The mature woman’s erotic investment in her son is transferential fantasy, not actual desire

Evidence

Her attitude is different depending on whether she is counting on being saved by a son or a daughter; she usually puts her strongest hope in her son. … During that time, she has doled out slaps and purges, but she has forgotten them; he whom she carried in her womb was already one of these demigods who govern the world and women’s destiny: now he will recognize her in the glory of her motherhood. He will defend her against her spouse’s supremacy, avenge her for the lovers she has had and those she has not had; he will be her liberator, her savior. … It is sure that when she thinks of herself complaisantly on her son’s arm, the expression “older sister” prudishly expresses ambivalent fantasies; when she sleeps, when she does not control herself, her musings sometimes carry her very far; but I have already said that dreams and fantasies are far from always expressing the hidden desire of a real act: they are often sufficient; they are the completion of a desire that only requires an imaginary satisfaction. … When the mother plays in a more or less veiled way at seeing her son as a lover, it is just a game. … The mother reckons she has acquired holy rights by the simple fact of giving birth; she does not expect her son to see himself in her in order for her to consider him her creation, her property; she is less demanding than the woman lover because she is of a more tranquil bad faith; having made a being of flesh, she makes an existence her own: she appropriates its acts, accomplishments, and merits. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1723

Categorization

• XREF: The mother-daughter-son triangulation and ‘tranquil bad faith’ echoes the Sartrean bad faith lexicon and the narcissistic identification Beauvoir develops throughout Part V; also resonates with the Oedipal structure via Freud. — connects to: Female erotic development is psychological, not anatomically determined. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1033; Inauthentic love lets the beloved ratify one’s infantile fantasies instead of moving beyond them
• DEFINE: Distinguishes ‘fantasy as imaginary completion of desire’ from real eroticism, and contrasts the mother’s ‘tranquil bad faith’ with the lover’s risk-taking demand.

Broader Connections

• Female erotic development is psychological, not anatomically determined. #expands (0.78) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1033
• Inauthentic love lets the beloved ratify one’s infantile fantasies instead of moving beyond them #complicates (0.75)