hich we shall have to return later. To sum
up, we may regard it as certain that erections often appear many years
before the end of the second period of childhood; not infrequently,
indeed, in the beginning of the second period of childhood, and even
earlier. These erections may very early in life be associated with an
equable voluptuous sensation, allied to the sensations of itching or
tickling.[33] The voluptuous acme and ejaculation do not make their
appearance until later. These statements apply, in the first place, to
boys. The conditions in girls appear, however, to be analogous. But here
we must be most cautious in drawing conclusions, for the reason that the
sexual life of the girl is still much more obscure to us than that of
the boy; this difference in our knowledge of the sexes is no less marked
in the case of children than it is in respect of the adult man and
woman.

Hitherto we have occupied ourselves with the description of the
peripheral sexual organs, and of the processes of detumescence. We must
now pass on to the second group of sexual phenomena, the processes of
contrectation. Even in childhood, these processes play an important
part; indeed, they generally manifest themselves at an earlier age than
the processes of detumescence. But first, let me briefly summarise Max
Dessoir's account of the stages of the sexual impulse--stages in which
the contrectation impulse is alone concerned. In its development, three
stages may be distinguished. One of these is the neutral stage, in
earliest childhood, in which, speaking generally, the processes of
contrectation are not yet to be observed, and during which the child
does not feel attracted towards anyone in such a manner as to make it
necessary for us to assume the occurrence of any psychosexual process.
This stage is succeeded by the extremely important undifferentiated
stage, to which Max Dessoir[34] has drawn attention. Its principal
characteristic is indicated in its name: the direction of the impulse is
not yet completely differentiated. It oscillates to and fro, and depends
upon the external objects which happen to be in the vicinity. This
undifferentiated stage is of profound importance; and owing to the fact
that its existence has been ignored in the study of sexual perversions,
great confusion has arisen. During the undifferentiated period, it may
happen that quite normal children exhibit homosexual excitement, whose
importance is apt to be greatly