Concept
Phallic phase
In Freud's account of libidinal development, the stage of roughly the third to fifth year at which the genitals become the leading erotogenic zone and children of both sexes recognise only one genital, the male: the decisive contrast is between having a phallus and being castrated. Whether girls truly pass through such a stage was the core of the debate on female sexuality in the 1920s and 1930s.
- Introduced by
- Sigmund Freud
- Key works
- 2
introduced by
- Sigmund Freud 1923 In 'The Infantile Genital Organization' (1923), Freud added to his theory of sexuality a childhood stage in which only the male genital counts for both sexes, a primacy of the phallus rather than of the genitals.
critiqued by
- Ernest Jones 1927 Jones's challenge opened the 'London' side of the debate on female sexuality against Freud's Vienna view.