A Study of the Bisexual Meaning of the Foreskin

The important role played by the foreskin in the development of mental life has been best delineated by Nunberg (1) in his classic work "Circumcision and Problems of Bisexuality" (1947). In that article he describes several patients whose reaction to loss of the foreskin brought clearly into view many of its myriad meanings. The most significant of these meanings, the one around which all else revolved, was its service in fantasy as an indispensable aid in working out bisexual theories, especially those theories surrounding the origin of life, conception, pregnancy, childbirth, and the difference between the sexes. All of these bisexual thories were found to enter essentially into formation of the castration complex, into symptom structure, and into character development.

Referring to the kind of cases in which bisexual meanings of the foreskin can best be studied, Nunberg considers as useful mainly those patients who were circumcised within the period of their conscious memory, preferably from four to six years of age, and those patients who through identification react to current circumcision of a son. My presentation, however, centers upon a different kind of case, a boy who, using the foreskin as the basis for bisexual theories, developed not only a severe castration syndrome but serious symptoms and character disturbances as well, yet who nevertheless was not circumcised. In this case it seemed to be precisely the fact that he retained his foreskin that led to the formation or at least accentuation of his problem.

When I first saw him, Joey was seven years, nine months old. His brother, six, his sister, three, and his father, a successful young consulting engineer, were all said to be unremarkable. His mother, on the other hand, was very remarkable indeed. She was erratic, petulant, unrealistically ambitious, and falsely optimistic or pessimistic by turns. She herself was currently in analysis.