Utilizing the twenty-four-hour-a-day availability of the mother, longitudinal observations are presented of the genital self-stimulation of a normal boy during the first year from its inception exactly at eight months. The degree of eroticity of this behavior is discussed, and its primary exploratory aspect, important for discovery of a body part and delineation of the body self, is emphasized. Factors responsible for the genesis of genital self-stimulation are enumerated, and the need for a refinement of the concepts autoerotic and autoerotism is raised.