T H E S I S

31
Of course, one can imagine how in 1911 j when the novel was
published, the "grey puritans" considered such passages indecent
and lascivious. Now, curiously, and for other reasons, Freud
says that sensu lato a kiss is a perversion,
“for it consists of the union of the two erotogenic mouth
zones instead of the two genital organs. Whenever the sexual
act which serves the reproductive process is rejected
with exclusiveness and the deviation is maintained we have
a perverse sexuality.”(GIP 331)
However, sensu stricto the kiss is not a perversion if it is not
the sexual aim itself, again according to Freud:
“In so far as perverse performances are included in order
to intensify or to lead up to the performance of the normal
sexual act, they are no longer actually perverse.”(GIP 332
and EIS 152)
Although kisses in The White Peacock do not lead to “normal
sexual act1', they are not exclusively used as a gratification in
themselves. Kisses in this novel are similar to "voyeurism*1s
both are signs of the author’s original awakening yet largely incipient
sexuality0
Both are closely related to touching, an important
element of the advanced sexual organization of human beings*
While “voyeurism“ is a deficiency in those who still are not able
to touch, the kiss is the supreme touching, though not more supreme
than genital touch.
Contrasting the early to the late Lawrence in terms of first
and last novels, I say that while the kiss is the central sexual
trait in The White Peacock,
activity in Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
sexual intercourse is the central
While the mouth has a central
place in the first book, it yields in the last to the genitals
themselves.