Notes on the status of death in the Freudian conception of sexuality

Abstract

In his first etiological theory of neuroses, Freud proposed that the sexual trauma suffered by the child would only have consequences in the future, when the individual would have become a sexual being; the turning point would be precisely puberty, period in which the sexuality become a reality to the human organism. It is known that Freud abandoned at least in part this theory, as he conceptualised an infantile sexuality whose organisation is not based upon the reproductive function. For some readers, this would imply a conception of sexuality eminently separate of the field of life and reproduction of the species. Moreover, there would hence be an apparentreduction, if not the disappearing of the importance of puberty within Freudian theory. This is not, however, what one finds in the Freudian texts themselves: puberty appears constantly, not only in the last of the Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), but also in several other moments of the Freudian corpus, making presence in his entire theoretical production. This article’s objective was to investigate the theoretical position of puberty within Freudian theory of sexuality. Far from losing its role, it will appear as a privileged case to revaluate this theory: with her, the ideas of double temporality of human sexuality, of a natural norm and of the reproductive function are foregrounded. Thus, it is the biological (or naturalistic) dimension of Freudian theory that is brought to the foreground by the notion of puberty.