I first read Freud directly in the spring of Freshman year at USC, when "Civilization and its Discontents" was assigned in a political science class of mine. That text also talked a lot about repressed desires, but more in the context of how it holds society together: that because we all have a love drive for relationships outside marriage, we need these extra societal relationships and communal activities to channel our energy into.
It was really great to see in the essay something that focused on the home and child development, because that's the Freud we've all heard about before: children desiring their parents then being forced to find different outlets. I think there's much truth to his explanation of the sublimation and rechanneling of desires to more "socially appropriate" expressions, and I think alot of the hooplah over the thumb-sucking being sexual is being misconstrued. He talks about oral fixation and the pleasure that brings to developing beings-- just because that makes you personally think of fellation doesn't mean he's a perv! It's very intriguing to think that as infants we don't understand the barriers that separate us from the world we experience, what is part of us and what is not-- that our mother's breast is not part of us, that when we burn our hand on the stove we learn to separate ourselves from those outside things that cause us pain, and move toward pleasure.
I feel that personally, having been raised by a single mother, I had a weird oedipal complex type issue where I was very jealous when she remarried during my childhood, because I was somehow "not enough" for her, and put myself in competition for her affection with my stepfather! I'm not sure if Freud has a sexual explanation in the female case as well, but this definitely reminds me of that movie clip Halberstam showed in class about the Mama's Boy-- type movies, and is more about pleasure and affection in a positive psychological way than in the incestuous relationship way some students are painting it to be.... Pleasure doesn't equal sex doesn't equal bad... there are many levels and channels other than this one interpretation!
-America Hernandez
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