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The nuclear conflicts of all sexual perverts derive from the earliest period of life forcing them into sexual behaviour, which not only affords orgastic release but ensures ego survival. The pre-oedipal period, especially the years between 1½ to 3, is crucial to the genesis of sexual perversion. In this period a pre-oedipal fixation occurs and is primary. A regression may occur to this early fixation period under conditions of stress (Socarides, 1967); (1968a), (1968b).
The sexual pervert, including the transsexual, has been unable to pass successfully through the symbiotic and separation-individuation phases of early childhood (Jacobson, 1964); (Mahler, 1965), (1967); (Mahler & Gosliner, 1955); (Mahler & Furer, 1966) and this creates the original anxiety from which sexual perversions arise. The source of the pervert's original anxiety emanates from this pre-oedipal period. Sexual perversion serves the repression of a pivotal nuclear complex: the urge to regress to a pre-oedipal fixation in which there is a desire for and dread of merging with the mother in order to reinstate the primitive mother-child unity. There is in Victor-Valerie an unrelenting wish to merge with the mother, to die, and to be rejoined with her.