Freud posited woman’s sexual development requires two genital steps to man’s one

Evidence

Freud brought out a fact whose importance had not previously been recognized: male eroticism is definitively centered on the penis, while the woman has two distinct erotic systems, one that is clitoral and develops in infancy and another that is vaginal and develops only after puberty; when the boy gets to the genital phase, he completes his development; he has to move from the autoerotic attitude, where subjective pleasure is sought, to a hetero-erotic attitude that will link pleasure to an object, usually a woman; this passage will occur at puberty through a narcissistic phase: but the penis will remain, as in infancy, the favored erotic organ. Woman, also passing through a narcissistic phase, must make man the object of her libido; but the process will be far more complex as she must pass from clitoral to vaginal pleasure. There is but one genital step for man, while there are two for woman; she runs a greater risk of not completing her sexual development, and of remaining at the infantile stage, and consequently of developing neuroses. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 121

Categorization

• DEFINE: Sets up the clitoral-to-vaginal developmental framework Beauvoir will critique across the chapter.
• XREF: Connects to the envy/double-eroticism debates and later feminist critiques of Freudian developmental theory, as well as Lacan’s reformulations. — connects to: Male sexuality integrates with individual transcendence while female sexuality does not — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 97

Broader Connections

• Male sexuality integrates with individual transcendence while female sexuality does not #expands (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 97