Perversion the Social Relation

40 Bruce Finkmost contemporary psychologists to be perverse, a mechanism that canbe clearly distinguished from repression (at least, that is what I hope toshow in this chapter). It is evidence of the functioning of this mechanism—notthis or that sexual behavior in and of itself—that leads theanalyst to diagnose someone as perverse. Thus, in psychoanalysis "perversion"is not a derogatory term, used to stigmatize people for engagingin sexual behaviors different from the "norm." Rather, it designates ahighly specific clinical structure, with features that sharply distinguish itfrom neurosis and psychosis. The analyst can agree that all human desireis essentially perverse or fetishistic in nature, but nevertheless maintainan important theoretical and clinical distinction between neurotic structure,say, and perverse structure. In psychoanalysis, perversion is not tobe viewed as a stigma but rather as a structural category.DisavowalIn a number of different texts, Freud describes a process that he refers toas Verleugnung, a term that has been rendered in English as "disavowal,"though in many ways the English term "denial" is closer to the German(indeed, the French have preferred the term déni, close in meaning anduse to "denial"). 4 Freud develops the notion to account for a curious attitudehe detects in certain young boys who, when confronted with agirl's genitals, deny that the girl does not have a penis and claim thatthey in fact see one. Little Hans, for example, watching his seven-dayoldsister being given a bath, says: "Her widdler's still quite small. Whenshe grows up it'll get bigger all right." 5Freud formulates this by saying that, in such cases, the perception orsight of the female genitals is disavowed. He notes that in certain oldermale patients, one finds a twofold attitude regarding the fact that womendo not have penises: they disavow the perception, maintaining a belief inwhat Freud terms the "maternal phallus," but develop symptoms whichseem to indicate that this perception has nevertheless been registered atsome level. It is not as if the memory of a specific perception had simplybeen "scotomized"* or in some way excised from the men's minds (as wemight very loosely think of foreclosure); we know it is still there becauseit has effects—it generates symptoms—but it is nevertheless denied. Inhis article "Splitting of the Ego in the Process of Defence," Freud men-