# 003 - General Statements Applicable to All Perversions

An episode of [Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1877180577), 10 Feb 2026, 5:41.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/69911931/threecontributionstothetheoryofsex_03_freud_64kb.mp3

In this thought-provoking work, Freud delves into three pivotal aspects of human sexuality. First, he explores sexual perversions or aberrations, asserting that the tendency towards perversions is an inherent and universal part of the human sexual instinct, with roots traceable to childhood. Next, he addresses The Infantile Sexuality, presenting the idea that children experience sexual urges, which gradually evolve into adult sexuality through psychosexual development. Freud identifies various manifestations of infantile sexual emotions, such as thumb-sucking, autoeroticism, and sibling rivalry. Lastly, in The Transformations of Puberty, he distinguishes between the fore-pleasures of childhood and the end-pleasure of sexual intercourse, illustrating how adolescence shapes sexual identity under the influence of puberty. Originally published in 1905, Freud expanded this work over the years, culminating in this final edition in 1920, which offers deep insights into the complexities of human sexuality. (Summary by Phil Chenevert and Wikipedia) This episode includes AI-generated content.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Chapter three of Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex.
[0:05] Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. While LibriVox recordings are in
[0:08] Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
[0:12] Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. According to Kathleen, Three Contributions to
[0:17] Speaker 1: the Theory of Sex by Siegmund Freud, translated by Abraham
[0:20] Speaker 1: Arden Brill eighteen seventy four to nineteen forty eight. Section
[0:25] Speaker 1: three General statements applicable to all perversions, variation, and disease.
[0:31] Speaker 1: The physicians who had first studied the perversions in pronounced
[0:35] Speaker 1: cases and under peculiar conditions were naturally inclined to attribute
[0:40] Speaker 1: to them the character of a morbid or degenerative sign
[0:44] Speaker 1: similar to the inversions. This view, however, is easier to
[0:49] Speaker 1: refute in this than in the former case. Everyday experience
[0:53] Speaker 1: has shown that most of these transgressions, at least the
[0:57] Speaker 1: milder ones, are seldom wanting as components in the sexual
[1:01] Speaker 1: life of normals who look upon them as upon other intimacies.
[1:06] Speaker 1: Wherever the conditions are favorable, such a perversion may for
[1:10] Speaker 1: a long time be substituted by a normal person for
[1:14] Speaker 1: the normal sexual aim, or it may be placed near it,
[1:19] Speaker 1: and no normal person does the normal sexual aim lack
[1:22] Speaker 1: some designable perverse element. And this universality suffices in itself
[1:28] Speaker 1: to prove the inexpediency of an approprious application of the
[1:33] Speaker 1: name perversion. In the realm of the sexual life, one
[1:38] Speaker 1: is sure to meet with exceptional difficulties which are at
[1:42] Speaker 1: present really unsolvable if one wishes to draw a sharp
[1:46] Speaker 1: line between the mere variations within physiological limits and morbid symptoms. Nevertheless,
[1:54] Speaker 1: the quality of the new sexual aim in some of
[1:58] Speaker 1: these perversions is such as to require special notice. Some
[2:04] Speaker 1: of the perversions are in content so distant from the
[2:08] Speaker 1: normal that we cannot help calling them morbid, especially those
[2:12] Speaker 1: in which the sexual impulse, in overcoming the resistances shame, loathing, fear,
[2:19] Speaker 1: and pain, has brought about surprising results licking of feces
[2:23] Speaker 1: and violation of cadavers. Yet, even in these cases, when
[2:28] Speaker 1: not not to feel certain of regularly finding among the
[2:32] Speaker 1: perpetrators persons of pronounced abnormalities or insane minds, we cannot
[2:39] Speaker 1: lose sight of the fact that persons who otherwise behave
[2:42] Speaker 1: normally are recorded as sick in the realm of the
[2:44] Speaker 1: sexual life, where they are dominated by the most unbridled
[2:48] Speaker 1: of all impulses. On the other hand, a manifest abnormality
[2:54] Speaker 1: in any other relation in life generally shows an undercurrent
[2:59] Speaker 1: of abnes no sexual behavior. In the majority of cases,
[3:03] Speaker 1: we are able to find the morbid character of the
[3:05] Speaker 1: perversion not in the content of the new sexual aim,
[3:09] Speaker 1: but in its relation to the normal. It is morbid
[3:12] Speaker 1: if the perversion does not appear beside the normal sexual
[3:16] Speaker 1: aim and sexual object, where favorable circumstances promoted and unfavorable
[3:22] Speaker 1: impede the normal, or if it has under all circumstances
[3:26] Speaker 1: repressed and supplanted the normal. The exclusiveness and fixation of
[3:34] Speaker 1: the perversion justifies us in considering it a morbid symptom
[3:39] Speaker 1: the psychic participation in the perversions. Perhaps it is precisely
[3:44] Speaker 1: in the most abominable perversions that we must recognize the
[3:48] Speaker 1: most prolific psychic participation for the transformation of the sexual impulse.
[3:54] Speaker 1: In these cases, a piece of psychic work has been
[3:57] Speaker 1: accomplished in which, in spite of its gruesome scxes, says
[4:00] Speaker 1: the value of an idealization of the impulse cannot be disputed.
[4:06] Speaker 1: The omnipotence of love nowhere perhaps shows itself stronger than
[4:10] Speaker 1: in this one of her aberrations. The highest and the
[4:14] Speaker 1: lowest everywhere in sexuality hang most intimately together, from heaven
[4:20] Speaker 1: through the world to hell. Two results. In the study
[4:24] Speaker 1: of perversions, we have gained an insight into the fact
[4:27] Speaker 1: that the sexual impulse has to struggle against certain psychic forces, resistances,
[4:33] Speaker 1: among which shame and loathing are most prominent. We may
[4:37] Speaker 1: presume that these forces are employed to confine the impulse
[4:40] Speaker 1: within the accepted normal limits, and if they have become
[4:44] Speaker 1: developed in the individual before the sexual impulse has attained
[4:48] Speaker 1: its full strength, it is really they which have directed
[4:51] Speaker 1: it in the course of development. We have furthermore remarked
[4:56] Speaker 1: that some of the examined perversions can be comprehended only
[5:00] Speaker 1: by assuming the union of many motives. If they are
[5:03] Speaker 1: amenable to analysis disintegration, they must be of a composite nature.
[5:10] Speaker 1: This may give us a hint that the sexual impulse
[5:12] Speaker 1: itself may not be something simple, that it may, on
[5:16] Speaker 1: the contrary, be composed of many components which detach themselves
[5:20] Speaker 1: to form perversions. Our clinical observation thus calls our attention
[5:25] Speaker 1: to fusions which have lost their expression in the uniform
[5:29] Speaker 1: normal behavior, and of general statements applicable to all perversions.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.