Then, we shall focus on his theory of sexual drives, mainly based on “Instincts and their Vicissitudes” (Freud, 1915a)

We shall see later that the neural model of sexual arousal (SA) also comprises inhibitory components

We shall first consider Freud’s account of sexual excitement, mainly on the basis of “Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality” (Freud, 1905). When he started elaborating his theory of sexual excitement, Freud was focusing on a phenomenon that is, at least in part, directly observable, including genital, cardiovascular and respiratory manifestations. By contrast, a sexual drive cannot be directly observed; it is a construct inferred from psychoanalytic (or other) investigation with an aim to explain various phenomena, in particular sexual excitement. “You never experience a drive directly. […] The feeling of thirst is not itself a drive, which is not something you experience; rather, the concept of thirst explains why you feel thirst when you need water” (Solms and Zellner, 2012). Thus, from an epistemological viewpoint, there is a sharp distinction between the concepts of sexual excitement and of sexual drives.

Regarding sexual excitement, Freud wrote: “This apparatus [i.e., the somatic and psychical sexual apparatus] is to be set in motion by stimuli, and observation shows us that stimuli can impinge on it from three directions: from the external world by means of the excitation of the erotogenic zones […], from the organic interior by ways which we have still to explore, and from mental life, which is itself a storehouse for external impressions and a receiving-post for internal excitations. Continue Reading