ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with Westermarck's and partly with Malinowski's connections to sexuality research, psychoanalysis and the Oedipus complex debate at the interface between anthropology, sexology and psychoanalysis. As anthropological fieldworkers and scholars, Westermarck and Malinowski continued the tradition of nineteenth-century classics that observed, depicted, discussed and assessed sexual beliefs, customs and practices, primitive kinship institutions and relations between parents and children and between other kinsfolk. Even though they considered the psychoanalytic theory of instinct and the psychoanalytic interpretation of symbol formation to be overly metaphysical, both Westermarck and Malinowski emphasised, in accordance with Freud, the cultivating and refining influence that cultural experience had on instincts and drives. Freud's writings inspired Malinowski both to revise psychoanalysis and to clarify his own views on incest vis-a-vis Westermarck' s ideas. Unlike Malinowski, Westermarck always considered psychoanalysis loathsome and totally unsuited for use in his own field of research.
