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This investigation is based on the supposition that in the first year of life there is an early genitality prevalent together with a genital object-cathexis. This early genitality, as expressed in the masturbation of the nursing period, recedes into the background during the oral and anal-sadistic phases and comes to the fore again in the phallic phase.
It is emphasized that the object of this primary post-natal genitality is the same for both sexes, namely, the mother, and that therefore the boy has as his first genital object an object of the opposite sex, whilst the girl has an object of the same sex. The girl, therefore, has in her development to take a decisive step, namely, to turn away from the mother to the father. Therefore the line of development of the two sexes is different from the very beginning, and it is not justifiable to speak of an analogous development of boy and girl during the first phases of life. It is assumed that, although the attitude of the small girl is aggressive and clitoris masturbation is prevalent, there is primarily a libido-cathexis of the vagina, so that the genitality of the two sexes is differentiated from birth onwards.
The fact that the mother is so important during the pregenital phases in the first years of life has been acknowledged by psycho-analysis. But it has not been considered enough that there is an important difference