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Ehrenzweig speculates as follows: when the female of the species rose to an erect position, her genitalia disappeared as an object of immediate voyeuristic gratification for the male. In the resulting 'pan-genital crisis of the voyeur libido' the genital urge degenerated into a Thanatos wish for autotomy by the mouth which was equated with the vanished vagina (vagina dentata). The
wish to be seen by the loved partner exposed one to a considerable danger of arousing the urge to devour and be devoured. According to Melanie Klein, the inherited memory of the primeval oral crimes, which are based on the self-destructive tendencies of Thanatos, had to be transmuted by way of guilt feelings into mental aggression in order to save mankind from extinction.
An alternative method for neutralizing the self-destructive oral castration wish appears in the cultural process of science, which projects the internal compulsion and guilt into the compelling laws of nature that are explored in the scientific quest for knowledge and truth. Knowledge is bought by the scientist at the price of accepting castration. By identifying himself with his oral-sadistic mother, the scientist sublimates her oral aggression into his own scientific curiosity. The first object of this curiosity is the Devouring Mother herself.
Fire symbolizes the wish for passive oral castration. Both the myth of Prometheus and the fall of Adam in Paradise tell of oral self-castration which led to mankind's acquisition of knowledge. The heroic feat (e.g., Prometheus's) consists in willingly submitting to oral aggression. The hero's exhibitionism is an invitation to passive castration. He has no guilt feelings. The scientist, on the other hand, is a voyeur. He has already paid the price and connived in his own castration. These two attitudes, the exhibitionistic self-destructive hero and the already castrated oral sadistic voyeur (scientist), represent two types of homosexual attitudes which serve to overc