ONTOGENESIS OF SEXUAL BEHAVIOR 



1421 



evaluation of psychosexual functioning and 

 its origins and development. 



One explanation (and one which has had 

 little or no scientific evidence to support it) 

 was Freud's proposal that the young girl 

 regularly felt envious of the male phallus 

 ("penis envy") in the absence of a similar 

 organ herself. The resolution of "penis envy" 

 was held by Freud to be an essential part 

 of psychosexual development during child- 

 hood. The psychoanalytic position on this 

 matter has changed considerably over the 

 years, however, and at present seems more 

 in accord with the sociologic findings 

 (Thompson, 1943). 



Two factors seem to have an imjiortant 

 bearing on expressed role preference. For 

 one, our western culture is more apt to per- 

 mit a girl to express a contrary gender role 

 preference than it is a boy. Parents may 

 permit, even encourage, tomboyishness in a 

 daughter; a sissy son would likely evoke 

 concern or even embarrassment. Secondly, 

 and more important, is the child's growing 

 awareness of the favored position of the 

 male in the culture, a position carrying with 

 it greater prestige and privilege than does 

 being a female. Children may very early in 

 life see that this is so and, unless wise pa- 

 rental guidance intervenes, the young girl 

 becomes understandably envious of the mas- 

 culine status which she does not have. 



Although in typical, healthy psychosexual 

 development gender role identification and 

 gender role preference do not come into seri- 

 ous or permanent conflict, it is important to 

 recognize that this may not invariably be 

 so. Brown (1958a), writing of nonhermaph- 

 roditic girls and women, cites three major 

 gender role patterns: (a) identification with 

 and preference for the gender role of one's 

 own sex, (b) identification with the gender 

 role of one's own sex but preference for 

 the gender role of the opposite sex, and (c) 

 identification with the gender role of the op- 

 posite sex but preference for the gender role 

 of one's own sex. One could find clinical 

 justification for yet a fourth pattern, namely 

 (d) identification with the gender role of 

 the opposite sex combined with a solidly 

 pervasive preference for the gender role of 

 the opposite sex. 



The relevance of this diversity of possible 

 gender role patterns for such disorders of 

 psychologic sex as homosexuality and trans- 

 vestism is obvious and is dealt with in an- 

 other section. 



Although reliable well documented evi- 

 dence has only in recent years begun to ap- 

 pear in the scientific literature, it is probably 

 safe to say that gender role development 

 during childhood is continuously and di- 

 rectly related to adult sexual l)ehavior in 

 humans. 



IV. Parental Behavior in Humans 



Aliead of the human infant at birth lies 

 the prospect of a more protracted period of 

 immature dependency than for any other 

 neonatal animal. That the human race has 

 survived at all is testimony to the fact that 

 in some way humans are capable of nurtur- 

 ing their young through this period of de- 

 pendent immaturity. As with other human 

 activities, parental behavior has been vari- 

 ously ascribed to innate, automatic instincts 

 or drives, or, alternatively, considered by 

 some to be largely determined by experi- 

 ence and social learning. 



In other animal species maternal care has 

 been considered the paradigm of instinctive 

 behavior. Without belaboring the point, it 

 may safely be said that both experimental 

 biologists and comparative psychologists 

 have come to see the problem as vastly 

 more complex than the traditional assump- 

 tions have previously allowed. Whenever a 

 species has been systematically and prop- 

 erly observed and studied, that behavior 

 previously ascribed, by default, to "instinct" 

 has been revealed as being the product of 

 a great many variables. In this respect 

 maternal behavior in infrahuman species 

 has proven no exception and the concept of 

 a "maternal instinct" operating without 

 prior learning or experience now lacks sci- 

 entific endorsement. 



Insofar as maternal behavior in the hu- 

 man species is concerned, much the same 

 predicament has prevailed as for other spe- 

 cies; inadequate or improper study and ex- 

 perimentation had left a gap between 

 common observation and scientifically 

 established fact which the concept of a 



