The Character Traits of Urethral Erotism*

The first psychoanalytic contribution to characterology was Freud's article on the anal character traits, published in 1908,1 and since then psychoanalytic investigation has described various other character types. The discovery that certain traits of character, as they are manifested in the adult life, may become profoundly modified or even actually motivated as the result of sexual excitations experienced by the infant in the region of the anal canal, has probably provoked more marked opposition than any of Freud's theories. The existence of such antagonism demonstrates how difficult it is to understand the unconscious determinants of a character which manifests itself in social contacts almost solely by its conscious psychological reactions. On the basis of analytical experience, however, it seems fairly certain that before the differentiation which takes place at puberty, having as a result the centralization of the libidinous feelings in the genital region, there are various other regions of the body, particularly the anal and urethral zones, which are erogenously sensitive. In fact, concerning the latter, Freud states: “Most of the so-called bladder disturbances of this period are of a sexual nature: whenever the enuresis nocturna does not represent an epileptic attack, it corresponds to a pollution.”2

Although urethral-erotism belongs to the same period of psycho-sexual development as anal-erotism, the detailed character traits relating to the former are far less known, but certain features can be deduced in persons who were formerly urethral erotics and from the analysis of those adult individuals who are still troubled with nocturnal enuresis. In fact, with the exception of the investigations