Organizations of the sexual life in which the genital zones have not yet assumed the dominating role we would call the pregenital phase.  So far we have become acquainted with two of them which recall reversions to early animal states.

One of the first of such pregenital sexual organizations is the oral, or if we wish, the cannibalistic.  Here the sexual activity is not yet separated from the taking of nourishment, and the contrasts within the same not yet differentiated.  The object of the one activity is also that of the other, the sexual aim consists in the incorporating into one’s own body of the object, it is the prototype of that which later plays such an important psychic role as identification.  As a remnant of this fictitious phase of organization forced on us by pathology we can consider thumbsucking.  Here the sexual activity became separated from the nourishment activity and the strange object was given up in favor of one from his own body.

A second pregenital phase is the sadistic-anal organization.  Here the contrasts which run through the whole sexual life are already developed, but cannot yet be designated as masculine and feminine, but must be called active and passive.  The activity is supplied by the musculature of the body through the mastery impulse; the erogenous mucous membrane of the bowel manifests itself above all as an organ with a passive sexual aim, for both strivings there are objects present, which however do not merge together.  Besides them there are other partial impulses which are active in an autoerotic manner.  The sexual polarity and the strange object can thus already be demonstrated in this phase.  The organization and subordination under the function of propagation are still lacking.

Ambivalence.—­This form of the sexual organization could be retained throughout life and continue to draw to itself a large part of the sexual activity.  The prevalence of sadism and the role of the cloaca of the anal zone stamps it with an exquisitely archaic impression.  As another characteristic belonging to it we can mention the fact that the contrasting pair of impulses are developed in almost the same manner, a behavior which was designated by Bleuler with the happy name of ambivalence.

The assumption of the pregenital organizations of the sexual life is based on the analysis of the neuroses and hardly deserves any consideration without a knowledge of the same.  We may expect that continued analytic efforts will furnish us with still more disclosures concerning the structure and development of the normal sexual function.