Perversion the Social Relation

42. Bruce FinkThus, what is involved here is not perception per se—as Freud says,it is not as if there were a scotoma or black spot on the retina, impedingthe fetishist from seeing what is there to be seen, stopping him fromreceiving certain photons—but a thought related to a particular perception.Seeing is not believing.Freud's 1938 distinction between repression as related to the internalworld and disavowal as related to the external world is reminiscent ofhis 192.4 distinction between "neurotic anxiety" and "realistic anxiety."Neurotic anxiety stems from an internal danger—that is, an impulsewithin the patient that is considered inappropriate by the patient's ownego or superego—whereas realistic anxiety (which Freud also refers toas "fear") stems from a real external danger (SE XXII, 81-89). Insofar,however, as disavowal clearly involves a thought related to a perception—thatis, something generally considered to be inside the subject,part of his or her psychical reality—not a perception alone, 11 theinternal-versus-external distinction breaks down. 12 Both repression anddisavowal involve thoughts, not perceptions.Having discussed the overriding importance of psychical reality andthe social/linguistic constitution of reality compared to some sort of objectivistview of reality, I will restate Freud's distinction as follows: inrepression, the thought associated with one of the patient's own drives isput out of mind, whereas in disavowal a thought, or complex of thoughts—related to a perception of the female genitals, to the father's supposedcastration threat (issued to keep the boy away from his mother and tokeep him from masturbating), and to the patient's narcissistic attachmentto his penis—is put out of mind.A first symbolizationOne of the important things to note here is that, if what is put out ofmind is a thought, then at least a first symbolization has taken place: inperversion, something related to the father and his will to separate hisson from the mother is symbolized, and thus, in contrast to psychosis,an initial acceptance or admission (Bejahung) of the father as symbolicseparator takes place. Basing our theorization on Freud's clinical observationsabout the perverse patients he treated, we can assert that thefather is symbolized to at least some extent because of the castration-