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Freud (2) states that "symbolism is not peculiar to dreams but is characteristic of unconscious ideation, in particular among the people, and it is to be found in folklore, and in popular myths, legends, linguistic idioms, proverbial wisdom and current jokes, to a more complete extent than in dreams" (p. 351). The dreamer employs symbols to disguise latent thoughts and our knowledge of the marked plasticity of physical material makes it worth while considering whether a symbol, from the viewpoint of psychoanalytic theory and observation, can ever be assumed to be exclusively male or female.
The purpose of this brief communication is to examine the following proposition: Can bisexuality be inherent in any symbol?
In this communication symbolism is considered in its strict sense—a representative of the primary process (Jones, 7). The symbol is more concrete, shorter and more condensed than the ideas it represents. Such representation of affect or thought is primitive both phylogenetically and ontogenetically and depicts a simpler and earlier stage of development. Rank and Sachs (10) conceive of a symbol as "a special kind of indirect representation which is distinguished by certain peculiarities from other allied kinds, such as the simile, the metaphor, the allegory, the allusion and other forms of figurative representation of thought material and it is a substitute, illustrative replacement—expression for something hidden."
Stekel (16) first propounded the generalization of bisexuality in symbolism. "Where, " he asked, "is there a symbol which—provided