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The usual direction of psychic displacement, from an area charged with conflictful emotion, is toward an object or activity of relatively neutral or uncharged emotional value. In this way, the genitalia, in the language of the dynamic unconscious, might be referred to by displacement to an innocuous object or to another less libidinized part. The symbolism, for example, of other parts being equivalent to the phallus, such as the body, nose, arms, etc., is well known, as is displacement of the female genital to such areas as the ear, nostrils, or anus.
In contrast to this type of remote or symbolic representation, however, it has been less alluded to that the genital itself of either sex can be used, in fantasy or act, to express or represent genitality of the opposite sex. That is, bisexuality, the repressed half of which is usually expressed by reference to a distant part or object, can also be and often is expressed at the source itself. It is much akin to the counterphobic attitude. And it is similar to the criminal who feels that the place he is least likely to be looked for is at the scene of the crime itself. Elements of this fantasy of the interchangeability of male to female sexual organ and vice versa are not uncommon. Either organ can be used unconsciously in either sexual function, and careful eliciting of these component functional usages is clinically valuable. It is the purpose of this communication to bring together some brief clinical data illustrative of this duality and thus to bring this observation into sharper focus. The following clinical excerpts are in point.
A male exhibitionist, who in actuality and in fantasy exhibits his penis through a window or from his car, expresses in his analysis a