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April 26, 1977. COMMENTS ON PENIS ENVY AND ORGASM IN WOMEN. K. R. Eissler, M.D.
The currently fashionable view that penis envy is merely a secondary phenomenon produced by the social influences of a patriarchal society was contradicted by Dr. Eissler, who emphasized that penis envy occurs of necessity in all human children regardless of social milieu. The paramount importance for very small children of the world of the body and its appendages and functions makes penis envy a natural and inevitable condition of early life. In psychoanalytic practice one regularly sees, with rare exceptions, the consequences of penis envy in the sexual life, symptomatology, and character structure of adult women.