In this unfinished paper, dated January 2, 1938, but probably written at the end of December 1937, Freud describes a little boy, aged between 3 and 4, who is seduced by an older little girl. This seduction produces a strong instinctual demand, which the little boy satisfies through intense masturbatory activity, in the course of which it is not difficult to imagine that the child identifies with the seducing object. In Freud's narrative, the sight of the female genitals poses the problems of castration, of disavowal (Verleugnung) of castration, and of fetishism, principally related to the traumatic factor created by the nanny's threat: castration as the punishment to be carried out by the father. In parallel, we see the development of the sympton containing the recognition (Anerkennung) of the possibility of castration: the anxiety deriving from the fear of being devoured by the father, and the fear of having his little toes touched.

Freud's paper, which I have rapidly summarized here, can be