THE POTTY TRAINING STAGE (THE ANAL STAGE)
Provided all goes reasonably well with the oral stage, the child progresses to the next phase at around the middle of the second year. This is the anal (excretory) phase, in which the baby’s excretory functions become the primary source of interest and pleasure. As bowel and urinary control become possible, usually in the second or third year, the child experiences pleasure in expelling and retaining bowel motions and urine. The child’s mother is involved because of starting some form of toilet training. Boys are taught to hold their penis and to direct the stream whereas girls are expected to remove clothing and to crouch or sit down.
In ancient Egypt, where the sexes were treated equally, the reverse was the case and the women often urinated standing and men crouching. Some experts in this field believe that female feelings of inferiority start at this point of child development because of the urination postures taught to girls. Certainly, for many adult women who are otherwise totally open about their sexual behaviour, urination can be a source of considerable embarrassment. Urination, too, seems to have an erotic significance for at least some women, some of whom can masturbate to orgasm by simulating their urethral opening or with the muscular efforts required to hold back their urine. Emotional upsets in later life can be psychosomatically expressed as disorders of urination by women, in whom urinary problems are vastly more common than in men.
It has been observed that little girls of about a year often laugh as they urinate and this has been attributed to the tickling sensation that urine causes in the vulva. If this is true, urination will serve further to draw a girl’s attention to the pleasurable sensations she can get from her vulva, whereas a boy is impressed more with his urinary stream and the actual performance of the act.
Either because they develop sooner than boys or because they are intrinsically more affection-dependent and want to please, or both, girls learn to control their bladders earlier than do boys and are also less prone to bed-wetting. The ability to feel shame develops around the age of one and a half years and many mothers use this to help their children gain control over their bowels, and bladder. Moral development starts with toilet training as it is the first time a baby’s parents control his or her bodily desires and pleasures to bring them into line with society’s accepted norms.
Once children have learned to control their bowel movements they have some power over their mothers, depending on whether they choose to perform or not, and many children use this power very effectively. The child’s bowel motions thus become the first gift he or she has to give or withhold. His or her motions, including their smell and appearance, can fascinate and excite the child.
Although a mother expresses delight as her child performs on the potty she nevertheless controls his or her interest in the result by saying it is ‘dirty’ or has ‘germs’ and flushes it away. Later, when the child is in full control of his or her bowels, he or she may play with or collect the motions and hide them away. Old people whose interest in sex has waned often return unwittingly to this anal stage and become preoccupied with their bowel functions, just like a developing child.
If the anal stage progresses well it is an impetus towards creativity and productivity but frustrations can, it is thought, lead to the character traits of obstinacy, stinginess, compulsiveness and over-orderliness. These are seen as a defence against a desire to return to the pleasures of the anal stage. Obsessionalism may be a more extreme defence. On the other hand frustrations may be expressed later as untidiness, disorderliness and even destructiveness. Anal pleasures may continue to be over-represented, relative to other pleasures, later in life, and some individuals require additional anal stimulation during masturbation or intercourse to get their best orgasms. Many prostitutes tell of how they are asked to insert a finger into the anus of a client experiencing ejaculatory difficulties. Some women claim to have orgasms only from anal intercourse and a persistence of anal eroticism is obviously a possible basis for some cases of receptive homosexuality.
Interest in the anus and anal area spills over to the buttocks at this stage. Adult fantasies about beating or being beaten on the buttocks may start here and may be reinforced by parents actually or playfully smacking or threatening to smack their child’s bottom. Prostitutes say many men like to be beaten before intercourse or even that being beaten is enough in itself to produce an orgasm and ejaculation. Some women too, say they enjoy being smacked on the bottom prior to intercourse. Perhaps they have been brought up to think that sex is so naughty that they can only get pleasure from it if they are punished first.
The anal stage, then, has many implications and probably the best advice to parents is to take potty training very gently, consistently and slowly, and to stop the potty training for a while if the child doesn’t seem ready.
*8\164\2*
Related Posts:
Tags: Men’s Health
This entry was posted on Friday, March 27th, 2009 at 4:26 am and is filed under Men's Health-Erectile Dysfunction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.