound: because where there is a mutilation there is always a wound. There is a hole, an empty part, a missing part, torn away. Men have something more, women have something less. They are less important! And this generates an enormous effort. You are woman and you must work so much more: because you have to demonstrate that you are not inferior. It is always a chase.
The Phallus, the Power, the Father. I may have had some sexual drive towards my father... I used to straddle him in bed.
The penis is a sword that they thrust inside you and you die: it is like being knifed. The first time, I bled for two days!: the realisation of my fear! The Phallus is a totally independent organism! The practical demonstration that it was a weapon that wounded. Even here the problem was power... the terrifying impression of seeing this dick dirtied with my blood, it was like branding an animal!
A person who does not have a penis cannot defend oneself: it is a means of aggression. Now I have the possibility of having sex with more aggressiveness... I want to emasculate you: you have something which is mine and therefore I must take it back... in some way, I regain what is mine by fucking. The idea that someone cut it off me and stuck it onto himself: something of mine, torn from me and what's more, used to harm me... I go mad! The reconciliation would only be sexual intercourse... which allows me to regain what's mine and calms my rage!
Put things back in order, into their own place. Detach the dick and put it back in its place. The aggressiveness of a beast, of a ferocious animal! A question of life or death!
The most powerful drive is that of emasculating,
taking revenge and dismembering.
I feel anger, a sense of injustice! I make an enormous effort to keep this beast under control!
Now, I feel a profound sensation of internal change... of energy. There is a loosening of the tension.
I have had the violent image of an erect penis in my mouth, breastfeeding, ingestion of things, nutritional problems... the nipple as if it were a phallus, the idea of being suffocated... "
[Two cats live in my house, one of which is a majestic Chartreux, named Pepe, who behaves as the doorman: he meets the patients at the gate, he greets them and then he lies down to be stroked.
At the beginning of this session the patient made such a strange request that I consented, for pure curiosity. She asked me to let Pepe come into the study and the Big Cat, after having wandered about for a minute in the room, nestled beside her, on the couch, where he remained immobile purring for the two and half hours of the session. Of course, I could have limited myself to saying: "Analyse this desire" but I do not believe that the impact of the experience would have been the same] "... on one hand the dick is an element of disturbance in certain moments... in others it is an element of comfort. And since I have spoken throughout the whole session while someone was playing gooseberry... the dick is an object of comfort. Perhaps today I needed it... that's why I asked you to let Pepe come in... Who can live without a dick?".
"My boss has something that I don't have... [she obviously intends the penis] Maybe my aggressiveness depends on this.
[We both go to the toilet in succession] You were quick!: having a dick is much easier!...
Why don't you ever speak? This makes me feel anger, impotence, frustration! You can help me but you don't! It comes to mind that you have something of mine... I don't know why... I have the sensation of being in your hands. It could be easy for you to manipulate a situation of this kind... [a type of material which alludes the phantasmatic manipulation received from her mother who did not give her what she wanted (the phallus) or she took it back, is evident here] I'm thinking about past moments of enormous difficulty. The silence as power, the penis as power... the silence as a threat. The Phallus, what it represents, in terms of power. And I don't have one... or it was taken away from me... A power that I don't have because it has been taken away from me... the aggressiveness in relation to fear... women pay for the problem of feeling inferior, because they don't have a dick. I've been in a political party for twenty years but I've never spoken! I lack those two and a half centimetres because she stole them from me! [it is evident how the specified measurement betrays her aggressiveness to devalue] I have been amputated!"
Key words
Sexual dissatisfaction
Impotence
Early ejaculation
Frigidity
Lak of orgasm
Summary
The lack of sexual desire is an unconscious defence against the coming-out of sexual-aggressive conflict pressures, which are mainly of the incestuous type. Men show a castration fear, while women show penis envy together with pressure to emasculate the male.
