ABSTRACT
A central tenet of reading Andreas-Salome is that she articulated her own femininity and womanhood, and in doing so she not only made a unique contribution to the development of psychoanalytic theory, but also a new theory of sexual revolution. Die Erotik is important in this context as a pre-psychoanalytic book that reflects on her prior encounters with the men of her early adulthood: Hendrik Gillot, Friedrich Nietzsche, her husband, and Frank Wedekind. After Wedekind, her virginity still intact, Lou had a number of intimate though platonic relationships and two marriage proposals from admirers who were at rather more of a distance, both of whom were refused. Lou’s writing, then, has been absorbed by questions about the nature and psychology of femininity for more than twenty years when she came to psychoanalysis, culminating in Die Erotik. The year following the publication of her narcissism paper, Lou published Drei Briefe an einen Knaben.
