Eroticism and the Conventional

These days there appears to be a renewed interest in a Freudian conception of sexuality and how it compares to our present day cultural attitude. The libido theory has been critically rejected by Aragno (1997), who calls for a new psychoanalytic paradigm based on linguistic form and structure. Theories of psychosexual development and trauma theory based on the seduction hypothesis have been critically examined in the light of our times and culture. This writer accepts libido theory and within this context proposes to examine an essential component of libido, eroticism.

Moore and Fine (1990) suggest that part of the confusion arises from the fact that Freud used the term “libido” as an instinct—part of the dual instinct theory—as well as designating an energy (cathexis) with which we invest psychic representations. And again, prior to the dual instinct theory, Freud referred to “sexual interests” in a variety of mental and behavioral manifestations related to one another by their common libidinal component. Affectionate attachment to persons and lust both indicated the underlying unity of all libidinal drives, objects, and attachments. To add to the confusion, when we talk about affection and love, we also describe an affect that may be accompanied by other affect states, such as elation, ecstasy, and occasionally pain.

I agree with Ruth Stein (1998), an Israeli analyst, that sexuality needs to have a place in its own right. Though we understand that sexual relations with a partner may have many constituents—such as need for intimacy, eroticism, the love for the partner—eroticism per se may follow different aims. It may be defined as a poignant, enveloping experience of pleasure that differs from both sensory experience and other pleasurable affects and that can be aroused through direct stimulation of the skin (Klein, 1976). This kind of sensuality has the capacity to express a variety of needs by virtue of its intense yield of pleasure. The latter has the power to ex