Page:Fielding - Sex and the Love Life.pdf/45

 Our present state of society has been psychologically interpreted as predominately narcissistic. That is, it is still dominated by under-developed, ego-centric impulses emanating from the unconscious background. This accounts for the childish irrational tendencies of social groups, crowds, and in their most primitive states—mobs.

The Prepubescent Period. Infantile sexuality is quite devoid of centralization and specific organization. It is widely diffused over all parts of the body. As the child approaches puberty, however, the erogenous zones tend to concentrate to the region of the reproductive organs. Nor are the psychic and social expressions of sexual feeling absent in the prepubescent period. Choice in the matter of affections, jealousy, a leaning toward one of the sexes, and a preference for the parent, or other near relative, of the opposite sex—as so often observed—are widely manifested by very young children.

Dr. Wilhelm Stekel has emphasized the fallacy of the belief that persons fall in love only after puberty. The basic structure of the love-life is already set by that time. The normal person may fall in love even during childhood—usually only in a passive manner, but sometimes intensively. The choice of the love-object, however, is apt to remain independent of sex up to the time of puberty.

The sexual life of the child at the sixth or eighth year is so well established that a pause in the sexual development is often noticeable at this period, producing a comparatively latent stage until puberty. This is attributable to the partial breaking away from the narcissistic goal, and to the larger social world that the child has begun to move in about this period.

Even under these circumstances, especially when any factor