Introduction: The Genesis of ‘“Anal” and “Sexual”’

Abstract

This introduction contextualizes Lou Andreas-Salomé’s 1916 essay ‘“Anal” and “Sexual”’ within early psychoanalytic debates about anal sexuality, narcissism, and subject-formation, and gestures toward its relevance for recent thinking in queer theory and critical race studies. While Andreas-Salomé’s work has often been read as a gloss to Freud’s sexual theory, we emphasize the originality of her contributions to psychoanalytic discourse. Not only did ‘“Anal” and “Sexual”’ impact Freud’s understanding of the long-lasting influence of anal repression on the psyche, but it anticipates the concerns of more recent theorists with how subjects are gendered and racialized through processes of corporeal symbolization.