FETISHISM, TRANSGENDERISM AND THE CONCEPT OF ‘CASTRATION’

This paper has three topics. The first concerns some features of the treatment of a boy with a hair and fur fetish. The second concerns the concepts ‘phallic’ and ‘castrated’ employed by Freud. The third concerns phantasies of transsexual events according to which boys can turn into girls, and vice versa. To begin with, the author describes several themes and some variations on them that emerged during the psychotherapy of Sam, an 11-year-old boy. This clinical material may be understood in terms of the influence of a specific sort of intrusive and oppressive object. Such an object exerts its influence through super-ego qualities, projected and re-introjected in sense perception, and the author suggests that it shares its influence with features of a fetish. Next, the author selects from these themes and variations Sam's dreams and daydreams about a girl with a penis. The author discusses some claims that Freud made about children imagining each other to be ‘phallic’ or ‘castrated’. The author reconsiders Sam's dreams and Freud's claims, by distinguishing two kinds of castration phantasy. Finally, the discussion is extended to include descriptions of some patients who experience transgender identity. In explaining fetishism, Freud's account implies that a child can imagine ‘castration’ could turn a boy into a girl. Like fetishism, transgenderism also involves phantasies of transsexual events, of which castration is one kind.