Contradicted sexual instinct or homosexuality

Abstract

Freud transmitted to us the notion of a cultural sexual morality which determines what is accepted or not in the field of human sexuality and is subject to each epoch and culture. This shows that a biological instinct does not guide human sexuality, but rather it is determined by the discourse of the time, together with the structural fact that human sexuality is polymorphically perverse since it does not have an instinct to guide it. Such a polymorphism, pointed out by Freud in his famous Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, can be clearly identified from early childhood. Moreover, precisely in the first of these essays, he borrows a lot from the elaborations of the psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing (1840-1902), who wrote his famous Psychopathia sexualis in 1886 as part of his work as a forensic psychiatrist. This text has a particular subtitle, “With Especial Reference to Contrary Sexual Instinct”. This highlights the moralizing nuance that assumes a behavior suitable for sexual desire and labels as pathological everything taking other paths. Its context is the Victorian morality of the late 19th century, against which Freud developed his subversive theses on sexuality.

At present, when the discourse on sexual diversity is commonplace, and there is a political commitment to depathologize it (which is totally consistent with the psychoanalytical theoretical postulates), it may be relevant the translation of an excerpt from this classic by psychiatrist Krafft-Ebing. The aim is to bring readers interested in this topic closer to the contrasts regarding the conception of human sexuality 130 years later. This makes the Freudian approach even more admirable.

Additionally, the reader will find in this issue a dossier with some papers by professors of the Department of Psychoanalysis of the University of Antioquia (Medellín-Colombia) on the current matters raised by the discourse on gender and sexual diversity.