Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 2.djvu/35

 THE CASTRATION COMPLEX 191

quantity of libido set free by the withdrawal of the nipple, which remains after the displacement of its other part to the genitals as a contribution of oral-papillary erotism to the CEdipus complex, and, in another combination of positive and negative factors, to the castration complex. Real compensation and gratification is easily obtained for this feeling and its correlated impulses.

Mankind is divided into two large groups according to the nature of these compensations. The first group forms an "association rather with the colour and form of the missing organ, and finds its consolation and gratification in smoking. The second group forms an association rather with the sensation of taste of the mother's milk and demands its repetition, which it obtains by eating sweet things.

The sticking movement which these two conditions repeat in their oral gratification becomes, finally, the almost exclusive grati- fication in tobacco chewers. That the nicotine only plays a secon- dary part is shown by the use of chewing gum. ^ Sweet eaters are not as a rale smokers. It cannot be chance that smokers are mostly found amongst the sex that has the least cause to displace its feeling of loss of an organ on to the genitals.

The mouth is supplied with a number of accessories the mani- fest object of which is to replace the parts that have been lost. The common derivation of the feeling of loss in the mouth and in the genitals from the withdrawal of the mother's nipple also explains an obscure symbolic association, namely, that of tooth- drawing and masturbation. The tooth extracting ecphoriates the old complex of sensations associated with the withdrawal of the nipple from the mouth. The same complex in also ecphoriated in masturbation. The castration occurs as a direct consequence of masturbation, really as a part of it.

To sum up: The feeling of the loss of an organ from the mouth in part remains, and finds real local gratification; sufficient motives exist for its partial displacement downwards.

The second of the two questions which stood in the way of our hypothesis is thereby settled. The first remains to be ans- wered. How is it that there does not exist in men a counterpart of the castration complex that has for its content the loss of

1 Of course these habits are only mentioned here with reference to their oral-erotic derivation: their analysis is not yet exhausted, and even the oral- erotic part has other Imagines than the nipple.

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